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Iowa State Extension announces restructuring plans

Responding to state budget cuts, officials of Iowa State University’s Extension program have announced restructuring plans.

ISU vice president forextension and outreach Jack Payne announced the plan to all staff and extension council members Thursday morning. “This plan will reduce administrative costs and move extension from a geographically-based structure to an issues-based model,” says Payne.

Among thechanges—five area director positions and all five area offices will be closed. The county extension educator director—or C-E-E-D—positions also will be eliminated. In their place, 20 regional positions will be created across the state.

Under the plan, the currentpartnership agreement between ISU and the county extension councils has been dissolved. But Payne says county extension councils will have the ability to retain offices in every county, if they choose to do so.

Payne says approximately 25 extension positions on the ISUcampus will also be eliminated.

Officials says they hope to have the transition complete by year-end.

“We will be receiving federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Payne explains. “These dollars can beused as a bridge to help us transition into the new structure—and will alleviate the immediate reduction of staff and allow us to work on transitioning throughout the coming months.”

Currently, there are 97 county extension directors in Iowa.