Virgina extension agencies may change focus from county-level services to regional

To help meet dwindling budgets, Virginia Tech announced it was restructuring the state's cooperative extension service to focus on regional services instead of county-level ones. "Since 2007, the budget for extension has shrunk from $65 million to $55 million," Tonia Moxley of The Roanoke Times reports. Alan Grant, dean of Tech's College of Agriculture, said under the plan most or even all of the state's 106 county extension offices would remain open, if local governments wish to keep them operating. Local governments could opt out of locally based extension services.

Local governments co-fund extension agents working in their counties, Moxley writes. At least one local stakeholder voiced concerns that a regional model would hurt extension services in local schools. "We all realize there has to be budget cuts, but it has to be equitable," Deborah Ring, of the Extension Leadership Council in Pulaski County, told Moxley. "My feeling is the giant portion should be for field and community, and a lesser portion for the university and research."

"The biggest organizational change will be to streamline management operations," Moxley writes. "The 106 administrators who oversee county offices across the state will be reduced to 22." The 22 administrators will oversee newly established regional extension "hubs" or "business centers." Each hub would serve up to five counties with science-based educational programming provided by up to three extension agents. "The extension agents, who work directly with farmers and other stakeholders, will be renamed 'extension educators' to reflect a new focus on programming," Moxley writes. (Read more)