Church forgets $61K owed by township
CENTER TWP — Administrators for a church in the township forgot that their municipality owed them about $61,000.
In December 2014, First United Methodist Church of Butler announced a $3 million addition to its Crossfire campus in the township at the intersection of Route 8 and Mercer Road. The classrooms started being used early in 2016.
To do the project, the church had to post a $61,578 cash bond with the township. Such bonds are standard for large construction projects, and are used by municipalities to ensure codes and regulations are followed. The money is typically released after an inspection by township engineers.
However, in this case the inspection both came and went without the church ever asking for its money back until now. The township supervisors released the money Wednesday.
“They had posted cash of $61,000, and some change, with us that they just never asked for back,” said Ron Flatt, supervisor chairman. “So it was sitting in our escrow fund.”
Flatt and other board members wondered aloud what had happened as they voted Wednesday.
“I wonder, did they just miss $61,000?” Flatt said.
Board member Ed Latuska joked that, given the approaching holidays, perhaps the church may want to donate the money to the township.
Phil Wulff, another board member, pulled out documentation of the project's inspection. It was inspected, he said, back in 2016.
Thursday, Tom Holman, chairman of the church board of trustees, offered some clarification of what had happened.
They had forgot.
“Most of us had forgot we ever paid it,” Holman said. “It's just one of those things. You lose track of stuff over time.”
Township staff, he said, noticed the seemingly forgotten money and recently asked the church about it.
The church had traded pastors since then, Holman said, but it's trustees and administrators were generally unchanged. It wasn't a case of details being lost in transition.
He said the figure paled compared to total $3 million cost of the project, and he said that $3 million didn't include land purchased for the expansion. The $61,000 is about 2 percent of $3 million.
At any rate, Holman said they're happy to have the unexpected check. They haven't identified a use for the money yet besides depositing the cash into the general fund, but he said it'll likely go toward paying down some of the remaining debt for the project.
