Franklin Springs Pays off Loan, Creates Technology Fund

The City of Franklin Springs is setting up a new fund to pay for upgrades to their computer equipment in municipal court and in the police station.

At their meeting last week, the council voted to set up a 70 Mutual Fund for technology related costs. City clerk Jackie Yearwood said the revenue for the fund would come from police citations.

“That is allocated by the State and can only be spent on court expenses and/or police expenses,” Yearwood told the council. “So what Rushton & Co suggested was that we keep that fund in an of itself.  What will happen is we will transfer money from that fund to the 70 Fund.”

Moore said the auditors requested the city set up the fund as a way to track how citation revenue is used.

In other business, the city council also voted to pay off the remaining balance on a $150,000 bank loan. Moore said he met bank officials who suggested a couple of options. One would be to leave the $95-thousand dollar balance for another seven years and refinance it. Another option would be to pay off half and re-finance the other half.

However, the mayor noted the city had enough revenue in its coffers to pay off the balance.

“We’ve looked at cash balance and gentlemen, we have enough money in the bank where we could pay this balance off tomorrow and still have a good chunk of change left over,” Moore said.

Moore noted even with the pay-off, the city would still have $100,000 in their general fund and another $40,000 in their savings.

Moore said the pay off would save Franklin Springs some $20-thousand in interest payments and would mean the town would then be completely debt free.   After more discussion, the council voted unanimously to pay off the line of credit.