Starke County’s park system is a step closer to getting dedicated county funding. The county council has agreed to include funding for the park board in its 2021 budget proposal, at the request of County Commissioner Kathy Norem.
“I was pretty excited about that,” Norem told the park board earlier this month. “It’s not the final pass, but it’ll be the first time that the park board’s had a budget to work with. And I talked about the five-year plan and what the park board had accomplished and what you want to accomplish in the future, and so they were pretty, pretty good with that.”
Her $36,000 budget proposal would include funding for Yellow River kayak launches, beaver control at the Starke County Forest, a map of the forest, and a contracted secretary. The Starke County Council will hold a public hearing on the 2021 budget on August 31, with final adoption scheduled for September 21.
