ALEDO, Ill. — The doors are staying open at the Mercer County Senior Center, for now, after receiving a portion of its state-owed funding.
Earlier this month, Executive Director Kim Schaefer sounded the alarm they might be forced to close their doors on Oct. 31 because of a five-month delay in funding. The senior center was owed $61,000.
"Every year we go through something like this," she told News 8 Oct. 12. "This year was the worst because we also had what we call a one-time grant come down to us, which is carryover funding, because fiscal year '23 budget that we initially got was wrong, basically. It was an $18,000 error that needed to be corrected. We had to spend that in order to get that corrected. That said, we did that, but that removed any of my reserves."
This week, she received some of that money and was able to pay off the center's line of credit. That will keep the center open through the middle of December. However, the Mercer County Senior Center is still waiting on $31,000.
"I'm opening [the email] and I'm reading it and the next thing out of my mouth was, 'Praise be to Jesus Christ,'" Schaefer said. "Everyone's like, what's going on, and I started telling them, and then you hear everybody clapping... And so it was a very jubilant moment for all of us, a great relief for all of us. But it also made me say, we're not 100% out of the woods yet."
She's hopeful they'll receive the rest of their payment before a possible government shutdown because she doesn't know what impact that could have.
She does expect delays like this to happen again, so the center is exploring ways to cushion itself, such as increasing its line of credit. Schaefer will speak at the next Mercer County board meeting to ask for levy funds to be increased, or even consider adding the senior center as a line item in the county budget.
"I want that other money to be my cushion to help us until we get everything figured out," Schaefer said. "Nobody has a crystal ball, but I'm trying to make sure that as we go into the future, we're going with all the ammo we need so that we can remain here to be here when I'm an old lady, and then some."
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