Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994 TAG: 9404140353
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER Note: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Allen is expected to offer a budget amendment at the General Assembly's veto session next week to restore $300,000 to the 1994-95 extension service budget. That would leave the agency with a $269,000 shortfall next year - a far cry from the $1.2 million cut offered in December by former Gov. Douglas Wilder.
``We're ecstatic,'' said Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen.
Cautioning that Allen's amendments still could fail in the assembly, Torgersen explained how the windfall opportunity came to the service, which has lost more than $10 million and 250 jobs since 1990.
``We wrote the governor about five days ago, pleading that we receive some additional support, simply because we were going to have to not fill vacant positions, or possibly eliminate staff out in the field,'' Torgersen said.
The Extension Service, a division of Virginia Tech, has agents in each county and is a local-state-federal funding partnership. Originally launched to take the university's agricultural knowledge to rural farmers, the service has evolved to include such things as urban nutrition courses for low-income families and gardening programs for the public.
Allen spokesman Ken Stroupe said he was ``guardedly hopeful'' that the assembly would go along with the governor's amendment package, offered primarily to settle the state's federal retiree pension tax case. Allen is proposing a $58.9 million payout next year to overtaxed pensioners.
``What we tried to do was address this across the board, and not cause any one agency or department or one secretariat to have to bear the brunt of this,'' Stroupe said.
Funding comes from a combination of agency cuts and anticipated year-end surpluses.
As recently as last month, the Extension Service faced up to 30 job losses by attrition, early retirements or layoffs, after a requested $2.5 million addition to the two-year budget appropriation was cut to $1.1 million. Tech's financial experts have been putting together a buyout package aimed at faculty age 55 and older and examining ways to include extension agents in the program.
If Allen's amendment goes through, however, extension still is not out of the woods.
``What we asked for was $525,000, and there's still a gap. The governor has addressed more than half of the problem. It would be nice if we could somehow, with some efficiencies here in Blacksburg, address the shortfall without impacting positions out in the field. We hope it doesn't. That would be the first priority,'' Torgersen said.
Up to 90 percent of its budget goes to personnel costs, administrators say. Open extension jobs are frozen until the budget sorts itself out.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, who successfully shepherded extension's full funding restoration a year ago, was glad to hear that the agency may get more help.
``I would imagine Gov. Allen has gotten a great many letters from persons connected with extension and from the persons who benefit from the services that extension offers,'' said Marye, who had less luck this year when his colleagues did not fully fund his extension amendment.
``I'll certainly support that.''
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB