Last week, Jamie Dallas, director of the Macon Couny Senior Center, appeared before County Commissioners to appeal for help in paying some unexpected property taxes.

“First of all, I want to thank everyone of behalf of the Senior Citizens’ Center for the support that our County Commissioners have already shown the Senior Center,” she told County Commissioners at last Monday night’s meeting. Dallas was also set to appear before the Lafayette City Council on Tuesday, but was unable to be there.

The County Commission requested that Dallas write a letter of appeal to the Board of Equalization. If her appeal was denied, then she could come back next month and ask for help again.

The building that houses the Senior Citizens’ Center was purchased in July 2008, and the property taxes that were owed from Jan. 2008 through July 2008 by the previous owner were deducted from the cost of the building.

“In September 2008, we filed with the State Board of Equalization in Nashville to be exempt from county and city property taxes, which is something that non-profit organizations do,” said Dallas, explaining the Center’s situation. “In September of 2009, we received a letter from the Board of Equalization requesting more information. We sent that back immediately. In December of 2009, we received a letter saying that we would be exempt from property taxes beginning Jan.1, 2009. We were hoping that they would go back to at least July 2008, when the building was purchased, but they did not.

“We contacted Rick Shoulders, the Assessor of Property here in Macon County, who contacted the Board of Equalization. They said that we’d missed the deadline, which was the first of September. They instructed Rick to tell us that we needed to go through the County Commission and City Council to see if they would either donate the money to the center to pay the taxes or take care of the taxes.”

Dallas decided to go ahead and go before local government officials.

“I wish that Rick could have been there because I feel like he could have gotten some things across to them that I wasn’t able to get across.

“The initial request was going to be to wipe the debt, but we didn’t know how it was going to turn out. We went ahead and paid what was owed for 2008 because we didn’t want any more penalties or interest tacked onto it.

“It was an expense we weren’t expecting, and we didn’t have the additional $1,564 budgeted into our budget.”

Dallas is optimistic that the County Commission will come through for the Senior Center.

“I have not doubt it will work out,” she said. “Our County Commission has always been supportive of the Senior Center. There are senior centers in other counties that are getting cut from their county budgets, but our Commissioners haven’t done that. The Senior Center is an important part of Macon County.”