Experiment station faces budget cuts

by Robert Nolte 

HUNTLEY — The state budget crunch will hit the experiment station in Huntley and before it’s over, the cuts may be as deep as 25 percent.

Last week, the seven experiment stations in Montana and the extension service were told they would face an 8 percent slash in funding. Budgets for the system’s administration, including the commissioner’s office, were cut by 14 percent.

In the last legislative session, the Huntley station saw its funding cut by 5 percent and more cuts may be on the way this fiscal year as lawmakers in Helena continue to cut programs and reduce personnel.

Ken Kephart, superintendent of the Southern Agriculture Research Center at Huntley, said “people are programs” and added that he has not heard what the final figures for his region are. “There may be 20 to 25 percent budget cuts before it’s all over,” he said.

Kephart also oversees the state’s six other experiment stations that also face budget cuts. The Huntley station employs eight full-time employees and one part-time person. It is one of the smaller stations in Montana. The research center services nine counties in the southeast region.

Before the Montana Board of Regents met last week, a plan to reduce experiment station and extension service budgets by 10 percent was on the table. After the public hearing was over, the board had whittled it down to 8 percent.

At least one powerful ag voice in the state filed its objections before the hearing. The Bozeman-based Montana Farm Bureau Federation said it wasn’t fair that state government departments were facing only 5 percent budget cuts when agricultural interests had to give up more.

“Agriculture has been and will continue to be the largest sector of the Montana economy into the foreseeable future,” said Farm Bureau president Bob Hanson in a letter to the Board of Regents. “Montana farms and ranches contributed nearly $3.8 billion dollars to the state’s economy in 2008.  Farmers and ranchers face competition on a global scale and must compete with other states and countries for market share and technological advances.”

Hanson said the two tools that have allowed them to remain viable on this scale are the Montana Agriculture Experiment Stations (MAES) and Montana Cooperative Extension Service.  “Experiment stations have developed seed varieties and sustainable practices that put our agriculturalists at the forefront of world markets.  The Extension Service has developed outreach to ensure those tools are available to the folks on the ground,” said Hanson.

Wrangling over budget numbers will continue in Helena for several months, and it may not be until after the legislative session ends early next year that all the impacts are known.