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Ohio extension in danger of more cuts, to 2010 budget

By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio State University extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) may be hammered with more cuts in the new $54 billion budget, which the Ohio House of Representatives will be voting on in early April.
These are difficult times, said Dr. Bobby Moser, who heads OSU extension and the OARDC. Extension is in a process of reorganizing because of cuts in 2008 and 2009. The OARDC is developing its reduction plans, which will be implemented for 2009.

“Extension is doing some reorganization, especially out in the counties with the county educators,” said Moser. “It will be implemented soon and we’ll require some downsizing to take place.”

Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed budget for 2010-11 currently has, for extension, a 10.9 percent reduction for the first year of the biennium and an additional 5 percent for the second year, Moser said. For the OARDC it is 5.5 percent the first year and 5 percent the second year.

Yet, times are tough for the governor, too, who made a number of hard decisions as he crafted the budget, said Amanda Wurst, a spokesperson for Strickland.

“He made cuts to many state agency line items and leveraged federal stimulus and other one-time resources to make up for the revenue lost to the state as a result of the national recession – without raising taxes for Ohioans,” she said.

The governor worked hard to maintain state support for extension and the OARDC in the face of a difficult budget, Wurst said. Yet the 2009 reductions are going to reduce the capabilities of both to serve the agricultural industry in the way that it deserves to be served through high quality education and research programs and through extension outreach programs, Moser said.

Even with downsizing, extension will maintain a county base, he added. “We think that is very important so there will be a county educator in each of the counties and there could be more than that, depending on how much funding the county has,” Moser said.

In addition, there will be nine clusters in 88 counties. They will work with all the program areas in a team across county lines to cover the four major program areas of agriculture, natural resources, 4-H youth development and family consumer science and community development, Moser said.

4-H has always had high priority but there will be fewer educators to help with the program.

“Even before this there is no way we can do the program without the 4-H volunteers, and they become very important to us at this time,” Moser said. “4-H in Ohio has about 320,000 kids ... and along with that, about 35,000 volunteers. We think that’s pretty important and that is the way we’ll keep our 4-H program going.”
Moser hopes the situation will turn around before 2010 and 2011.
“We hope the economy improves, and we’re going to try to the best we can under those circumstances,” he said. “The budget proposal now has been introduced into the House and it is under discussion at the present time. We’re just hoping that our state legislature will be able to reduce some of those cuts and restore them so we can continue our programs in a way that we think is really important for the state of Ohio.”

Two groups of volunteers, the State Extension Advisory Committee and the OARDC Advisory Committee, are encouraging people to contact their state representatives and ask their support of the restoration of funds. The Ohio House will vote on the budget bill no later than early April.

“We all know the economy is not healthy, so elected officials need to hear from you to justify spending money, even the relatively small amount invested in extension, OARDC and 4-H,” stated Roy Klopfenstein, State Extension Advisory Committee, and Leah Miller, OARDC Advisory Committee, in a press release.

3/18/2009