The Cooperative Extension division of UW-Extension will see $3.6 million in budget cuts this year, part of the $250 million in cuts delivered to the UW System in Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015-’17 biennial budget.
Cooperative Extension develops local education programs in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties based on knowledge and research from System institutions, according to its website and UW-Extension media relations specialist Jackie Askins.
Cooperative Extension will still work to provide Wisconsin citizens in every county with access to university resources, Askins said, but its staffing model may change to share some educator positions across county boundaries. She said quality of programming might change as well, and “some things will have to be let go.”
Askins said the division will still be committed to “being the real embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea,” which specifies the boundaries of the university should extend to the boundaries of the state.
Dean and Director of the Cooperative Extension division Richard Klemme said in an email that UW-Extension received a 6 percent reduction in funding roughly 10 years ago and smaller cuts since 2000, and he said the program has “done [its] best” to keep partnerships between the UW System and Wisconsin communities intact.
“We have reached the point where the accumulated cuts do not allow us to ‘tweak’ the edges anymore,” Klemme said in the email.
The cuts could mean fewer resources and educational programs true to the Wisconsin Idea, Klemme said in the email, but they will not threaten the work of the division.
Askins said it is still very important for the division to be able to serve the state as a whole.
“It’ll be a little more challenging, and we’ll be doing a little bit less because we will have less,” Askins said. “But we are very proud, and take very seriously, this sense that we are the best representation of the Wisconsin Idea, and it’s not something that we’re going to give up at all.”
