The King County Council will vote this afternoon on the 2010 budget, which preserves domestic-violence and Metro bus funding, but may eliminate funding for all of the programs operated by WSU’s King County Extension program, including 4-H, forestry education, the Master Gardeners program, and Food $ense, a nutrition education program for low-income and minority youth.
Originally, the council’s budget called for reducing funding for the extension program from $672,000 to $109,000—an 84 percent cut. Under the latest council proposal, however, the programs would be axed completely—a move that would also jeopardize a $1.2 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation for the Food and Fitness Initiative, which is contingent on the county maintaining its ties to WSU.
The 84 percent cut, although “severe,” would have “at least allowed King County and WSU to maintain a relationship,” says Randy Engstrom, interim director of KCFFI. If the budget passes as it’s currently written, however, “WSU is going to have to step in and say, ‘We can’t take this grant.’”
In recent years, county-funded programs like 4-H have been increasingly geared toward urban kids who have little access to the outdoors. For example, the Food and Fitness Initiative operates programs that aim to increase kids’ access to healthy foods; increase physical education for kids; and increase access to fresh, affordable food in low-income areas like Delridge, where the organization is trying to get a full-service grocery store. 4-H, meanwhile, includes programs to teach kids about robotics, forestry, community gardening and environmental stewardship. They also encourage city folks to visit and patronize local farms.
“We specifically target the urban population,” says Brad Goalach, director of King County Extension. “Urban people who actually go out to farms are more wiling to support ordinances that preserve farmland and more willing to buy local food,” which in turn helps protect the county’s endangered farmland from encroaching sprawl, Goalach says.
The council is reportedly considering an amendment that could keep the programs alive, at least temporarily, by giving it a little money in a supplemental budget to be adopted later this year. That would, in theory, allow WSU to keep its grant, although there’s no guarantee the programs would be preserved in the next few years, when the council will likely have to cut the county budget again.
One bit of positive farm-related news: The latest version of the county budget preserves funding for farm-promotion programs like Puget Sound Fresh, which supports local farmers, promotes community-supported agriculture, and supports farmers markets throughout the county.
The council will take public comments and vote on the budget today at 2:00.
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For God’s sake raise taxes!
Just because we don’t have the funding for these programs in the current budget cycle does not mean we can afford to do without them. Losing a $1.2 million federal grant, along with all the other services Extension provides, because we can’t come up with $109,000 this year is insane budgeting.
Killing Master Gardeners kills tens of thousands of volunteer hours per year coordinated by the program, which will be devastating to outreach programs, farmer’s markets (all of which have volunteer-staffed MG booths and lines of people every weekend), home gardeners, and youth!
Money spent to promote sales at farmers markets and to educate people about them is one of the biggest available bangs for the local economic development buck.
That money all stays in the community or the immediate region. It supports startup and small operators in the local farm economy, and not asparagus from Peru, lamb from New Zealand, or factory farm products from the United States and Canada.
Moreover, it is, directly and indirectly, an investment in our region’s public health. Meat, eggs, dairy products, and produce that are produced locally and sold in farmers markets are fresher from farm to table, with shorter travel times and distances.
In other words, the the shorter the distance from farm to you, and the sooner you get it, the more nutritious it is, and the healthier we will all be if we eat it.
This seems like a shortsighted economy. As has already been said, local farm programs are cost-efficient ways to preserve farmland, reduce global warming, and save agricultural jobs. I could understand it if cuts were even across non-discretionary programs, but 84% isn’t proportionate.
I watched the tail end, and apparently they finished voting on the budget in record time, even after stopping to pay tribute to the departing Drago and McIver. They were done by 3-ish. Lots of hyper-quick 9-0 votes, and I think they stopped a grand total of twice to discuss the budget, and one of those times was Rasmussen wondering what one of the terms in a line item meant.
Money spent to promote sales at farmers markets and to educate people about them is one of the biggest available bangs for the local economic development buck.
That money all stays in the community or the immediate region. It supports startup and small operators in the local farm economy, and not asparagus from Peru, lamb from New Zealand, or factory farm products from the United States and Canada.
Moreover, it is, directly and indirectly, an investment in our region's public health. Meat, eggs, dairy products, and produce that are produced locally and sold in farmers markets are fresher from farm to table, with shorter travel times and distances.
In other words, the the shorter the distance from farm to you, and the sooner you get it, the more nutritious it is, and the healthier we will all be if we eat it.