Three prominent South Dakota legislators are asking the state attorney general to determine whether cuts to the state's Cooperative Extension Service violate federal law. Rep. Frank Kloucek (D-19/Scotland), Rep. Peggy Gibson (D-22/Huron), and Sen. Jason Frerichs (D-1/Wilmot) have asked A.G. Marty Jackley to issue an official opinion on whether the dramatic reductions and restructuring of Extension services announced by South Dakota State University last month put South Dakota on the wrong side of federal law.
The actions by members of the governor's office, majority party legislative leadership, and SDSU administration with approval of the Board of Regents, has the potential to place SDSU in danger of losing its Land Grant University status and may be in direct violation of the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act and the 1914 Smith Lever Act. There is no doubt these actions will lead to inadequate extension services and will be a striking contrast to the traditional services offered for almost a century [Rep. Frank Kloucek, press release, 2011.05.14].
Answering the legal questions Kloucek may depend on evaluating the adequacy of services the reduced regional Extension system will be able to provide. Rep. Gibson and Sen. Frerichs warn the cuts will have serious economic impacts on rural communities:
The Extension Service provides vital information to South Dakota's farmers and cutting funding to programs that make the industry stronger is crippling. Unemployment and cuts to research and education is not the way to grow our economy [Rep. Peggy Gibson].
The Extension Service has a reputation for creating opportunities in our state's rural communities; regionalizing only encourages good people to move away from rural areas [Sen. Jason Frerichs, press release, 2011.05.14].
The comments from Gibson and Frerichs remind me of a new initiative Governor Dennis Daugaard has in the works. Since last year's campaign, Governor Daugaard has been promoting the creation of a corps of "small-town specialists," experts who would help small rural communities keep and create jobs. Kloucek, Gibson, and Frerichs might contend we already have such small-town specialists: they're the extension agents already in every county of the state... agents whom the Daugaard budget cuts will mostly eliminate.
I don't know if that violates Morrill or Smith Lever, but cutting extension agents when we need small-town specialists does seem counterproductive.
Citing laws from 1862 and 1914 (prior to automobiles, computers, cell phones) is fine if we still lived back in that era, but we don't. This is 2011. Most ag producers own computers, we all own vehicles and travel is different today than it was 150 years ago when we only had horse and buggy. Creating regional offices won't create inadequate extension services considering every other state around us has consolidated the same services with great success, leaving South Dakota as the traditional hold out. Change is never easy, but the world of information distribution has changed in the past 150 years and extension service programs should continue to evolve and regionalize.
Perhaps Governor Daugaard's small-town specialists could be holograms?
Those regional offices should be in small towns like Ipswich, Howard, or Freeman not the Pierre, RC, Aberdeen, and Mitchell. Those 100 jobs would be more valuable in a small town.
Horsefeathers. The well intentioned legislators and other guardians of the status quo, and the governor, are wrong. They are shouting into the wind of 110 years of Euro-American experience on the prairie. We need county extension in each of our excessive numbers of counties just like we need a full-time judge in each; or like we need 150+ school districts across the state. Many counties are on a 110+ year depopulation trend. The only "small towns" that will benefit from the governor's misuse of economic development money are those who do not need it - the suburbs and satellites to SF, RC, or those sitting on the interstate corridors.
The trend of abandoning rural areas is human nature in response to economic, cultural, and other stimuli. We can either acknowledge and accept it and deal with the world as it exists or we can continue foolishly throwing away good money after bad - using hope-as-a-method to instigate change without precedent and unfathomable in human experience.
Read, Half Empty: The Slow, Painful Demise of Rural Germany.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,759377,00.html
Same song, different lyrics, same end-state.
Let me get this straight: Because a law was passed in 1862 or 1914, it no longer applies, even though it wasn't repealed or superseded by another law? Interesting. What other laws can we ignore just because they're, like, totally old n' stuff? Does the "It's really old!" argument negate parts of the constitution, too, like universal suffrage or ending Prohibition?
Let me get this straight: a law is violated because someone alleges so? What provision of the law(s)? by what actions? Nothing in either act precludes the state from consolidating, regionalizing delivery of extension services, closing some services, reorganizing others. The laws have provisions "fencing" extension funds to preclude diversion of, or other use of those funds. Is that the allegation? If so, so state. Otherwise the well-intentioned legislators and apologists come across as a solution in search of a problem. On the other hand it wouldn't be the first time SD blissfully violated federal law . . . (BTW the Smith-Lever Act was amended in 2002; about a century after the advent of motorized travel and in the age of solar energy (which it addressed).)