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March 28, 2024 10:52 pm
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Rural Rants

By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

Last week the University of Nevada provost announced a proposal that includes cutting approximately $26 million from the school’s budget and eliminating some 225 positions. Of those, 150 are currently filled and the remaining had been purposely held open in anticipation of possible budget cuts.

While any time we are forced to chop higher education it’s unfortunate, these particular cuts are especially regrettable for us in Moapa Valley because, whether we’re aware of it or not, they hit very close to home and affect so many people in the communities in northeast Clark County; towns like Overton, Logandale, Moapa, Bunkerville and Mesquite.

Included in the drastic reduction is approximately $5.5 million being slashed from the budget the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE). In real terms, that means a cut of some 72 percent in the money UNCE receives from the state.

This impacts us so directly because we are lucky enough to have serving us one of only two satellite UNCE offices in the entire state, an office that plays a major role in the lives of hundreds if not thousands of local residents. The local UNCE office is located in Logandale on Moapa Valley Boulevard.

Nevada Revised Statues requires UNCE 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 of Nevada.”

The Logandale office currently employs four people who fulfill many of these requirements including Carol Bishop, UNCE educator in charge of the Logandale office; Penny Blair, vocational education instructor, responsible for several programs including Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) and the Northeast Child Passenger Safety Seat Program; Lori Leas, 4-H program coordinator, who recruits, trains and manages youth and adult volunteers for various projects and clubs and partners with the Clark County School District and Parks and Recreation Department, and Denise Stroesser, who is temporarily filling the office’s horticulture and receptionist position.

Other specific programs include, among many others, master gardener training; “Living with Fire,” a multi-agency program aimed at teaching homeowners how to live more safely in high wildfire-hazard environments; teaching some small growers how to attain their property goals while protecting soil, water, plant, animal and other natural resources, and how to acquire, plant and care for trees and shrubbery that do well in our local desert climate.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I, too, am working part-time for the local office in a temporary position for a limited time. The budget cuts, however, will have no impact on me or my work.

Because it so early in the budget process, the higher ups at UNR are as yet unable to say with any certainty just how much the proposed budget cuts will affect our UNCE office. The UNCE college dean can say only that every UNCE office in the state will be impacted. In other words, it’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s a question of degree.

Unhappily, these deep budget cuts are ample proof that despite what the financial wizards may be saying across the country, the national and international recession is alive and still very active, especially in our corner of the world.

We really can’t do much about the recession except continue living as best we can, but we can let our voice be heard about UNCE.

I encourage everyone to call, write or otherwise contact any and all elected officials in the state and county to let them know how we feel about our local UNCE office and how much it does for and means to us.

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