Several users of the Iron-Bru.net messageboard have complained that manager Nigel Adkins did not strengthen his squad enough during the campaign, or that he wasn't given enough funds to compete with other Championship sides.
But Garton, who is acting chairman due to Steve Wharton's ill health, told the Scunthorpe Telegraph: "We have money that was available to be spent - but sometimes that is very difficult to do when you are competing against the spending power and pulling power of much bigger clubs.
"I do not like to use as an excuse that it is difficult to attract players to Scunthorpe - but that is the reality.
"Nigel Adkins has made every effort to try and bring players in. But even if we had been able to spend say an extra £1m or £2m, that might not have been enough to keep us in this division.
"The financial gap we are dealing with is that big. We might have had to spend several millions."