State collects money to cover missing bank money

The State Treasurer is collecting payments from dozens of Iowa banks to cover nearly 12-million dollars in uninsured public money lost from the Hartford-Carlisle Savings Bank. Banks across the state pay the money into what’s called a “sinking fund” to cover the losses. The amount they pay is based on a percentage of public funds deposited at each individual bank. The average is about 19-thousand per bank.State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald says the last time the sinking fund was used was in 1984. They hope to be able to recover some of the missing funds and then will give it to the banks which contributed to the sinking fund.The money from the fund covers the public funds lost at the bank.Federal agents are reviewing the bank’s accounts and the institution has been taken over by the F-D-I-C.