Cornell Cooperative Extension could see its funding cut by one-third under Schoharie County’s first-draft spending plan for 2024.
County Administrator Korsah Akumfi will present his tentative budget to supervisors’ Finance Committee when it meets October 18; in September, he told members that while sales tax numbers are up 10 percent, he still needed to carve $6.6 million from what was then a $98 million budget to keep ’24 taxes flat.
Tuesday, CCE Executive Director Liz Callahan told the Agriculture Committee that $115,000 of that could be coming from her line.
“I’m concerned that a cut of this level will do some serious damage to the work we are doing,” Ms. Callahan said.
“Where are we not meeting your needs and expectations? What information do you need from me?”
As CCE of Schoharie and Otsego Counties, in 2023, Extension got $290,000 in funding from Schoharie and $211,000 from Otsego.
They’re asking Schoharie for $290,000 again in ’24 and Otsego for $10,000 more--$221,000.
But Ms. Callahan said they’re penciled in here at $175,000-$190,000.
Gilboa Supervisor Alicia Terry said a concern she’s heard expressed in the past is that Otsego pays less for CCE, but gets more for it.
That’s not the case, Ms. Callahan said.
She’s crunched the numbers and while Schoharie does pay in more, they also get more--seven staff positions as compared to Otsego’s five—and that doesn’t include one fulltimer and three part-time positions at Schoharie Central School’s After School Program.
Ms. Callahan said she learned of the proposed cuts in an email from Mr. Akumfi.
“Did he give a reason?” asked Blenheim Supervisor Don Airey.
To expand the county’s own agriculture efforts, she said.
“I, personally, don’t know why we’d cut something that’s working to develop something of our own that’s also working,” Agriculture Committee chair Wes Laraway of Middleburgh said.
It’s certainly the Budget Officer’s prerogative to draft the budget, Ms. Terry said—and “try to deliver something that’s fiscally responsible to his 16 biggest critics [the Board of Supervisors] sitting around this table.”
While more farmers are getting information they need on things like feed and crops from salesmen, “I’d like to see us continue to support Cooperative Extension while we continue to develop resources in-house.
“And that’s why the budget is a budget process.”
Supervisors added Ag Specialist Nick Kossmann to work with farmers on everything from marketing to networking in 2022.
His efforts—and CCE’s—Mr. Airey said—go hand-in-hand with what they’re trying to do with tourism and economic development.