By David Slone
Times-Union

KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Several of the nonprofit organizations requesting funds Tuesday, June 4, from the county for 2025 told the Kosciusko County Commissioners about their increases in costs as well as budget cuts from other funding sources.

In 2024, seven nonprofits requested a total of $316,756.91, and the commissioners recommended $298,592.91, with the county council approving that recommendation.

For 2025, eight nonprofits are requesting a total of $352,802.71. This is the first year that Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center made a request to the county for funding. The commissioners are taking the requests under advisement and will make a decision later on how much to recommend to the county council.

Kelly Bugg, executive director of Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center, requested $20,000 for 2025.

Safe Harbor, she told the commissioners, “is where we do forensic interviewing of child victims. When a report comes in to law enforcement or to the DCS, and there are potential criminal charges, or there’s safety issues, then those agencies contact me and I send a group text to a detective, a DCS case manager, a Bowen Center liaison and a prosecutor.”

They all meet. Bugg interviews the child and the rest of the group watches without the child seeing them. The interview is recorded and takes place at the K21 Health Services Pavilion in the back of the building for privacy. The facility is child friendly.
After the interview is completed, the group meets as a team and discusses what the next steps are in the investigation. Each team member receives a DVD of the interview so the child doesn’t have to be interviewed multiple times.

“So it’s just so much less traumatic for kids,” Bugg said. “We’re very fortunate because we’re the only county our size in this area to have a child advocacy center.”

Other counties sometimes use Safe Harbor’s facilities.

May was a very busy month for Safe Harbor as they did 23 interviews. They have done about 450 interviews since they opened.
“The funding is an issue for us this year because we are mostly funded by the Victims of Crime Act, which is a federal grant, and that fund is low. And so they have told us that they are going to cut our funding, but they haven’t told us how much. We’re supposed to hear in June,” she said.

While she’s asking the county for $20,000, Bugg said she doesn’t know if that’s going to solve the issue.

Andrew Ferrell, Kosciusko County Extension director for Purdue Extension, requested $47,521.71 for 2025, a 2% increase over 2024, for the Kosciusko County 4-H Council. “Mainly, that’s just an increase in the rising cost of everything else that goes up, and so we’re looking for that,” he said.

He said they served just under about 2,800 youth in the county this past year through lots of programs.

Beau Goshert, a member of Leesburg Mighty Farmers, told the commissioners, “4-H is important to me because I learned sportsmanship. And I wouldn’t be the same man if 4-H wasn’t a part of my life today. 4-H has just given me a ton of opportunities to get out there and just see stuff and experience stuff and learn leadership and sportsmanship through that.”

Cardinal Services Executive Director Vickie Lootens said each year Cardinal Services serves over 6,500 individuals. For 2025,

Cardinal is requesting $111,373 to support the daily operations of Head Start, Healthy Families and Kosciusko Area Bus Service. For 2024, Cardinal Services was approved for $108,129.

Early Head Start prepares economically disadvantaged children, birth to 5 years old, for success in school. Nearly 150 children were served in 2023, with 67 families with children on the waiting list. A family of four can not earn more than $31,200 annually to participate in the program. Lootens said they are seeing an increase in the need for mental health services for children in Head Start.

Healthy Families “is coming alongside those families that are at risk, supporting them to decrease the risk of child abuse,” she said. The program is a partnership with the family to learn healthy parenting. It currently supports 55 Kosciusko families.

KABS provides public transportation to all in Kosciusko County. It provided near 37,000 rides in 2023, a 1% increase over 2022, and it is projected to be 5-10% in 2024. Lootens said they continue to grow from what they lost during the pandemic when it was close to 50,000 rides annually.

“According to the 2023 demographic survey, 71.4% of passengers consider KABS their primary mode of transportation; 41% of those riders are 55 or older years of age,” she said. “The three main rides that are utilized are medical, work and shopping.”

While the KABS budget shows a gain, Lootens said that was because they had to record two new buses. “So we’re actually at an operating loss of $74,163,” she stated.

Mary Shankster, chief development officer for Stillwater Hospice, requested $50,000 for 2025, the same as 2024. She reminded the commissioners that Stillwater and Kosciusko County Home Care & Hospice joined as one organization in March 2023. The funds from the county will be used toward providing hospice services in Kosciusko County, as well as support and grief counseling for families dealing with the loss of a loved one.

Kosciusko County Historical Society Co-Directors Greg Steffe and Sheila Strickland requested $30,000 for 2025, up from the $23,230 they received for 2024. Steffe said the increase was due to inflation. Their main goal for this year is to try to get the historic Pound Store in Oswego painted, with a number of grants they applied for dedicated toward that purpose.

Strickland talked about her work to re-establish KCHS’s presence in the community, which included revamping the website, creating Instagram and Facebook accounts and reaching out to every fourth-grade classroom in the county, inviting them to a field trip to the Historical Society.

Renea Salyer, The Beaman Home executive director, requested $50,000 for 2025, an increase from the $33,425 approved for 2024. The increase is to address some leaks in the flat roof of their building, an expense that was not planned for.
She said The Beaman Home is in its 38th year of services to Kosciusko County.

“We are striving to do a lot of new things with helping clients and their children. We see about 199 residential clients come to us each year, and 170 in shelter. All of those clients receive counseling, case management, assistance with housing, transportation and … classes,” she said.

Over the last year, The Beaman Home served 59 children in the shelter and The Beaman Home is looking to hire a part-time counselor for the children.

“They are very traumatized by the situation that they’ve been put into, so our goal is to help them further and do some prevention in their lives and make them whole, because really, truly The Beaman Home is a place for family,” Salyer stated.

She said they have a funding gap this year of around $150,000 that the state and federal grants don’t cover, so they do a lot of fundraising.

Representing Kosciusko Community Senior Services, Executive Director David Neff requested $40,000 for 2025, which is the same amount requested in 2024, though the county council approved $33,425 for 2024.

“We are asking for an increase because of various cuts that we are receiving,” he said. “Unfortunately, we heard from Real Services, which is one of our funders, there was a 16% decrease in our transportation services from them, and 6% in home-delivered meals. That’s about a $12,000 decrease in total funding for the two programs.”

The two programs the county helps fund are home-delivered meals and transportation. On transportation, Neff said they work very closely with Lootens and KABS and KCSS provides over 12,000 rides for senior citizens in this county.

“Home-delivered meals, a lot of times that’s the only meal that senior will get for the day,” he said. The home-delivered meals also provides a wellness check and companionship to the seniors.

“Our funding has been reduced in other areas, not just Real Services. The uncertainty in Indianapolis right now has caused some concern. We’re not sure what’s going to happen. July 1 we should know more, but right now there’s a lot of question marks,” Neff stated.

Matt Meersman, director of the St. Joseph River Basin Commission, requested $3,909 for 2025, a slight increase over the $3,794 approved for 2024. He said about 20% of Kosciusko County does drain into the St. Joe River, specifically Lake Wawasee and Turkey Creek. The commission is technically not a not-for-profit, but an agency of the state of Indiana, but local government members provide funding.