DAYTON — Westwood resident Mary Briggs, 79, eats lunch for $2 at the Wesley Community Center Inc. five days a week. She attends Bible study at the faith-based center and she takes ceramics classes.

“They take care of us,” Briggs said.

Staff members of the Wesley Community Center, 3730 Delphos Ave., help an estimated 12,000 individuals each year, including frail elderly, single adults and families.

Throughout the day, case managers work with families, providing food, clothing and referrals.

Like many the Wesley center serves, officials of the nonprofit say they are operating on a tight budget.

“In the faith community, we have relatively strong support,” said Robert Walker, executive director of the center. “Our Achilles’ heel is that we don’t have a budget reserve.”

The center was unable to pay its staff of 32 on Aug. 13. Walker said he is “90 percent certain” payroll will be made Sept. 10.

The center has filed two extensions with the Internal Revenue Service for the 2009 reporting year. The tax forms must be submitted by Nov. 15. The $13,500 cost for a financial audit, required to complete IRS paperwork, delayed the filing.

The center operates on a $1 million annual budget, with more than half of the funding coming from six Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services contracts valued at $565,196 to provide social services, programs for families and transportation.

The center is facing rising costs for utilities, gas and employee health care, but there is another root cause to its cash-flow problem: delayed reimbursement from Montgomery County for services provided.

At issue is reimbursement for an estimated $47,000 in billed services for the “Family Formation” program, which works at strengthening relationships between kids, ages 10 to 14, and their parents.

Heath MacAlpine, assistant director for workforce services for the Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services, said the Wesley center shared the “Family Formation” contract with the Dayton Chapter of Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. The Dayton Urban League was paid $45,000 to monitor the contract.

The county told the league in a Feb. 12 letter, that its oversight “has not been satisfactory” and that it wouldn’t reimburse the league for monitoring in 2010 “until appropriate documentation of service is provided.”

Walker said his long-range goal is to build a cash reserve. Nine Dayton nonprofits, including Wesley center, have been collaborating for 18 months to define cost-saving ways to help each other thrive. The Miami Valley Community Alliance will unveil its strategic plan Wednesday, Sept. 15, at Wright State University’s Duke E. Ellis Human Development Institute, 9 Edwin C. Moses Blvd.