By Liz McMahan
The City of Muskogee Foundation will open an office here Jan. 1, its board of directors voted Monday night.
Under the agreement, the foundation will pay one-half of the office expenses, up to $24,000 per year, with Foundation Management Inc., paying the remainder.
Frank Merrick, executive director of the City of Muskogee Foundation and president of Foundation Management, said he feels the city’s foundation clients will be better served with an office in Muskogee.
The foundation handed out $1 million in grants to local entities earlier this year.
“We’re going to have a substantial increase in our granting budget, so we need more capacity over here,” he said. The foundation management is now housed in Oklahoma City.
The office here will be on North Third Street, next door to the former J. Beck Jewelers store, Merrick said. The office will be staffed by Lynsie Laughlin, assistant secretary to Merrick.
She already is spending more than one-half of her time working on City of Muskogee Foundation business and will continue to work on Muskogee’s foundation business and will be doing work for other foundations managed by Foundation Management as well, Merrick said.
The City of Muskogee Foundation is funded by interest earnings the city receives from having leased Muskogee Regional Medical Center to a private company.
The lease proceeds are invested by the foundation and, according to the report delivered to the foundation board Monday night, the principal and interest totaled more than $89 million.
That included a loss of more than $1 million on stock market investments last month, said James Gulley, chairman of the finance committee. That was an unrealized loss, as no stocks were sold.
The committee has changed its investment strategy some by not making short-term investments, Gulley said.
However, gains in the stock market have already made up for the losses shown last month and, as of Monday, the total assets of the foundation totaled more than $91 million, he said.
Reach Liz McMahan at 684-2926 or lmcmahan@muskogeephoenix.com.
