By Kellen Olshefski
SLN Staff
The City of Elkhorn Finance and Judicial Committee opted in favor of recommending to the full council it rolls about $109,000 worth of Cities and Villages Mutual Insurance Company dividends back into the fund to continue to grow.
At the committee’s Aug. 22 meeting, City of Elkhorn Finance Director James Heilman recommended the committee consider pulling out either some or all of the funds, bringing them under the city’s investing power.
The committee members were given four potential options:
- Take all dividends on March 1;
- Take all dividends on a different date;
- Take a portion of the dividends on a specified date; and
- Retain dividends with CVMIC for them to continue to invest on the city’s behalf.
City Administrator Sam Tapson said the money is generated from savings off of insurance through the company and he feels it would be the appropriate place to keep those funds.
In past years, the city has chosen to continue to allow CVMIC to invest the funds and dividends on the city’s behalf in hopes of the investment growing, which Alderman Scott McClory says it has.
“As we all know, investment does come with risk,” McClory said. “So, if we roll it in, maybe this is the year we don’t make money, we lose money, or maybe we make double the money.”
Heilman said last year the return on investment rate was about 1.5 percent and about 1.4 percent the year before. In 2014, he said it was about 10.7 percent.
A motion to recommend reinvesting the full $109,845 with CVMIC was made by Alderman Hoss Rehberg. The motion was approved unanimously by the committee.
The recommendation will come before the full council for a vote at a future council meeting.
