Commissioners address Extension, budget cuts at Rosburg meeting

Dan Cothren and Tom Doumit (George Trott was in Savannah, Georgia on County business) met with a pretty well informed crowd on Tuesday noon at the Rosburg Hall Senior Lunch program.

The main issue on the agenda was the elimination of county funding for the WSU Extension office here in Wahkiakum County but other budget cuts were brought up as well.

Carol Ervest, a Grays River Grange member and a 4-H leader for years, gave a brief history of how the Grange was instrumental in bringing the first Extension agent west of the Mississippi, here to Wahkiakum County in the early days. The extension office has been an important part of providing programs such as 4-H for the youth of our county for many, many years.

In prefacing the expected questions to the commissioners, Esther Gregg noted that all county offices had been requested to cut 5-10 percent of their budgets, across the board. With that said, the question was, “ Why cut the entire budget for the extension services?” Commissioner Cothren stated that these services were not mandated, so should be cut. Commissioner Doumit said that he disagreed with his collegues and was looking for ways to at least partially fund the extension office and that he was “not willing to let it go.”

Craig Brown discussed the Horizons project that is sponsored by the Extension services, and said that they have already generated $20,000 this year with another $10,000 coming in December for job development in both the east and west end of our county. The commissioners were then asked, “What would be a realistic figure to keep the extension office open?” Commissioner Doumit said he was hoping to find $40-$45,000 to partially fund the program so that would leave about $40,000 to make up the shortfall.

4-H programs are sponsored by the WSU Extension office and if the services are not continued, neither would the 4-H programs. Sixty percent of our county fair exhibits and activities are affiliated with 4-H.

Several members of the audience had comments in favor of the 4-H programs. Grays River resident Noreen Fitts said that through 4-H and such programs our kids learn good ethics, responsibility and that she can’t remember any kids getting into trouble in later years, that had participated in these programs. “We should not - absolutely not- cut any programs that teach our kids good things.” “Programs targeted to our youth should not be cut,” Beth Dunham, a 4-H leader for 16 years said. “If we let these programs for kids go once, we will never get them back.”

The WSU Extension office has been extremely instrumental in bringing the small farms to the forefront with the local farm market and local crop sales in Wahkiakum county. Thanks to the hard work of Carrie Kennedy, our extension agent, and her office, we have a renewed interest in our local economy through her efforts in agri-business as well as agri-tourism.

Commissioner Cothren stated that he was not closing his eyes to any suggestions for this draft budget, but he sees no light at the end of the tunnel without these cuts. Some of the mandatory staff cuts include District Court, half person; Auditor’s office, one person; Treasurer’s office, one person; Health District one and a half to two persons; Sheriff’s office, one person; Assessor’s office, one person; and will include cutting services to the public.

Other cuts mentioned by the commissioners were the Wahkiakum County Fair, the noxious weed board and the library, though no monetary figures were mentioned.

One resident asked if the 10 percent cuts also included the salaries of the commissioners and Commissioner Cothren was quick to answer that “it did not, because they were only half time commissioners and that the amount of time they spent on county business took up more than half time.” Commissioner Doumit pointed out that their salaries are set by a salary commission. I took that to mean that they were not willing to cut their office funding by 10 percent as they were asking other offices to do.

Esther Gregg mentioned that the county reserve fund is probably growing at a substantial rate with the increase in interest over the past year. No comment from the commissioners.

With all the budget cutting issues here in Wahkiakum County comes the need to let our commissioners know what we, as voters (the ones who gave them their jobs, and should be considered their bosses), consider acceptable cuts as well as unacceptable cuts.