Lafayette County Supers Vote to Take $567K from Baptist Trust Fund

By Alyssa Schnugg

News editor

alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

Thanks to a rebound in the stock market, Lafayette County will receive more than $500K from the Baptist Hospital Trust Fund.

In June, the Board of Supervisors tabled a decision about whether to take the annual payout from the fund, which is about 3 percent of the fund’s worth.

When Baptist bought its way out of a lease from the old hospital location in 2012, both the city of Oxford and Lafayette County received $30M. The city put all $30M into a trust fund. The county chose to pay off its debt at $10M and put the remaining $20M into a trust fund.

Each year, the county can choose to take 3 percent of the fund to use in its general fund. Generally, those funds are split between supervisory districts for paving and repairing roads.

In early June, the fund’s worth dropped down to $19.8M.

The Board generally won’t take a distribution if the principle falls before $20M.

But as of July 31, the fund was worth $20,891,658.

The supervisors voted Monday to take the 3 percent payout which equaled to $567,529 which will not cause the fund’s principle to drop below $20M.