Consultants from Thomas P. Miller and Associates out of Indianapolis met with Starke County government leaders and representatives from the Starke County Economic Development Foundation last week to review a recent study of the Foundation.
The study was ordered to look at accomplishments of the Foundation and how they can be built upon, future goals, and where efforts should be placed for economic development.
The study included Starke County’s population, housing needs, educational attainment of residents in the county, available jobs and employment characteristics, wages, transportation, agriculture, healthcare, and an economic snapshot of what is available such as tourism, arts and entertainment, and industries.
The consultants believe that the Foundation is effective and strategies put forth by the Foundation are doing well in Starke County, but they can be streamlined to provide better focus.
According to the draft study, the biggest recommendation was to split the Starke County Economic Development Foundation from the SCILL Center so the Foundation can mainly focus on economic development, housing and placemaking, while the SCILL Center can focus on workforce development and training. The pair would still coordinate to support each other with economic development efforts.
The Foundation would need to slim down the number of people on its board of directors.
The draft study also recommends that the Foundation be run by an executive director and an executive assistant which would narrow the staff to two people.
It was suggested that the county work more with the Foundation in moving things forward and cooperate for the best opportunities available for Starke County residents.
Commissioner Kathy Norem stressed that the SCILL Center is a great, valuable program and the quality of education for the students in that program is strong, but the county’s involvement in terms of financial support of the program needs to be reviewed. She commented that the county’s income tax support is dwindling which supports SCILL and another way to subsidize programming should be researched. County Council President Dave Pearman said the separation of the focus of the SCILL Center and the Starke County Economic Development Foundation may lend itself to find other funding resources. The study remains as a draft and comments from leaders will be disseminated to the working document to come up with a plan for the entities involved.
