$300 million IS/ARE?? missing

Money can be tricky when you must decide what is plural and what is singular. Here is part of an example sentence from an article in yesterday's The Birmingham News about the new civil trial of Richard Scrushy:

...creditors began circling after prosecutors said up to $300 million in cash reserves were missing.

In this example, "reserves" is NOT the subject. It is the object of the preposition "in." "Up to $300 million" is a lump sum amount of money and should take a SINGULAR verb.

Note also that, even though this reads out loud as "up to three hundred million dollars," it is written with the $ sign in front of the number.

This portion of the sentence should read as follows:

...creditors began circling after prosecutors said up to $300 million in cash reserves was missing.