At the start of the year, the Cole County Commission made it known nonprofit agencies may not get money from the county in 2017.
Bill Deeken, former county clerk and state lawmaker who now serves on the board for the Senior Nutrition Center, told the commission Tuesday the funds the center had been getting from them is vital to its survival.
Since the 1990s, the county has annually appropriated $10,000 to the Senior Nutrition Center for its work in providing meals/activities to senior citizens in the county.
This is the first time the county is not funding the center's activities, and Deeken asked commissioners if there was anything more he could do to change their minds.
The center has two sites - the Clark Senior Center on Linden Drive and a center at Capital Mall. Last year, 770 people were served, eating 23,145 meals at those sites. There were also 292 homebound clients served, eating 53,513 meals.
"By feeding these people, we keep many of them from going to a nursing home," said Janice Claas with the Central Missouri Area Agency on Aging. "Anyone over 60 can come to the centers or call us to be put on the delivery list."
For many years, the commission approved funds through contracts for nonprofit agencies that provide county health/welfare programs. State law allows for the contracts, and the county had done so since 1909.
Deeken said center officials wouldn't come to the commission asking for money if they knew the center could generate the money through donations or fundraisers.
"If we were an organization that was raising money for children, we would get a lot of money," Deeken told the commissioners. "It's a shame because the people that helped build this community to where it is today, many of them are now in need of our help, and without the funding we get from you, we probably couldn't give that to them."
Claas added: "I've been here 18 years, and we always got the money from the commission until now."
Eastern District Commissioner Jeff Hoelscher said the commissioners had actually argued about whether the senior center money should be kept in the 2017 budget. Although he wanted to see it kept in, it wasn't, he said.
"There are so many good groups," Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman said. "The question though was, 'Where do you stop?' You have to do it for one; you have to do it for everyone."
Western District Commissioner Kris Scheperle said he appreciated what the senior centers do for county residents, but he remained against giving money to the center and other nonprofit agencies, saying he didn't think it was the government's role to use tax dollars to fund these groups.
"We have employees who are severely underpaid, and we need to think about taking care of them," he said.
In a recent meeting with other county commissioners, Bushman said, there was discussion about how the Senior Citizens Services Fund Tax can help fund services such as senior centers and Meals on Wheels.
The law was passed by the Missouri Legislature in 1989, and if approved by voters, it would allow a county to collect a tax not to exceed 5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. A county commission would appoint a representative board to oversee the uses for the dedicated tax.
Claas said seven of the 19 counties in the CMAAA have this tax, and it has worked well for them. Deeken said they had looked at possibly putting this on the ballot as late as six years ago but believed there wasn't enough support in Cole County for it to pass.
"Fundraisers for older people is not on everybody's lists to support," Deeken said. "If we have a fundraiser, we'll be lucky to get $400."