By Carol McIntire
Editor
March 17, 2009
The face of extension services is changing in Carroll County and across the state of Ohio.
Officials with Ohio State University Extension announced last week they are reducing the workforce and reorganizing operations due to funding reductions.
“Despite a proven track record of serving Ohioans effectively for 95, OSU Extension must reduce its workforce and expenses to align with declining state and local revenues,” said Keith Smith, director of OSU Extension and associate vice president of agricultural administration at Ohio State. “ We know this loss of income in no way reflects our value. Yet, given the incredibly difficult economy, we, too, are called to sacrifice.”
The reorganization will be based on a strategic plan OSU Extension completed in 2008, but will be implemented with fewer people than originally planned.
Under the plan, OSU Extension will have a presence in each county. The goal is to have an office in each county that is staffed by a minimum of one full time extension agent and one support staff. The 4-H Youth Development program will continue to be county-focused, with local management facilitated by a program assistant or coordinator.
The state has been divided into nine areas known as Extension Education and Research Areas (EERA). The EERAs are aligned with the Ohio Conservation Research and Development (RC&D) districts because of familiarity with the work across county lines in the already-established areas.
Carroll County will be included in a 12-county area in eastern Ohio known as the Crossroads EERA. Other counties included in the area include Wayne, Holmes, Coshocton, Muskingum, Stark, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Harrison, Mahoning, Columbiana and Jefferson.
Extension educators, who work in the program areas of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Community Development, 4-H Youth Development and Family and Consumer Sciences, will provide educational programming in each of the nine EERAs. Crossroads area is scheduled to be staffed with eight Ag and Natural Resources agents, eight 4-H agents, five Family and Consumers Sciences agents and one Community Development agent.
The program outline states the educators will be able to specialize and build more depth into educational programs under the plan. At a minimum, 25 percent of the educator’s time will be dedicated to his/her area of specialization and, in most instances, the percent of time devoted to the specialization will be expected to increase over time.
Educators will determine the needs within the EERA in conjunction with an area advisory committee. They will develop a plan on how to best meet these needs based upon the resources available in the area. An area leader will oversee the annual process to assure equity in programming based upon funding received from each county.
In the past, Carroll County has had the services of two educators, 4-H Youth Development (Vicky Oboy) and Ag and Natural Resources (Mike Hogan). A 4-H program assistant (Tonya Bryan) has also been a part of the county office for the past several years at both part-time and full-time levels.
Hogan said due to budget restraints, Carroll County Commissioners reduced their budget from $171,081 in 2008 to $121,000 for 2009. He said this amount will fund 1.5 percent of the time for a full time educator, 75 percent of the time for a secretary and force the elimination of the program assistant as of June 2009.
Hogan told the FPS after attending a meeting March 16 at Columbus, plans are not yet finalized for the individual counties and he doesn’t have any real answers as of yet.
When asked how the office would operate with only one-full time agent and a 75 percent time secretary, he said he wasn’t sure. “We have another meeting set for April 2 and we should have some answers then,” he said, adding some counties are in worse financial shape than Carroll County and have suffered more severe cuts. |
