After the United Learning Center faced challenges with cash flow to get construction to the finish line, the City of Centralia has secured the building's financial future, making sure it will have the funds to maintain the building for years to come.
The Centralia City Council last week approved a resolution to create a new city fund for the United Learning Center. According to Centralia Finance Director Bret Broderson, the account will be funded by the revenue from leasing the building. The fund can also benefit from donations or direct budget allocations.
The building is currently leased by the Discover! Children’s Museum, Bezos Academy and the Boys and Girls Club of Lewis County.
The resolution also states that the money in the account will be dedicated to use for “construction, alteration, repair, maintenance or operating expenses of the United Learning Center and other similar uses.”
The resolution also included language to rid the city of two now defunct accounts that still exist but are inactive and have been for some time. The two funds sat empty when they were removed from city code according to Broderson.
One fund, the North Fork Study Group Fund, has not appeared in a city budget document since the 1980s, according to Broderson, and the other, a Centralia Landfill Trust Fund, hasn’t been used since 2018 when the city transferred those funds back to Lewis County for operation of the local landfill.
The City of Centralia allocated $1.5 million to help the project get back to work in April of last year after a delay in approval under the National Environmental Protection Act prevented the project from accessing $4 million in federal funds. The city didn’t actually lose $1.5 million in the process. Instead, it just shifted the timeline of its financial contributions. That being said, the issue caused concerns at the time after the building had faced multiple setbacks to construction and final completion.
The Discover! Children’s Museum held its grand opening Saturday, April 25. The United Learning Center as a whole will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony and grand opening Thursday, May 14. The event will celebrate the opening and official completion of the project that started back in 2020 with an agreement between all of the involved parties. Start dates for the programs operated by the different tenant groups are set independently.
