Low interest rates continue to suppress Flathead County’s investments, county Treasurer Adele Krantz said as she delivered a quarterly report to the commissioners last week.

The interest rate on the short-term investment pool run by the state is still “very, very low,” she said, posting at just .11 percent in December 2014.

The county pulled its money from that investment pool in early 2010 when the interest rate then had dropped to .31 percent, and hasn’t tapped into it since.

Before the recession began, the county was making 5.5 percent on its pooled short-term investments.

Interest earned from the county’s sweep account was $39,052 for the second quarter of fiscal year 2015, ending Dec. 31, 2014.

That’s the account in which the county takes all the excess available money at the close of each business day and invests it in overnight interest-bearing instruments such as money-market mutual funds or repurchase agreements.

The sweep interest rates have slipped, too, from 5.57 percent in late 2007 to 1.25 percent in the first fiscal quarter of 2010 to .30 percent for the second quarter of fiscal 2015.

The top investment for the latest quarter was a 1.8 to 3.5 percent gradual interest step-up through December 2019 with LPL Financial.

The county currently has about $166.7 million in investments and distributed $247,726 in interest for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2014.

Krantz invests money from the county, local school districts and other districts, such as fire and rural special-improvement districts, in a variety of short- and long-term funds, then distributes the interest back to those entities.