he Wauneta Senior Center has been running in the red, but the good news is that it has enough put away that finances won’t be a problem for some time.
    That was among the news at the center Board’s annual meeting Friday.
    Board President Joey Large, who also serves as de facto treasurer, gave board members a rundown of the facility’s budget.
    Large’s figures showed that for
fiscal year 2018, which will end at the end of this month, the center took in a little more than $39,000. Of that, $18,507.50 came from meals served to people 60 years old and older, with $2,663.50 coming in from people younger than that. The center charges $5 per meal for older clients and $7.50 per meal for younger ones.
    The center is partially reimbursed for its meals by the West Central Nebraska Area Agency on Aging. It receives $2.95 per meal for the first three thousand meals it serves in a year, $2.80 for the next 3,000 and $2.60 for any more than that.
     Large said that historically, the center has served 6,000 to 6,300 meals a year. Figuring about 25 meals a day for 255 days, the number the center is open for a year, the center will qualify for at the highest reimbursement on all but a couple of hundred meals.
    But turning to the expense side of the budget, for this fiscal year the Center will finish about $12,500 in the red. The highest expenses are for salaries and related expenses, which cost $15,980.66; and food, which costs $13,052.07. Salaries will take a jump to $25,000 in the next budget, since Director Karon Pantera and cook Jody Merrill both will have worked the full year; in 2018, the center went months without a director and went to four days a week with volunteers operating the kitchen before Merrill was hired.

To read the full story, subscribe to the e-edition online or call the Breeze at 308-394-5389 to subscribe to the print edition.