Operations at the center, which was built using Redevelopment Agency funds in 2005, had been funded internally by the city until July when it received a disbursement of $59,000 from Weber Human Services.

That makes the center one of five area facilities to receive financial support from the county this fiscal year. However, city officials were informed last week that the Weber Human Services board of directors had deemed that it would not receive future disbursements as the county moves to consolidate funding for four centers.

Riverdale Mayor Braden Mitchell told the Standard-Examiner that this loss of funding could put the center’s future in doubt as the city contends with the redistribution of its sales tax revenue.

“In 2005, there was a change made to the sales tax distribution where Riverdale used to get 75% of their sales tax. … (The state Legislature) dropped it down to 50%, and that took effect in 2007,” Mitchell explained. “Obviously, that was devastating to our city because we do have to pay for a massive fire department and police department to provide service to all those businesses. We have about 9,700 residents, but during the day we go up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 people.”

Thanks to a hold harmless provision, the city was allowed to implement a local option sales tax to help offset the revenue losses resulting from the change. However, that provision will sunset in 2030.

“Right now, I think that amounts to about $1.8 million, and it will be about $2 million or $2.5 million by 2030,” Mitchell said. “We are scrambling.”

Mitchell says the city is evaluating all of its services in preparation for that loss of revenue, which is why he feels the additional funding from the county is crucial for the center’s operation.

The Riverdale Senior Center is one of the county’s larger facilities, offering a wide array of programs and services for area seniors, including meals that are prepared and cooked on site. As such, people originating from well beyond Riverdale’s city limits frequent the center.

Its status as a regional facility was exemplified Dec. 20 when several dozen seniors packed into a conference room at Weber Human Services to express their concerns about the center’s defunding during a meeting of the agency’s board.

People from North Ogden, Ogden, South Ogden, Hooper, Layton and elsewhere spoke out, even as there were no items pertaining to the center’s funding on the agenda.

Seniors praised Riverdale’s staff and myriad services, including its exercise and food programs, and espoused the importance of the center as a gathering place.

During the meeting Weber Human Services Director Kevin Eastman read aloud a letter sent to the board from the Weber-Morgan Council on Aging. Acting as an advisory body for the board, the Council on Aging’s recommendation was for Weber Human Services to limit financial support to four centers.

“Council members are concerned that watering down the limited funds by redistributing them to these five centers, rather than four, may undermine the effectiveness and impact of all senior centers, making it difficult to maintain operation hours and adequate services, especially for senior centers that have little or no funding support from cities in which they reside or surrounding communities,” the letter stated, as read by Eastman. “We encourage board members to give these concerns their serious attention and consider not stretching the limited funds to more than four senior centers.”

As it stands, Ogden’s Golden Hours Senior Center, North Ogden’s North View Senior Center, Washington Terrace Senior Center and Roy Hillside Senior Center will continue to receive funding.

Michelle Jenson, Weber Human Services’ deputy director of operations, told the Standard-Examiner that geography played a role in determining which centers would be supported moving forward.

“The center out in Roy really is more centrally located for that western and southwestern side of the county,” Jenson said. “The Washington Terrace facility is more conveniently located for the South Ogden population.”

Jenson also wonders about the fairness of making other senior centers lose funding to accommodate Riverdale’s facility.

“This decision was made more than 20 years ago to build this facility. It’s a very fancy facility. It’s got tons of different rooms for different programs and different activities. They went all out,” Jenson said. “But it was done as an independent project and they made that decision themselves to do this. So, now Riverdale is in a much different financial situation, and I don’t blame them for looking around to say, ‘Hey, can we now participate in this?’ But should another senior center, even if it doesn’t have quite the utilization that Riverdale has, should they get kicked out of the funding formula to allow Riverdale to come in?”

Jenson asserted that by not receiving county funds, which are tied to the Older Americans Act of 1965, Riverdale actually has more freedom in the kinds of services it can provide and fees it can levy through its center. To that end, she cited nominal and income-variable subscription fees as potential revenue sources.

For now, though, the future is murky for Riverdale Senior Center. And Mitchell, who says geography was not originally one of the criteria given to the city by the board as future funding was being considered, wonders how its potential closure in the years to come could affect the county and its seniors.

“If they closed us, I don’t know where all the people are going to go, because I don’t think those other centers could honestly handle all our people that we serve each day,” he said.