In May, State Representative Frank Kloucek and Democratic colleagues requested an official attorney general's opinion on the cuts to the state's Cooperative Extension Service. Specifically, Rep. Kloucek et al. argued that the Extension cuts violate the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act and the 1914 Smith Lever Act and imperil South Dakota State University's land grant status.
In an opinion issued Friday, AG Marty Jackley says no way:
The Morrill Act of 1862, 7 U.S.C. § 301 et seq., provided federal lands for the establishment of the nation's agricultural land grant institutions. The Morrill Act of 1862 contains no provision requiring or even referencing the provision of cooperative extension services. Therefore, South Dakota's compliance with the provisions of the Morrill Act is unaffected by the legislature's reductions in appropriations to and reorganization of, the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service. In fact, South Dakota would remain in compliance with the Morrill Act if the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service ceased to exist.
The Smith-Lever Act of 1914, as amended, 7 U.S.C. § 341 et seq., and other federal enactments such as the Agricultural, Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 (AREER), Public Law 105-85, provide federal funding for cooperative extension services that are under the direction of a land grant institution established by the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. The Smith-Lever Act contains conditions and requirements for the receipt of federal funds for cooperative extension services. One major condition of funding is state matching funds. The Smith-Lever Act requires 100% state match from non-federal sources for the federal dollars received. The Board of Regents has advised that even with the reductions contained in the 2011 General Appropriations Act, there are sufficient funds appropriated for the fiscal year 2012 to meet all matching requirements for Smith-Lever Act funds [emphasis mine; Marty J. Jackley, South Dakota Attorney General, OFFICIAL OPINION NO. 11-3, Federal Law Implications of Budget Cuts to the S. D. Cooperative Extension Service, 2011.06.17].
The Smith-Lever Act and AREER also require the land grant institution operating a community extension service program to annually submit to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture for acceptance a plan for providing cooperative extension services. The Board of Regents has advised that South Dakota State University submitted such a plan in April and was notified on May 31, 2011, that the plan had been accepted. The plan SDSU submitted contains the reorganization plans for the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service resulting from the state funding reductions. In my opinion, the Department of Agriculture's acceptance of the plan for the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service settles any question regarding South Dakota's compliance with the requirements of federal law [emphasis mine; Jackley, 2011.06.17].
What is really disturbing about this issue is that the blame is being placed on "budget cuts". The Board of Regents is budgeted to received about a $100 million more in federal funding than what they spent in 2010. SDSU is about $30 million of that increase. The real agenda is "regionalization". It is about centralized control at the expense of local control. That was the same agenda behind Mitchell's city manager idea.