HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania State University is making contingency plans to close its network of agricultural extension offices should missing state aid for the current fiscal year not be provided before May, a top campus official said Wednesday.
Penn State Provost Nick Jones, Ph.D, and presidents of three other universities receiving state aid warned of a looming fiscal crisis due to the state budget stalemate. Jones appeared at a Capitol press conference with leaders of Temple University, Lincoln University and the University of Pittsburgh. They spoke after testifying at Senate and House budget hearings.
Jones said everything is on the table, including potential student tuition hikes, cutting expenses and curbing travel, to offset the absence of $224 million in state aid. Penn State is also without $48 million in state aid for the ag extension offices in all 67 counties and agricultural research.
The extension offices provide information and research to farmers, businesses and communities in areas ranging from 4-H programs to certifying food safety and managing water, soil and forest resources.
The absence of state aid can affect 1,100 agriculture faculty and extension office jobs, thousands of volunteers and more than 100,000 people who use the programs, including 4-H students, Jones said. The absence of this state aid jeopardizes Penn State’s ability to draw an additional $91 million in federal and county funds for the extension offices, he said.
“It’s really a very difficult position we find ourselves in,” Jones told lawmakers.
Pennsylvania has operated under a partial $23 billion state budget since late December that doesn’t provide enough funding to cover the entire fiscal year through June for public schools, the corrections department and a range of other programs. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed $7 billion from a budget bill passed by Republican lawmakers saying it lacked enough revenue to support the spending.
The lack of bipartisan agreement on the main budget has stalled action on a separate appropriations bill for the four universities. That bill requires a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate and Wolf’s signature to be enacted.