Budget pressures pile on MU extension

Amid budget cuts, Greene County Commissioners have taken a hard line with the University of Missouri Extension operations in the county, withdrawing the majority of county support for programs that are designed to help grow local agriculture and develop area small businesses.

The Extension, which has drawn on county funding for more than 50 years to provide educational outreach, has seen Greene County reduce it financial backing to $10,000 in 2012 from $95,000 just three years ago.  

David Burton, civic communications specialist and county program director for the Missouri Extension, said dozens of programs led by university specialists who would otherwise be available to residents and businesses are likely to be diminished or move to other counties because there is relatively little funding being allocated to administrative support.

Burton said every Missouri county operates an Extension office, and while the University of Missouri pays the salaries of programs specialists for Master Gardeners, the Small Business Technology & Development Corp. and local 4-H clubs, the individual counties fund the administrative support for Extension experts.

“Most Extension specialists have a regional job description. I’m in Greene County, but when my services are called upon, I may work in other counties,” Burton said.

“Likewise, I have about 10 or 12 specialists who may come here during the course of a year, but I have to have an operational budget to pay them to travel.

“If we can’t provide a functioning office to support their work, the university will move them to another county that can support their work,” Burton added.

In August, two part-time assistants were laid off, reducing the administrative staff to one part-time employee, down from a high of four full-time employees, a youth assistant and a part-time assistant in 2001.

Greene County Commissioner Jim Viebrock said he and fellow commissioner Harold Bengsch see the value of the Extension, having benefited in the past from the work of its specialists.

“I utilized parts of the Extension service when I was a young guy learning horticulture,” Viebrock said. “There is nobody on the commission that enjoys the position we’re in right now.”

But with budget cuts in recent years and demands coming from an overcrowded jail, Viebrock, Bengsch and fellow commissioner Roseann Bentley have had tough decisions to make.

Between 2008 and 2011, county departments cut operating budgets by 22 percent, according to GreeneCountyMo.org, and sales tax revenues 2007–11 fell an average of 0.6 percent per year.

“As indicated by the vote for public safety last April, the needs of the Sheriff’s Department, in particular, have outgrown the ability for general revenue to keep up,” Viebrock said.

“As our revenue falters, that money has to come from somewhere. It’s unfortunate, but the Extension is one of those areas,” he added.

General revenue for the 2012 budget year was $34.6 million, up from $33.9 million in 2011, according to Springfield Business Journal archives.

According to the commission, expenditures for the Sheriff’s Department and jail are estimated to total $14.4 million in the 2012 budget year, an increase of 6 percent from $13.6 million.

Viebrock said while the 2012 general revenue budget increased, it did so with the help of grants dedicated to specific funding and while expenditures were on the rise.

“Just because revenue went up didn’t mean expenses didn’t,” Viebrock said, pointing to rising fuel costs, a $330,000 jail maintenance issue, a crime lab payment and increased funding allocated to attorneys supporting the juvenile system.

Viebrock noted the commission also eliminated funding to nonprofits Court Appointed Special Advocates and the Springfield Child Advocacy Center.

“Those weren’t easy decisions to make,” Viebrock added.

Carl Allison, chairman of the Greene County Extension State Council, which serves as a liaison between university administrators and the county Extension office, said he’d like to see funding in 2013 increased to at least $70,000. That sum would cover the rate of inflation since 1961, when the minimum for office funding by counties was set.

“It is not just reducing our budget, the county is terminating our budget,” Allison said. “I know there are funding issues everywhere, but I think the commissioners are making an error in judgment.”

Allison named the Extension’s education outreach program, Eat Well, Be Well With Diabetes, as an example of its work to improve public health and safety.
He also said programs designed to improve nutrition for area children have been popular, and the nearly 300 participants in 4-H clubs in Greene County are helping to keep kids off the streets and out of the county’s jail.

Burton said despite the notable population differences, surrounding counties are doing their part to support the Extension services.

Christian County leads the way among contiguous counties with $62,000 in 2012 funding, while Webster County appropriated the next highest amount with $48,000.

University of Missouri Extension Director Michael Ouart said four other Missouri counties – Benton, Carter, Douglas and Wayne – also fund their offices at the minimum levels.
“We’ve been talking to county commissioners for three years now, and we’ve told them that if they stay at that level, there will be consequences,” Ouart said.

The funding issue comes at a time when the Greene County Extension is working out of newly constructed offices at the Springfield-Greene County Botanical Center.

Burton acknowledged the county allocated $400,000 to help fund construction of the facility, which the Extension shares with the Park Board, making the issue all the more complicated.

“It invested quite a bit of money into this building in support of the Extension program, so the loss of operational funding is a bit ironic,” Burton said.  
Greene County departments are required to submit 2013 budget requests to the commission by Sept. 1, and the budget is due to be signed by Jan. 30.

County officials are entering the budgeting process without the municipalities’ top budget officer, Jeff Reinold, who took the director of accounting post at Phoenix Home Care on Aug. 10. Reinold had served as county budget officer the last 13 years, and Viebrock said the commissioners are accepting applications to fill the post.