By Megan Ashley Fink

NATCHEZ — Though Natchez aldermen voted unanimously to renovate the Natchez Senior Citizens Multipurpose Center last month, how the city will provide matching grant funds remains unclear.

The Natchez City Board of Aldermen voted Nov. 24 to execute the contract for the long-awaited renovations to the facility on Washington Street. The city was recently awarded a $195,365 community development block grant for the renovations. The grant requires $215,000 in matching funds from the city.

Ward 4 Alderman Tony Fields made a motion at the meeting to execute the renovation contract, but only if matching funds can be found for the grant.

Fields made the motion after Assistant City Clerk Wendy McClain reported there was no clear instructions from the board where to identify the funds in the current city budget.

“We just wanted to go ahead and execute the grant,” Fields said after the meeting. “We don’t want to have it turned around. We went through a lot to make sure we got the grant.”

Natchez Mayor Butch Brown said the city has the funds the renovations would require.

“Obviously, we can’t start anything without having the funds in place,” Brown said. “There are certainly funds we do have available, but it may not please every board member about where it comes from,” Brown said.

Brown said the contract would likely be paid from the public properties account, fueled at least in part by revenue from the lease of the Magnolia Bluff Casino property.

City Clerk Donnie Holloway said the public properties account currently has only a $10,000 balance.

Holloway said the public properties account is funded from the city’s rental properties, not including the casino.

He said that if the board wished to fund the project through public properties, they could do so by borrowing from the general fund in order to retain the grant.

Fields said that further discussions about where the city will get the funds might be discussed at a Dec. 15 meeting.

Community Development Director James Johnston said the project must go through several more administrative steps before construction begins.

“Plans must be prepared (and) submitted to Mississippi Department of Archives and History for their review,” Johnston said.

He said that the project must then obtain permission from the board of aldermen to advertise for bids and then go through the process of receiving bids before the project can begin.

In the Nov. 24 meeting, Johnston asked for a motion to approve the grant agreement between the state and the city in order to continue work on renovations for the Natchez Senior Center.

The state is providing a community development block grant of $195,365 with the city adding $215,000 as a cash match and $30,000 in in-kind services.

The in-kind services include city officials such as Johnston working on the project while on city payroll.

Johnston said the grant would be put toward the most pressing items that the senior center needs, such as replacing the 102-year-old boiler, the malfunctioning alarm system, and rotten window frames.

Johnston said the project would likely involve a 90-day construction period, but the construction would not begin for some months.

“This will likely carry into the next fiscal year,” Johnston said.

The current fiscal year will end Sept. 30, 2016.

Fields said the work would be a continuation of the first phase of renovations, centered mostly on structural concerns.

“For (future work,) we’ll have to find funding through another community development grant or another source,” Fields said.

The alderman said at the Nov. 24 meeting that funding would need to be found quickly for the often-used facility.

“If you recall, this room was filled with just about every senior in town when we were trying to figure out what to do with the building,” Fields said.

During an April 14 meeting, 29 senior citizens and regular users of the center were in attendance when the board voted to invest in critical repairs to the building’s structure.

Future repairs mentioned at the April meeting included an exterior facelift and updates to the swimming pool.

Carla Monroe, senior programs coordinator at the Natchez Senior Center, said the building was in definite need of renovations.

“We are looking forward to having those renovations done as soon as possible,” Monroe said.