Budget Woes Likely To Affect Local Coop. Extension

By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

The future of the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE) office in Logandale was clouded last week after the UNR provost announced a possible budget cut of approximately $5.5 million or 72 percent of the monies UNCE receives from the state.

Despite the severe UNCE budget reduction statewide, however, Karen Hinton, dean of the UNR College of Cooperative Extension, said the Moapa Valley extension office would almost assuredly survive although the services it offers and how it operates will probably be affected.

“It’s too early to know the exact impacts of the cuts on the Logandale office specifically, but with the large amount of reductions statewide it’s safe to say that that office definitely will be impacted,” Karen Hinton, dean of the UNR College of Cooperative Extension, told the Moapa Valley Progress.

In addition to the state, which provides approximately 29 percent of UNCE’s annual budget ($7.6 million before the $5.5 million reduction), in FY11 UNCE is schedule to receive 8 percent in additional revenues from the federal government ($2.1 million); 18 percent from grants ($4.9 million); 3 percent from sales ($699,770), less than 1 percent from gifts ($129,423), and 42 percent from the various counties ($11.1 million).

The Logandale office currently is funded entirely with Clark County money, according to a financial spokesperson in the Las Vegas UNCE office, although those funds are not earmarked specifically for Logandale and in the future may be used wherever UNCE believes they will do the most good in the county.

“We haven’t done an analysis yet on how the budget cuts will play out specifically,” Hinton said. “That will be the next step in the process,” which includes the Board of Regents hearing and evaluating budget cut proposals and seeing what monies the Legislature gives the university.

The UNCE cut of approximately $5.5 million is part of a university-wide proposed annual budget reduction of $26 million and a loss of 225 positions. Even so, the proposed cutbacks fall short of the potential total UNR budget reduction projected to be as high as $59 million by July 2012.

While the UNR budget proposal represents heavy cuts in programs such as information technology, library materials and student services, the College of Cooperative Extension is being especially hard hit.

Marc Johnson, UNR provost, said despite the massive UNCE budget reduction, however, the college will “continue in all Nevada counties through federal, county and limited state funding.”

UNCE is the college that puts research to work, according to the college’s website. Among other activities, it operates throughout the state helping local governments strengthen their economies; assisting Nevadans improve their health and diets, and giving agriculture producers the necessary tools to function effectively.

All 50 states have Cooperative Extension colleges that exist through land-grant universities. Nevada Revised Statute 549.010 describes UNCE’s purpose to “conduct educational, research, outreach and service programs pertaining to agriculture, community development, health and nutrition, horticulture, personal and family development and natural resources in the rural and urban communities in Nevada.”