More on the Cornell Cooperative Extension budget cut
The D&C had a front page piece on the new Monroe Community College’s new Agriculture and Life Sciences Institute yesterday. You may recall that this new Institute is being funded with money that was cut from the Cornell Cooperative Extension program. The D&C article doesn’t offer too much information but it does reiterate some of the strange facts about the sudden, possibly politically-motivated shift of funds:
The institute was formed late last year when Monroe County legislators, at the end of a six-hour budget meeting, cut $175,000 from support of the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Monroe County, giving the money to MCC to establish the center. The extension office had no advance notice about the cut — nearly half of the $400,000 it receives annually from the county — or about the center.
(snip)
Because of the county funding cut, the county extension office has cut 20 percent of its staff — five people, O’Neill said. “Obviously that will mean reductions in some programs,” she said. “We’re still evaluating where those impacts will be.”
The whole thing sounds fishy to me.
Cornell is rated as one of the best Ag schools in the nation, while MCC is a freaking community college. Admittedly, you don’t need the nation’s best entomologist to tell you how to get aphids off your rose bushes, but presumably the CCE is better hooked into the latest trends.
I think the real reason for the switch in funds is a backroom sweetheart deal and/or the fact that MCC’s main campuses are in Henrietta while the CCE is in the city.