Cornell Cooperative Extension is hoping for a show of support for all that it does when supervisors hold a hearing on their tentative $97.8 million 2024 budget Monday.
The hearing is set for 9am in supervisors’ chambers on the third floor of the County Office Building in Schoharie.
Front and center—CCE of Schoharie and Otsego Counties hopes—will be a proposed funding cut, from $290,000 in 2023 to $250,000 in ’24.
Calling the cuts “the elephant in the room,” Monday, CCE Executive Director Liz Callahan told supervisors’ Ag Committee that the Schoharie County Farm Bureau plans to speak on Extension’s behalf at the hearing.
Ms. Callahan asked supervisors if they needed any more from her; no, said Gilboa Supervisor Alicia Terry, it’s a conversation for the budget hearing.
“I look forward to hearing what people have to say,” Ms. Terry said.
“I do too,” Ms. Callahan said, calling maintaining the existing level of services “more important than ever” in maintaining CCE’s existing services.
Responding to a question from Don Airey of Blenheim, Ms. Callahan said Otsego County had held its budget hearing earlier that day and has increased CCE’’s funding by $10,000 to $221,000.
Ms. Callahan said afterwards that CCE—and SCFB—are requesting a return to the $290,000 level, initially “penciled in” at $175,000-$190,000 in the draft budget, then raised to $210,000, before supervisors’ Finance Committee voted 3-2 to increase it to $250,000—still a $40,000 cut.
“It’s not quite 15 percent, but it’s still a substantial loss to an organization that’s bare bones and already spread thin,” she said.
“We purposely didn’t ask for an increase…This money helps us leverage so much more.”
Steve Smith, newly-elected president of the Schoharie County Farm Bureau, lays out SCFB’s support of CCE and its funding in a letter to the editor in this week’s Times-Journal.
In an email Tuesday, Mr. Smith said SCFB supports full funding for both CEE and the County’s Ag Specialist Nick Kossmann.