Clinton hopes to recoup $80,000 it lost to bank

CLINTON (Deseret News) — City officials in Clinton are hoping to recoup about $80,000 that may be lost following the March 7 closure of Centennial Bank.

The FDIC closed the Ogden-based bank, which operated a branch in Clinton, in northern Davis County, closing accounts and paying account holders up to $250,000 for insured deposits.

The city cemetery's Perpetual Care Fund was held in a Centennial Bank certificate of deposit with a healthy 3.5 percent interest rate. The balance: $330,000.

Clinton city manager Dennis Cluff said most of the city's money is held by the Utah Public Treasurers Investment Fund, also known as the state pool.

But not the cemetery's care fund, which gets its revenue when people buy cemetery plots.

"When the CD was completed, we were going to transfer the money out and change it," Cluff said.

But when banks began failing, city officials made a plan in January to begin looking at other options, though none was likely to be as lucrative as the Centennial Bank CD, Cluff said.

On Tuesday, the Clinton City Council, through an ordinance revision, authorized Cluff to make the change.

"Unfortunately, they closed it down," Cluff said. "We were a week too late."

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