4-H program cut from Washington County's budget

A century-old tradition fell to budget cuts Tuesday as Washington County commissioners voted to eliminate county funding for 4-H, the youth development program, in September.

The 4-1 decision came after several 4-H supporters made rousing appeals to board members to save the jobs of Ann Church and Anja Koester, the two full-time program coordinators who are paid $64,900 apiece annually to lead the 4-H effort in Washington County. Several of the speakers portrayed 4-H as a crime prevention organization that gives youth direction and hope.

Washington County is now the first of Minnesota's 87 counties to have severed all ties with University of Minnesota Extension programs, said Assistant Dean Aimee Viniard-Weideman. Last fall, the county cut funding for Master Gardener, another Extension program.

Thousands of Minnesota youth participate in 4-H, a 100-year-old program that has roots in the state's farming past but has evolved to include leadership projects in modern interests such as photography and science and technology. Regional 4-H leaders worry that as money gets tighter, other counties will follow Washington County's trend and cut funding.

After Tuesday's vote, in which Commissioner Lisa Weik dissented, most of the crowd of about 100 supporters wearing the organization's trademark four-leaf clover filed silently out of the board room.

"Where the program goes from here I really don't know," said Steve Anderson of Stillwater, a 4-H parent and a member of the Washington County fair board. Anderson and his wife, Carrie, have two teenage sons in 4-H. He said their family doesn't understand why commissioners wouldn't cut elsewhere to save a program that benefits more than 500 young people.

"We've had a tremendous amount of government assets built in the last five years," Anderson said, gesturing to the $59.6 million county government center expansion project in Stillwater, started in 2007, that is taking shape across the lawn from the board room.

"Washington County does face a severe economic situation here," Commissioner Dennis Hegberg told the 4-H supporters before the vote. He thanked them for their "proper and dignified manner" but said the combination of Legislature-imposed levy limits and an eroding tax base was forcing commissioners into tough financial choices.

The board's decision to end the funding in September will allow 4-H participants to continue their projects for the Washington County Fair and then State Fair this summer, commissioners said. But Weik was alone in her attempt to keep one of the full-time coordinators employed through December to give 4-H more time to find other funding sources.

Commissioner Gary Kriesel said he was working with the business community to find a new source of money, but also expressed concern that 4-H membership had declined in recent years despite a sharp upward swing in the county's population.

"We're not doing a good job in reaching out to these kids," he said.

"Very disappointed" was how Church described her reaction to Tuesday's decision. Church, a former 4-H member whose four children are in 4-H now, said the 4-H community can't understand why Washington County can't support the program while many smaller counties find a way to do it.