Officials in the College of Agriculture will spend the next academic year planning a response to the near $3 million budget reduction this year.

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and Ben Allen, provost, have provided a one-time funding assistance to cover a $1.9 million budget cut to the experiment station, said Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture and director of the experiment station.

This total is the result of a $900,000 state cutback in the College of Agriculture’s experiment station and a $1 million budget hole to fund the required 2 percent salary increases.

The one-time funding assistance will provide officials in the College of Agriculture close to a year to plan how to handle the cuts, Woteki said.

These plans will be implemented on July 1, 2004, the first day of the next fiscal year.

“For this coming year, there will be no immediate effects,” Woteki said.

The College of Agriculture plans to reduce research programs and facilities for the 2004—2005 academic year in response to the budget deficit.

The changes being made to the College of Agriculture’s programs and facilities currently for the 2003—04 academic year are the result of budget cuts made before the last academic year. The College of Agriculture’s reserve money fund was used to cover a budget cut of $829,000 during the 2002—03 academic year, Woteki said.

Without reserve money, the College of Agriculture has responded by cutting back on programs and facilities both on and off campus, Woteki said. The budget shortfall has been made up by cuts in research programs, the reassessment and movement of two research farms and a teaching farm, and other operational changes at multiple facilities both on and off campus, Woteki said.

The remainder of the College of Agriculture’s budget cuts total $430,000 from the Agriculture program areas of the ISU Extension, said Stanley Johnson, vice provost of Cooperative Extension Services. With a direct state cut to the ISU Extension of $571,000 and the funding of required salary increases totaling about $550,000, the ISU Extension will experience a $1.1 million budget cut for the 2003—04 academic year.

The total budget shortfall for the ISU Extension over the past 3 years exceeds $5 million, Johnson said.

These cuts have already begun to be answered, Johnson said. A hiring freeze began within the ISU Extension in June 2003, shortly after receiving word of the total of this year’s state cuts, he said.

Officials are reviewing current fees within the ISU extension for services and facilities, Johnson said, and will increase the scope of these fees to cover the $1.1 million cut to the budget.

Johnson expects the increase in fees to be implemented sometime before the end of September.

Another arm of the College of Agriculture, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, is facing a cutback of $13,000 over the next academic year.

This year’s cutbacks are a far cry from the $1 million cutback the center faced last year, said Frederick Kirschenmann, director of the Leopold Center.

The majority of the center’s funding, generally $1.2 million to $1.3 million, is provided through a designated tax on nitrogen and pesticide sales in Iowa.

The center has also received a $560,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, a $100,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture and a $200,000 research grant from federal appropriations.

“We were able to shift around and get some other sources of funding so that we could do what we have to do,” Kirschenmann said. “We’ve got our fingers crossed that it won’t happen again.”

— Daily staff reports contributed to this article.