County Board Approves Coal Fund Vouchers Including $173,712 Payment

Article Summary: The Montgomery County Board voted unanimously Tuesday to pay 10 vouchers from its coal royalty fund, a list dominated by a single $173,712 payment to Truck Centers Inc. that appears nowhere else in the meeting’s agenda or minutes. Board members also received May reports showing the fund holds about $10.8 million — and containing two arithmetic discrepancies.

Coal Fund 375 Key Points:

The board approved 10 vouchers totaling $197,749.77, of which $173,712 goes to Truck Centers Inc.

No purpose is stated in the minutes for any voucher on the list.

Fund 375 held $10,801,654.82 as of the May reports, including a $4,714,206.48 reserve.

Two county reports disagree by $12,419.02 on the size of the December 2025 royalty payment, and the treasurer’s expense schedule does not add to its own stated total.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — The Montgomery County Board on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, voted 14-0 to pay 10 vouchers from Coal Fund 375, the county’s coal royalty account, in a list whose largest single item — $173,712 to Truck Centers Inc. — is not explained anywhere in the meeting record.

The motion, by Finance & Budget Committee Chairwoman Connie Beck and seconded by Evan Young, listed the payees and amounts: Hillsboro Electric, $2,189.50; Ace Hardware, $224.49; Weiss Construction, $5,550; Kirby Painting, $1,250; Uline, $8,504.06 and $3,019.72; Advance Security Resources, $200; Nail Land Surveying, $3,000; Cullison & Vandever, $100; and Truck Centers Inc., $173,712.

One Payment Dominates the List

The 10 amounts total $197,749.77. The Truck Centers payment accounts for about 88% of that figure and is more than seven times the combined total of the other nine.

It is also the only item on the list with no visible connection to any other business the board conducted. The minutes state no purpose for any voucher, but the smaller payees map recognizably onto county projects discussed elsewhere in the same document — Weiss Construction and Uline to building work, Nail Land Surveying to the Green Diamond Bike Trail survey, Kirby Painting to courthouse painting. Truck Centers Inc. does not appear in the Roads & Bridges Committee report, the Buildings & Grounds report, the department reports filed with the consent agenda, or the meeting agenda.

The board approved the list on a roll call with no recorded discussion.

A second motion, by Beck and seconded by Chris Daniels, approved two further Fund 375 expenditures: $16,838 for the Historic Courthouse boiler in excess of grant funding and $11,955 to replace the inoperable Animal Control incinerator, a combined $28,793 covered separately in this package.

Also covered separately: a $22,000 voucher to the Village of Waggoner that the Finance & Budget Committee rejected, and which board member Jeremy Jones asked the committee to reconsider.

Fund Holds $10.8 Million

Beck reported that the monthly reports showed a May coal royalty payment of $159,430.50 and a Fund 375 balance of $10.8 million.

The reports themselves put the figure at $10,801,654.82, split among a reserve account of $4,714,206.48, an operating and maintenance account of $4,392,509.16 and a capital improvement account of $1,694,939.18. Of that, $5,923,142.20 was cash in bank and $4,878,512.62 was held in certificates of deposit and other investments. The fund has earned $207,027.32 in interest so far in fiscal 2026.

The board’s own deposit policy, printed on the disposition-of-funds sheet, requires the reserve account to hold at least $3,500,000 before the other two accounts receive anything. Above that threshold, each 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.

May’s $159,430.50 payment produced $100,000 to operating and maintenance and $29,715.25 to the reserve account — but $154,715.25 to capital improvement, $125,000 more than an equal division would produce. The county’s separate treasurer’s report of revenues for May records a $125,000 transfer into the coal royalties fund during the same month, on a line with no budgeted amount. The reports do not state whether the two figures are related.

The same treasurer’s revenue report records $500,000 transferred from coal royalties into the county’s General Fund during May, against $1,000,000 budgeted for the year. The disposition sheet shows $500,000 leaving the reserve account in May, part of $733,070.66 in reserve transfers-out this fiscal year. The sheet lists no destination for any of them.

Two County Reports Disagree on December

The two coal fund reports the board received Tuesday do not agree on the size of the December 2025 royalty payment.

The treasurer’s summary report lists a Dec. 25, 2025, payment of $145,099.44 and total fiscal 2026 royalty payments of $798,974.88. The disposition-of-funds sheet lists the December payment at $132,680.42 and the year’s total at $786,555.86. The gap of $12,419.02 falls entirely in December; the other five months match to the penny, and both documents arrive at the same ending balances.

A third county document favors the lower figure. The treasurer’s report of revenues for May lists coal royalties revenue for the year at $786,556.

Separately, the treasurer’s summary does not add to its own stated total. Its 29 expense line items sum to $268,259.38 against a stated “Total Expenses” of $235,553.86. The $32,705.52 difference is exactly the 10 items dated in May — the receipts side of the report was updated for May and the expense total was not.

The largest coal fund expenses recorded so far this fiscal year include $73,649 to Victory Lane Chrysler, $30,501 to Victory Lane, $30,000 to Mo Co Fair Assoc, $23,850 to Motorola Solutions, $21,312.05 to Global Tech Systems and three payments of $14,583 to Property Evaluation.