School district to bank locally

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By Jay Mullen

Whitehall Central School District is now banking locally.

The Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to place its banking business with Community Bank on Main Street.

School superintendent Pat Dee and the district’s business manager, Kate Dubois, informed the board members of the proposal, which pleasantly surprised them.

“Community Bank came in with a proposal that I haven’t seen in probably eight to 10 years,” Dubois said.

She said that the proposal includes no fee to the school for service, a .25% floor meaning they will earn at least that amount of interest on all of the collected deposits and they can invest .05% more with Community Bank than with their current bank, Glens Falls National.

This proposal also does not include a compensating balance, which all other proposals they received included. Dubois said that the other proposals had compensating balances between $1.1 million and $1.8 million per month, which they would not be able to earn interest on.

“This proposal to me is absolutely amazing,” Dubois said.

Dee informed the board that Community Bank will be covering the costs of their checks and bank deposit bags. The bank also does tax collections.

Dee said he was shocked by how good the proposal was for the district, and loves that they can do business close to home.

“This is definitely a big win,” he said.

Board member Tom Baker asked Dubois if Glens Falls National came back with a counter proposal for them.

Dubois said that she called to inform them of their decision and they did not counteroffer.

“They feel strongly that they wanted to stay in that position,” she said. “Their proposal was basically a reflection of the current services.”

The decision to move forward with Community Bank will be something that helps the district in the long run. Dee said that the proposal puts the district in a much better position than what they were previously working with.

“Community Bank provided a substantially better package which will both save the district significant money in fees and earn the district substantially more in interest earnings,” he said.