Holmes County Senior Center considers county takeover after levy failure

The future of Meals on Wheels, daily senior programming and who controls the money at the Holmes County Senior Center is now tied to a possible county takeover after a levy failed in 2025. County commissioners have already said any public funding would require a restructuring of the center’s governance, including dissolving the current board and appointing a new one.

The center, which operates as the Holmes County Council on Aging and does business as the Darb Snyder Holmes County Senior Center, is at 170 Parkview Drive in Millersburg. In a Feb. 6, 2025 meeting with commissioners, center leaders said the operation was serving about 140 meals five days a week, along with frozen meals, and was delivering around 146,000 meals a year with three delivery vehicles. Leaders said the center needed about $25,000 a month to stay open.

That discussion came after voters turned down a senior-center levy that was designed to raise about $300,000 a year. The tax was described as costing property owners about $7 for every $100,000 of property value. Before the levy failed, the center had been delivering around 125 meals a day to seniors across Holmes County, underscoring how much of its work depends on steady public support.

The issue surfaced again in county commissioners’ minutes on Nov. 17, 2025, when Tabitha Strouse and Wesley Ervin briefed officials on the center’s continuing financial struggles. Strouse also asked about the procedure for bringing the Holmes County Senior Center under the umbrella of county government funding, signaling that the discussion had moved beyond short-term help and into the question of direct county oversight.

Holmes County records describe the senior center as a community focal point for residents 60 and older, and county documents show the county already has experience housing adult-services programming at the site through its training center system. That makes the decision now facing commissioners more than a budget question. It could determine whether senior meals, transportation and programming continue under the current structure, or whether taxpayer funding comes with a new board and tighter county control over daily operations at the Millersburg facility.