This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 11, 2009 - Gov. Jay Nixon may have quelled a possible mutiny from rural legislators when he announced this afternoon that he had submitted an amendment to his FY 2010 budget that adds more than $10.1 million to the appropriation for the extension programs at the University of Missouri and Lincoln University.
Nixon said in a statement that his administration had found "surplus funds remaining after the construction at the new women’s correctional facility at Chillicothe."
Nixon's initial budget proposal cut the programs by $15.4 million, touching off an uproar among rural legislators, the universities and the Farm Bureau. Extension programs are particularly popular in rural areas, where they provide support for such programs as school nutrition and 4-H. The state cut also would have prompted trims in the extension system's federal grant money, which hinged on the state aid or match.
Some legislators likened Nixon's apparent political misstep to that of his predecessor, Republican Matt Blunt, when his new administration cut the funding for the state's "First Steps'' early childhood education. That cut touched off a controversy among parents of the children helped by the program, which targeted children with disabilities.
Nixon's statement today didn't allude to any of the controversy over his initial extension cuts. Rather, the statement simply said that "the university extension programs were one of the last programs cut, so when Gov. Nixon identified these surplus finds, this was the first priority to be restored."
