BATTLE MOUNTAIN - University of Nevada, Reno President Dr. Marc Johnson tried to reassure Lander County commissioners that the proposed reorganization of the university's Cooperative Extension program to bring it under the same leadership as the College of Agriculture will not combine the two programs.
"It is not truly a merger," he said, adding, "the organizations will stay separate."
UNR has received budget cuts of $75 million, Johnson said, and "We haven't taken the budget cuts proportionally across all the units because we have to save the core of the organization and meet Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) responsibilities."
The university president said the reorganization will actually broaden the university's outreach to Nevada communities, adding they're trying to organize a way to get the entire university engaged with rural entities.
"The way we want to do this is to have a stronger connection between the extension organization and the rest of the campus," Johnson said. "We want to do this by combining the director of extension position with the director of the agricultural experiment station and the dean of agriculture all under one roof."
Johnson said there will be one Dean of Agriculture, and associate deans over each of the three entities.
In an attempt to answer concerns that Cooperative Extension won't maintain its autonomy, Johnson said, "We will keep each section separate so they can maintain their integrity."
He said budgets will be kept separate, even faculty evaluations will be separate. "All we're proposing is that they have a common leader."
Johnson said he had actually served in this type of joint leadership position as dean of agriculture and director of an agricultural experiment station and cooperative extension in two different states.
"It can work very very well by bringing traditional land grant functions together under one management," he said.
Commissioner Patsy Waits serves on the Nevada Association of Counties (NACO) board of directors and pointed out that the 17 county representatives on the NACO board voted unanimously not to support UNR's Cooperative Extension reorganization proposal.
Johnson commented later that the Nevada Cattlemen's Association and the Nevada Farm Bureau voted in favor of supporting the reorganization, showing there were differing opinions.
Johnson was not in Lander County to seek action as to whether the commissioners supported the reorganization or not. But he said that as all of Nevada's rural communities are partners with the university in the delivery of Cooperative Extension, he wanted to hear and address the counties' concerns.
Lander County Extension Educator Rod Davis did not take a position one way or the other on the reorganization, but said, "I do think this is an issue that has the potential to affect the ability of Cooperative Extension to do its job in Lander County."
Board of Regents member Kevin Melcher spoke to the Lander County commissioners regarding the proposed changes at UNR, noting that he had a vested interest in Cooperative Extension.
He said he'd served on the Nevada Cooperative Extension Advisory Committee for many years.
Melcher spoke to the state's higher education funding woes, saying, "We've had over $210 million cut from higher education in the last five years; the pie is smaller and everyone wants their same piece."
He noted that the state of Nevada doesn't have budget woes, it has revenue woes. There's just not enough money.
"Part of this budget decline is the reason why people have to work better together," Melcher said.
He noted that Cooperative Extension and the College of Agriculture used to be combined, saying, "I talked to a lot of other people who remember when the two were together and they want it back that way."
He added, "Others like it the way it has been because they have their own little islands."
The university's reorganization will hit a happy medium, he said, keeping the separate organizations but under combined leadership.
Melcher told the commissioners he supported the reorganization and didn't believe Cooperative Extension programs would be hurt by it.
Commissioner Waits was concerned over the budget for Cooperative Extension, and wondered whether one dean over three separate programs might move money from one program to another.
Johnson said that Cooperative Extension is a separate budget and any movement of money from one budget to another would be visible. Johnson said the Cooperative Extension agent in each county is the point person to manage not only the budget allocated, but the funds and personnel the counties pay for.
Johnson pointed out that local residents will still have their say in extension activities since the local Cooperative Extension office has an advisory committee, and the county extension educator does a periodic needs assessment in the community and the program is developed to address those needs.
Johnson said that the university has a Community Engagement Council on campus and that they want extension to have access to additional services on campus to provide more services to the counties, not less.
However, as university officials have travelled to discuss the reorganization with the state's counties, some commissioners have expressed the feeling that the budget, program and personnel cuts in Cooperative Extension do not match the assurances given by Johnson. The UNR Cooperative Extension program used to have 90 faculty members; there are now 37 statewide.
Johnson acknowledged that each county agent has to deal with budget cuts that amount to about 70 percent, along with less than full-time funding of their job and balancing requirements to produce for both the on-campus university and their local counties.
When Johnson was in Humboldt County, administrator Bill Deist pointed out that each county's taxpayers actually fund about half the costs for Cooperative Extension, so the university president has some real motivation for his efforts to respond to county commissioners' concerns and questions.
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