03/02/05 Formula fund dilemna, Part two

Why are Deans of Colleges of Agriculture nationwide so concerned about proposed reductions in formula funds for ag research under the President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2006?. The obvious concern is that in fiscal year 2007 those reductions turn into full elimination under the proposed budget. And it is those funds that pay for a significant amount of ag research staff and programs for the nation's land grant schools. But the decrease in formula funds would have a ripple effect in all aspects of public ag research. James Cook is the Interim Dean of Washington State University's College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resources Sciences. He says the cut in what is called Hatch Act funds, which have not been touch since its creation back in 1887, would set a dangerous precedent. It is one that if implemented could mean trouble for formula funds for extension programs in place since the Smiths-Leiber Act of 1914. COOK: This Bush budget does not call for the equivalent elimination of the formula funds for extension. It's only a matter of time if this first one succeeds on the Hatch funds that the other shoe will drop. And according to Cook and his colleagues from the Northwest, there are other potential negative effects to extension programs. For example, many staff at higher education ag research centers and facilities also spend time working in extension programs, with a percentage of the salary split between federal and state ag research and extension dollars. COOK: Nobody even knows where their money comes from because it's all been pooled together once it comes here. It we had to take away the thirty per cent of a person who is thirty  seventy, how can they continue to stay in extension with only seventy per cent of their salary left? So extension would have to start redefining positions, as we eliminate the research component of it. Oregon State University Dean of Agricultural Sciences Thayne Duston adds that the cut in formula funds, and staff, will mean a cut in research and therefore a cut in customer service to users of extension programs. DUTSON: The research is not there and the data isn't there, then they extension service will have less research to communicate to those people who will implement it into their businesses and create the economic activity. More in our next program.