- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC Cooperative Extension Central Sierra, the office serving Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, and Tuolumne counties, received final approval from the last county last week, making it ANR’s first official multi-county partnership.
Over the past year, ANR leaders have been working with county governments to identify a new structure for county-based Cooperative Extension that would maintain the strength of the programs, while reducing costs. The result is a collaborative agreement between the four counties that will consolidate administration to meet budget cuts without reducing services to residents.
“Central Sierra Nevada residents will continue to have access to educational programs and expertise in nutrition, healthy...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
ANR is forming task forces to evaluate UC Cooperative Extension structure in the counties. Cooperative Extension advisors and county-based program representatives are being asked to nominate one person per county to join the county director for their respective county on a county structure task force. The deadline for nominations is Friday, May 20.
The county structure task forces will be charged with collecting the data on staffing, facilities, transportation, information technology and administration for their county CE programs, including funding from UC, county government, grants and other sources. This information will be organized and will serve as the basis for evaluating our future structure of local delivery. The task...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Dear Colleagues,
Across California, county governments continue to face a funding crisis. Last year, many local budgets were balanced with the help of one-time federal stimulus money. This year, the major difference between those counties that are “stable” versus those that are facing huge deficits is the use of any available contingency funds. Indicators suggest next year will be an even bigger challenge for our county partners and will directly impact our county programs.
Some of us hope that economic recovery is in our immediate future and that we will return to the early 1980s when Extension was at its peak in funding and political support. Others are convinced that we must chart a new course, and that the future...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Challenging issues, strong beliefs and lively dialogue marked the June 8 workshop including county directors and the Executive Working Group. The commitment to ANR’s future was evident with more than 50 participants working throughout the day to identify potential positive and negative consequences associated with various administrative and programmatic structures.
Results of the recent...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Dear Colleagues,
The Executive Working Group and county directors are meeting today (June 8) to discuss potential future directions of UC’s Cooperative Extension partnership with county government. We will be discussing how we operate and new expectations for roles, responsibilities and leadership for all of us.
The challenge from VP Dooley is to stabilize county funding and optimize the funds supporting programs. Inherent in this challenge is the fact that we’ve lost close to 50% of our academics and our county partners are currently reacting to lower revenues with an expectation that revenues will be insufficient to support the existing county governmental structures.
To gather input on how we might achieve...