Mona Rae Fish, right, a board member of Lewis County Seniors, asks county leaders to repay $17,000 that the Toledo Senior Center overpaid the county by mistake.
Members of the Toledo Senior Center are asking Lewis County to return $17,000 in funds that the center overpaid to the county in 2016, due to an accounting misunderstanding.
“It’s just like paying your income tax,” said Mona Rae Fish, a board member of the Lewis County Seniors nonprofit group and secretary of the Toledo Mighty Fine Seniors. “We were good, and we paid, and we came up with quite a bit that we overpaid. The Toledo group is asking for the money back.”
Before operations at the senior centers were transferred to the nonprofit group from county government last year, the centers were expected to partially reimburse the county for the enrichment — or recreation — programs it provided. Each senior center was given a set amount to contribute, which it could earn by hosting college classes, renting its facility or holding fundraisers.
At some point, though, Toledo began contributing too much, an issue that arose because the center’s new treasurer had been given incomplete information, Fish said. Toledo began sending the county the full expected amount each month in fundraising dollars alone, without realizing its facility rentals and college courses were already being credited toward that total.
“It was a surprising statement for me to hear (Fish) say that they didn’t realize the Centralia College classes and facility rentals contributed toward this,” said Public Health and Social Services Director Danette York. “The way I understood it was, whoever was tracking their funds didn’t realize that, so they thought they had to use their fundraising money to cover (the full amount).”
Revenues from rentals and courses went directly to the county automatically, York said.
“I started looking at these figures, and I said, ‘Well, that’s not right. We have overpaid,’” Fish said.
The Toledo group then stopped over-contributing, expecting its overpayments could be used as credit for future expected contributions. But last year, the county transitioned senior center operations to the Lewis County Seniors nonprofit, leaving $17,000 of Toledo’s money in the county coffers with no senior programs to apply it toward.
According to York, former commissioner Bill Schulte, since deceased, made a verbal promise to the Toledo seniors that their funds would not be used to cover shortfalls at other centers, which had previously been common practice. Current commissioner Edna Fund noted that the Toledo center was one of the few that consistently met its monthly contributions.
“The Toledo Senior Center has always been very active and has been able to raise more funds,” York said. “They always seemed to be able to raise more than others.”
However, Schulte’s promise was never put down in writing, and without a contract, it remains unclear what mechanism the county has to reimburse the money.
Budget Manager Becky Butler said York’s staff at Public Health will likely need to do some research before the county can reach a decision on payment.
“There was no written agreement,” Butler said. “For us to write a check, the auditor’s office is going to want some substantial information. … The concern is there’s no contract or written agreement.”
Ultimately, county leaders left the matter unsettled, pledging to revisit the repayments after staff had taken the time to explore the issue.
“We need to schedule further discussion,” said commissioner Bobby Jackson. “We will take a serious look at it and see what transpires.”
Fish said she remained hopeful that the $17,000 would be returned to the Toledo seniors, an amount that represented a substantial amount of fundraising efforts.
“That’s a heck of a lot of pancakes,” she said.
