By Karen Garcia
The nonprofit organization that manages the Haines Senior Center is nearly broke.
Senior Center and Senior Village manager Valery McCandless said the nonprofit has about $500 in the bank right now, but that money would be gone if the organization’s outstanding bills were paid.
Deborah Vogt, president of the Haines Senior Citizens Center Inc. board, said the center is in “a crisis position.”
McCandless said the board has been negotiating a management agreement with the Haines Borough for more than a year.
The borough owns the building, but the nonprofit manages it, including paying utilities and renting it out to other organizations.
One factor in the lack of cash flow is the facility’s wood pellet boiler. Installed by the borough in 2012, the boiler isn’t providing the savings the borough thought it would, Vogt said. “The borough kind of put the pellet boiler there and we didn’t ask for it, and it hasn’t created these giant savings that they were kind of hoping it would. It just doesn’t pencil out,” she said.
The board earns income from renting out the facility, including to Southeast Senior Services, which provides senior lunches. Other organizations like the quilting group the Ripinsky Rippers rent out the facility on a regular basis, while others do so for special events.
The facility is also used for classes, senior exercises and as a gathering place, McCandless said.
Rental income isn’t cutting it, though, Vogt said, and the board can’t raise the rental rate because it needs to remain competitive with many other rental spaces in town: the Chilkat Center, Harriett Hall, the ANB Hall, the American Bald Eagle Foundation, the American Legion and the Aspen Hotel.
“The fact is we don’t really have a sustainable income and we just can’t pay the bills with the money that is coming in,” Vogt said. “We are now considering, ‘Should we just give the keys back to the borough and let them do it?’”
A subcommittee of the board met Tuesday with manager David Sosa, public facilities director Brad Ryan and chief fiscal officer Jila Stuart to brainstorm on solutions.
Options include: 1) Waiting to see if adding insulation to the building will improve heating efficiency and reduce expenses, 2) Having the borough take over management on a short-term basis while a management arrangement is decided upon, 3) Having the borough provide funding for the board to oversee management, 4) Approaching Southeast Senior Services to see if it would exchange rent for management, and 5) Having the borough take over management with only a single tenant like Southeast Senior Services, effectively closing the building for other activities.
Public facilities director Ryan said ideally the board would come up with a management and fundraising strategy to make the current set-up viable. “They seem to be intimidated by that,” he said.
The borough is upgrading the building with Capital Improvements Project fund money and a grant from Southeast Senior Services. Ryan said the insulation improvements will hopefully help offset the heating costs associated with the pellet boiler.
“It’s not clear yet if it is saving them money,” he said.
A borough management takeover wouldn’t be cost-effective, as a staff member would have to open the building, clean up after activities, and fulfill other duties, Ryan said. “I think you would see a reduction in the availability of (the facility),” he said.
Senior Center manager McCandless said the situation is difficult, because Haines prides itself on being a place that provides a great quality of life for all people, including seniors. The Senior Center is one of the amenities the borough wants to tout as a reason to move to the community, but it doesn’t seem to want to have a hand in making sure it succeeds, she said.
McCandless pointed to steady borough cuts to nonprofit funding in recent years. “The borough is not caring for the community. It’s making it difficult for the community to care for itself,” she said.
McCandless said another meeting is scheduled this week between the borough and the board’s subcommittee.