The ISU Extension office is facing budget cuts that may lead to charging its users, even though the services are offered primarily to high-risk families with limited resources.

For the past two years, extension’s budget was reduced by 10 percent and the new budget is faced with at least a 4.3 percent cut, said Stanley Johnson, vice provost for cooperative extension service. Johnson said the shortfall is partly due to recession.

“It isn’t the legislature singling out the extension services,” Johnson said.

The extension’s budget has always stayed flat before, he said. To make up for the current shortfall, Johnson said extension will start to charge for certain programs, pursue grants and contracts more vigorously and ask counties to increase funding to extension.

Extension is also focusing more on money-generating programs, he said. Recently the office received about $850,000 to increase access to rural mental health services, he said.

While the new budget is not finalized, JaneAnn Stout, associate dean of the Family and Consumer Sciences College, said her department is working to increase contracts and grants.

Stout said many extension programs work with children and families at high risk, or those in poverty and limited resources. Charging for the services would be difficult.

“We’re trying very hard to bring in additional money,” she said.

There are open positions that she has not been able to fill, Stout said.

The same is true for staffs in youth and 4-H program offices.

Joe Kurth, director of the programs, said extension’s cuts have resulted in an almost $340,000 shortfall for 4-H. Out of 30 of its full-time-equivalent positions, six are left open, he said.

For staff members, this translates to significant uncertainty in terms of future employment. Extension has not had large layoffs, Johnson said, but the office has reduced its level of administration to prepare for a new environment that uses revenue-generating strategies.

This means 4-H must charge for its services, such as with a development fee, which Kurth said is paid by county extension councils at a rate of $10 per member. He said a lot of counties paid this fee through fund raising and special endowments accounts.

“Counties are not passing the cost to the kids,” he said.

Part of the fee already brought in $185,000, and Kurth said he hope the total will reach $250,000. He said fees are also implemented on their summer, after-school and school enrichment programs, with charges determined by local staff members.

“The response is OK,” he said. “People seem to understand. When we discussed [the charges] last summer, not everybody thinks it was a good idea.”

As the budget currently stands, Kurth said his department might even be able to buy back some open positions.

“But we won’t be able to get back the full staff,” he said.

Collecting fees also means he and his staff have to focus more effort on programs, Kurth said.

“When we start collecting fees, it means our programs have to be really good, or else people aren’t going to pay,” he said. “I’ve learned people do value 4-H.”

Although more cuts are looming in the coming budget, Kurth said they are trying to keep the quality of their programs at the current level.

Johnson thinks extension will come out all right.

“In the future, we will have a larger extension that is more tied to research and education,” he said.