Coal Fund Holds $10.8 Million; County’s Own Reports Disagree in Three Places

Montgomery County Board Finance & Budget Committee Meeting | July 9, 2026

Article Summary: The Montgomery County Board Finance & Budget Committee on Thursday, July 9, 2026, reviewed the capital improvement and coal fund reports and noted a May coal royalty payment of $159,430.50 and a Coal Fund 375 balance of $10.8 million. The two reports in the committee’s handouts do not agree with each other on what the county was paid in December, and one of them does not add up.

Coal Fund Reports Key Points:

• The committee noted a May coal royalty payment of $159,430.50 and a Coal Fund 375 balance of $10.8 million. Both reports agree on the balance: $10,801,654.82.
• The two reports differ by $12,419.02 on the December 2025 royalty payment — $145,099.44 on the treasurer’s summary, $132,680.42 on the disposition sheet — and therefore by the same amount on the year’s total.
• The treasurer’s summary lists 29 expense line items that sum to $268,259.38 against a stated total of $235,553.86; the $32,705.52 difference is exactly the ten May 2026 items.
• The county has transferred $733,070.66 out of the fund’s reserve account since December, including $500,000 in May. The reports state no destination for any of it.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Montgomery County’s coal fund holds $10.8 million. Both of the county’s reports agree on that. They agree on almost nothing else about how it got there.

The Finance & Budget Committee on Thursday, July 9, 2026, reviewed the capital improvement and coal fund reports and, from them, noted a May coal royalty payment of $159,430.50 and a Coal Fund 375 balance of $10.8 million, according to the minutes. That single sentence is the whole of the committee’s recorded discussion. No motion was made.

The reports themselves run to two pages, and this newspaper has checked every figure on them.

What They Agree On

The two documents — a treasurer’s summary of 2 percent royalty payments and a coal mine royalty disposition-of-funds sheet — close in the same place. Both put the fund’s reserve account at $4,714,206.48, its operating and maintenance account at $4,392,509.16, and its capital improvement account at $1,694,939.18. Those three add to $10,801,654.82. Both put cash in the bank at $5,923,142.20 and investments at $4,878,512.62, and both reconcile to zero difference.

The reserve account remains well above the $3.5 million minimum the county’s own deposit policy requires before the other two accounts receive anything.

The December Payment: $12,419.02 Apart

The treasurer’s summary says the county received $145,099.44 in royalties in December 2025. The disposition sheet says $132,680.42. The difference is $12,419.02.

That gap runs straight through both documents’ year-end totals: the treasurer’s summary puts total royalty payments for the year at $798,974.88, the disposition sheet at $786,555.86 — again $12,419.02 apart, and the entire divergence sits in December. The other five months match to the penny.

This is not new. The same $12,419.02 gap appeared on the same two reports in the county’s June packet, when they ran only through April. It has now been carried forward into a second month’s figures without being addressed in any document the public can see.

One thing can be said about the arithmetic without saying which figure is right. The disposition sheet’s December row splits the payment three ways under the county’s deposit policy: $100,000 to operating and maintenance, $16,340.21 to reserve, $16,340.21 to capital improvement. Those three add to $132,680.42 — the disposition sheet’s own figure, exactly. The treasurer’s $145,099.44 has no comparable check anywhere on its page.

The county’s December 2025 royalty remittance would settle it. It is not in the packet.

The Total That Does Not Add Up

The treasurer’s summary lists the fund’s expenses one by one — 29 payments between December and May, from a $73,649 Victory Lane Chrysler purchase down to a $55.98 charge from Grainger.

Added together, those 29 lines come to $268,259.38.

The document states, immediately beneath them, “Total Expenses” of $235,553.86.

The difference is $32,705.52 — which is, to the penny, the sum of the ten line items dated May 2026. The stated total is the total of everything above May.

The receipts side of the same page was updated for May: the $159,430.50 May royalty is in the total, and total receipts of $1,006,003 follow from it. The expense total was not.

Three of the six months on the expense schedule — January, February and April — reconcile exactly against the disposition sheet’s independent figures, which is how this newspaper satisfied itself that it was reading the numbers correctly.

$733,070.66 Out, No Destination Given

The disposition sheet carries a column headed “Transfer-out” under the reserve account. Three entries appear in it: $30,000 in January, $203,070.66 in April, and $500,000 in May. Together, $733,070.66.

The sheet does not say where any of it went. There is no destination column, no note and no reference. The May transfer is the single largest movement of money on either page, and it is the reason the fund’s total fell by roughly $237,000 between the April and May figures even though the county collected $159,430.50 in royalties that month.

The May Deposit That Departs From Policy

The disposition sheet prints the board’s deposit policy along its top: once the reserve holds $3.5 million, each royalty payment sends a minimum of $100,000 to operating and maintenance, with the remainder divided equally between reserve and capital improvement. Payments under $100,000 go entirely to operating and maintenance.

Five of the six months follow that rule exactly. May does not. May’s payment of $159,430.50 produced $100,000 to operating and maintenance and $29,715.25 to reserve — the correct half of the remainder — but $154,715.25 to capital improvement, which is $125,000 more than an equal division produces.

Across the year, reserve deposits total $135,080.76 and capital improvement deposits total $260,080.76. Under a policy that divides the remainder equally, those two columns should match. They differ by exactly $125,000, and the entire divergence arises in May.

The sheet’s own running balances are consistent with the larger figure: April’s capital improvement balance plus $154,715.25, plus interest, less expenses, produces the stated May balance to the penny. Whatever the $125,000 is, it is not a slip in the addition.

What Happens Next

Nothing, on this record. The item was titled “Capital Improvement & Coal Fund Reports Update/Approval.” No motion was made, no vote was taken, and the reports were not accepted or adopted by any recorded action.

Treasurer Nikki Lohman attended the meeting and spoke to two other items. The minutes do not record her saying anything about these reports.