By VICKI URBANIK

The Porter County Parks and Recreation Department’s naturalist program has been put on hold temporarily because of a lack of staffing, and in the interim, the department may try to secure approval for a full-time position to keep the program afloat.

The park department is currently seeking applications for someone to replace the previous part-time naturalist, who resigned to take a job at an area school. In the meantime, the fall outdoor naturalist program probably won’t be offered until November, and the Parks-to-School indoor program won’t be offered until the start of the new year, said Parks Superintendent Ed Melendez.

The indoor program last school year served 4,336 students in Porter County schools, while the fall program served about 430 students.

Melendez said the parks department is getting about four to five calls each day from teachers wanting to set up a field trip to Sunset Hill Farm or arrange for a naturalist to provide an in-class program. They are being told to “call back in the spring,” he said.

The naturalists program has always been run by part-timers along with interns and volunteers. In addition to the Parks-to-School program and the outdoor program at Sunset Hill, the county parks has also hosted two summer camp naturalist programs.

Melendez said volunteers serve an important role, and an Anderson Foundation grant has also been very helpful in keeping the naturalists program operating. But he also said it’s rough on one person to oversee three to four different programs on a part-time basis.

“To help us correct this problem, we would like to look at this position becoming full-time,” he said.

The county park submitted a proposed 2008 budget that includes three new full-time positions: a supervisor of health, a horticulturalist/programmer and a horticulturalist/maintenance post. The latter two positions are proposed primarily for the newly acquired Furnessville arboretum. It’s possible that the budget proposal could be revised to replace the health supervisor with a full-time naturalist/interpretor, Melendez said.

The county park’s proposed budget comes up for review at the Porter County Council’s budget hearing on Tuesday, which begins at 5 p.m. in the County Administration Center. The county council has been keeping a tight lid on budget increases in the county general fund, due to its goal of trying not to increase the property tax levy for county government in 2008

The parks department gets its funding from the general fund, the county income tax, and a fund that comes from donations, grants and marketing funds through the Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission.

When asked why schools can’t fund the field trips or in-school programs, Melendez said generally, teachers are given stipends for such programs and that area teachers have been very good at including funds for the naturalist program in their budgets, in turn offsetting some of the county park department’s costs.

Posted 9/10/2007