KEN HARTY

I am sure most everyone reading this column is aware of the Milk Fund. If not I will tell you that it is a non-profit fund set up to provide milk to families in need.

It was set up decades ago and The Daily Iberian does not operate the actual Milk Fund. However, the newspaper does help solicit donations and is the fiscal host of the funds as we oversee the checking account for it at a national chain bank with locations in New Iberia.

Essentially what we (the newspaper) have been doing is depositing donations to the account as they come in and then write checks from the account to cover the expense of providing the milk to the families in need.

The payments go to local vendors like Simoneauds Supermarket, etc.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Well apparently the bank does not think so.

You see, about a year ago we ran out of checks and the bank is refusing to order more checks for the account claiming there is a problem with the information regarding the account.

First they wanted the signors on the account to be updated. Okay, that makes sense, however, they refused to update the signors on the account because they now wanted verification that we had the authority to actually update the signors on the account.

So we were asked to provide minutes from a Milk Fund Board meeting so we did. After much back and forth they said we need something on The Daily Iberian letterhead listing who needs to be removed or added. We provided that from our home office.

Then they decided that this was not good enough and that we would now need to register a trade name for it under Wick Communications so we did immediately do that and are now in a wait and see mode.

In the meantime Milk Fund payments have not been made and are way past due.

Kudos to the Milk Fund operators and vendors for being very patient and for starting their own fund to pay the bills so they can again provide milk to needy families first in the near horizon.

No kudos for the bank who appears to constantly come up with new reasons not to update the account or provide checks so payments can be made etc.

In my opinion the bank could have and should have been much more helpful in this matter rather than just coming up with hoops for us all to jump through. If we ever get this resolved we will just write a check to the Milk Fund operators for the full balance of the account and then promptly close it.

We will also look for a new bank for The Daily Iberian so we don’t feel like we are being suspected of laundering money when dealing with the bank.

KEN HARTY is the Publisher of The Daily Iberian and Acadiana Lifestyle. You can reach him at kenh@daily-iberian.com