The Knox County poverty task force is ready to hit the ground running in 2009, and plans to hire a full-time staff member, and have a budget of between $50,000 and $150,000 for the next two years to begin to address area poverty issues.

From Galesburg Register-Mail:

The Knox County poverty task force is ready to hit the ground running in 2009, and plans to hire a full-time staff member, and have a budget of between $50,000 and $150,000 for the next two years to begin to address area poverty issues.

The group is in negotiations with the Kellogg Foundation, and other private funding sources, to secure money for its budget, according to state official Sal Garza, one of the organizers of the project.

In recent months, task force members have been conducting interviews with community leaders from a wide range of sectors to determine if Knox County is ready to tackle poverty, Diane Eager, who works for Bridgeway, said Wednesday.

Garza said Knox County had been placed on the Heartland Alliance poverty warning list for the past three years, illustrating the scale of the problem facing the task force.