Posts Tagged: County Partnerships

Nominations sought for county structure task forces

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 forces will be organized around counties with historical affinities, and in some cases from declarations by the counties that they want to pursue a multi-county partnership within the grouping. The ultimate structure of our county programs will be informed from evaluation of the data provided by these task forces and other study groups within ANR.

The county groupings for each task force are as follows:

• Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara
• Butte, Tehama, Glenn, Sutter, Colusa, Yuba
• Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kings, Kern
• Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, Lake
• Marin, Sonoma, Napa
• Imperial, San Diego, Riverside
• Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino
• Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus, San Joaquin
• Modoc, Siskiyou, Shasta, Trinity
• Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz
• Placer-Nevada, Sacramento, Yolo, Solano
• San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura

Each task force charge will be finalized and communicated as soon as the task force members have been identified.

View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

Dooley discusses budget, video posted

On March 8, VP Dan Dooley met with the county directors to discuss the budgets for the UC system and for ANR, multi-county partnerships and recruiting for advisors and specialists.

The governor has proposed a $500 million cut to UC’s budget. Dooley said that the governor won’t sign a budget that isn’t structurally balanced so if the tax extensions don’t get on a special June ballot and approved, UC may be faced with a $1 billion cut.

Referring to the state budget allocation, Dooley said, “The reality is we’re not going to know what our next fiscal year’s budget is until after the June election.”

A 15-minute video recording of excerpts of Dooley’s talk can be viewed at http://ucanr.org/sites/ANRUpdate/Vice_President/County_Directors_Meeting_3-8-11.

View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

 

County partnerships and UC Cooperative Extension

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 requires change to prepare for the opportunities that will exist given new economic, social and political realities.

While a number of our counties that faced major county budget cuts or complete elimination have been rescued by hard work from county directors, advisors, program reps, staff, supporters and with ANR support, we believe that the evidence pointing to continuing funding issues for California counties and to the need for new partnership models is overwhelming and that we must move quickly.

As we move forward, we are working to implement county models that will deliver the relevant, high-quality programs that define UC Cooperative Extension, stabilize funding, maximize resources going to programs and deliver essential long-term savings to the counties and UC. A multiple-county administrative partnership changes the funding dialog and will make our programs more competitive for UC, county and other funding.

Following our meeting with county directors in Davis last June, we have presented this concept to county administrative officers or their representatives from Calaveras and neighboring El Dorado, Amador and Tuolumne counties. The concept was well-received and discussions continue. After publication of local news stories about the preliminary meeting, we received e-mail from some people expressing concern about 4-H, Master Gardener and the nutrition programs. We have assured them that the plan is designed to retain and enhance programs. In addition, we are happy to report that about half the e-mail received has been positive – thanking us for looking hard at ways to save administratively, focus resources on programs, and build a stable model for UC Cooperative Extension.

Our Cooperative Extension program is a statewide system that brings the research and education power of the University of California to people in their local communities. While we are a sum of our parts, there is an essential synergy by being a system that is even more important now as we serve a demand for research and education larger than our resources.  A functional system requires viable programs across the state.

Even as we wrestle with the challenges facing California counties, the future is very bright for an evolved Cooperative Extension and, at the time of this writing, we anticipate investing in hiring the largest group of county advisors and campus specialists in many decades. By any assessment, we will have been extraordinarily successful if, in the near term, we can build advisor numbers toward the 300 level with a proportional increase in specialist positions.

The decisions associated with identifying, prioritizing and allocating these resources must be fundamentally different than “backfilling position vacancies” that have occurred since we were 500 or even 300 advisors strong. Doing the hard work to strategically define and place them to meet current and future needs will help us grow even more in the long-term, and placing them into multiple-county administrative units maximizes their visibility and potential impact on our stakeholders.

Over the next several months, we will explore the benefits and costs of restructuring CE in counties that are interested in strengthening their partnership with UC and with their sister counties facing similar issues. California has changed and as a statewide program we will adapt in order to serve it well in the future.

Dan Dooley, Senior Vice President
Don Klingborg, Director, Strategic Advocacy & UC-County Partnerships

View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

Taskforces to create new models for local delivery of ANR services

View or leave comments for the Executive Working Group

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

CDs & EWG discuss county-based CE structure

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 these goals, I sent a survey to 767 advisors, specialists and county personnel, including 356 advisors and specialists and 411 other county personnel. My thanks to the 258 people who shared their insights on the conceptual models I described for alternative structures. Your comments have and will continue to be very helpful in our planning.

Outcomes from the meeting will include clarification of possible models to be more fully considering in the next phase of our deliberations. Next steps include forming task groups to refine models. I have already met with the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) to let our county partners know that we have heard their requests for change and are in a process that will include them and other stakeholders as we look toward the future. Because some counties continue to enjoy strong support, one size won’t fit all. We expect the structure will evolve. The one thing we know is that the current model isn’t sustainable as a system in this economic climate.

Don Klingborg
Director, Strategic Advocacy & UC-County Partnerships

Furlough program ending, use time by Aug. 31

The 12-month furlough plan for academic and non-represented employees that began on Sept. 1, 2009, will end Aug. 31, 2010. Furlough time is not like vacation time or comp time that can be banked for later use or is paid out upon separation from the university. Furlough time may not be carried over after the systemwide furlough program ends Aug. 31, 2010, so be sure to use your time so that you don't lose it.

The furlough/salary reduction plan for represented employee groups began after September 2009 so they will continue past August, as determined through the collective bargaining process.

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