CAPE COUNTY TO PAY MORE FOR COOPERATIVE EXTENSION

Funding cuts and increased costs mean counties will have to pick up more of the tab for services from the University of Missouri's Cooperative Extension.

The Cape Girardeau County Commission met Thursday with Extension officials to discuss their concerns about those cost increases.

For fiscal year 1996, Cape Girardeau County will kick in $89,696, an 8.3 percent increase from the previous year.

Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said commissioners asked to meet with Extension officials because of concerns about more and more costs being passed onto the county -- such as long distance telephone calls and postage.

Jones said county officials throughout the region are "getting the opinion that things are mandated or dictated down. They honest-to-gosh feel that way."

Jones and Commissioner Larry Bock both have been active in the Cooperative Extension for several years, serving as county chairs and holding other offices.

"I'm not trying to brag in any form or fashion," Jones said. "I just want you to know that we're very strong Extension supporters. There was a time when I wondered if the Columbia campus felt the same way about us."

Cape County ranks "probably sixth or seventh" in the state in its level of funding to the Extension, he said, but many Southeast Missouri counties simply don't have the money to match that level.

Academic campuses were able to increase fees and tuition when the university's board of curators mandated cost-cutting measures to keep pace with state and federal funding costs, said Dr. Ronald J. Turner, vice president for the University of Missouri's Outreach and director of Cooperative Extension.

But the Extension didn't have that option.

"So we had to engage in some pretty creative exercises in order to try to meet" the strictures set down by the university system's board of curators, he said.

Operations and maintenance costs for field offices "were the kinds of operating expense at the county level that we felt we should get some help on," Turner said. Meanwhile, some 17 staff members were eliminated at the administrative level.

In Southeast Missouri, he said, the average cost increase at the county level was 5.3 percent this year. Wayne County saw the highest increase at 19 percent, and Mississippi County came in second at 13.6 percent.

The Cooperative Extension did get a "one-time appropriation" of $1.6 million for upgrading computers from the state and a continuing increase of $150,000 annually from the state, Turner said.

But while state funding increased by 2.35 percent, federal funding went down 1.5 percent, and the cost of doing business continued to increase.

"That's why if it appears that some of the costs are being devolved to the counties, that's the reality," he said.

The 1996 Farm Bill, still pending in Congress, also includes a clause that would authorize extending appropriations for extension services for only two years, rather than the usual seven, Turner said.

Missouri ranks behind states with comparable populations and Extension programs in all levels of funding, he said.

The average per capita federal appropriation for those comparable states -- including Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, Georgia and Minnesota -- is $2.26, compared to the Missouri level of $1.95.

At the state level, the average support per capita is $4.25, while Missouri's funding level is $3.45.

And at the local level, the average is $2.81, while in Missouri the local funding level is $1.39 per capita, Turner said.

"That figure's surprising, that local support figure," Jones said. "I was sitting here fixing to gloat."

"Are we looking at more responsibility coming down to the counties, as far as finances," asked Bock, who represents the commission on the Cape Girardeau County Extension Council.

Turner said the increased requests for funding to the counties were intended as goals. "Some counties thought this was an additional tax," he said. "That was never, never the plan."

He said Extension officials also will consider the possibility of charging fees for some programs for "people who have the ability to pay" and charging for publications, pamphlets and other printed materials now distributed at no cost.