Contact Us

Willene Buffett
County Director
University of Illinois Extension
8751 Greenwood Avenue, Suites 112-122
Chicago, IL 60619
Phone: 773-768-7779
FAX: 773-768-4818
wbuffett@illinois.edu

Cook County Partners

Cook County Partners

Extension Reorganization Planning Update

Dear Friend of Extension:

I want to extend our thanks to those who attended the final reorganization planning meeting this month. It was a standing-room-only crowd, and residents included those who worked on community planning for the 87th Street and Cottage Grove TIF district, staff members from the Mexican Consulate, CPS elementary schools, area non-profit organizations, and several Extension Council Members.

We want to reassure you that University of Illinois Extension remains dedicated to providing research-based, unbiased information to the people of Cook County. Our core programs in horticulture, nutrition and others remain a priority, and we will work very hard to maintain their strength and effectiveness through this change.

As Extension strives to meet the mission of Illinois' land grant institution to make the research and information from U of I accessible to the people of the state, we know that our dedicated educators are at the core of everything we do.

Art King, Extension State Advisory Council member and former Cook County Council member summed it up best last week when he asked, "If we don't have the educators, who will deliver the research? Who will bring the research to the people?"

We commit to:
- Continued provision of core programs
- Maximizing programming with the resources we have by prioritizing staff over office space
- A keen focus on ensuring all of our programming is unbiased and research-based

As the reorganization process unfolds, we welcome your thoughts and comments via our website's comments form by clicking HERE, via email at cookcounty@extension.uiuc.edu or at 708-481-0111.

Below you will find the budget allocations for the current 2010 budget year, as well as the 2011 allocations currently in the state budget. Please understand that these numbers will change based on the priorities that legislators set through the rest of the budget process.

You can visit www.extensionpartners.org to learn more about communicating with your legislators regarding the importance of Extension programming. I encourage you to become a member of this organization in order to stay abreast of the issues confronting Extension.

The three Extension line items in the Department of Agriculture's budget are: County Board Match 2010: $12,160,000
We Requested for 2011: $14,500,000
State Proposed for 2011: $10,000,000
This is a Reduction of: $2,160,000

Youth Educator 2010: $1,713,900
We Requested for 2011: $1,960,000
State Proposed for 2011: $1,186,500
This is a Reduction of: $527,400

Cook County 2010: $4,736,400
We Requested for 2011: $5,000,000
State Proposed for 2011: $3,497,200
This is a Reduction of: $1,239,200

Thank you for your support of Extension during this fiscal crisis. Below you will find comments from some of the participants at the reorganization meeting. Feel free to contact me to add your own.

Sincerely,

Willene Buffett
Cook County Director
wbuffett@illinois.edu
708-481-0111

Extension cooking class participant: "Since I started attending cooking class I started seeing changes in the way I felt and my weight. [The Extension instructor] saw changes before I did. And now I look forward to attending each month and learning."

Social service provider from Chicago: "After looking across the region for immigration education, nowhere else would we be able to get these services."

Cook County resident: "My concern is the kind of cuts that are being decided upon [by Extension] are happening across the state... I would advocate that people need certain services...one of the messages that is implicit is that there may be more [cuts] coming, and what is not being said is that there needs to be reform. I would urge everyone here to contact their legislators."

Bob Hoeft, Interim Dean of Extension: "We know our youth programs have high impact. In fact I've been told that one of our ways of bolstering our programs is to go to corrections [and ask them for funding] because the youth that go through our programs are less likely to end up in corrections."