ELLSWORTH – University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension Services may soon look very different in Pierce County, after the county’s Finance & Personnel Committee Sept. 2 voted to forward a recommendation to the county board to reduce contractual services with UW Extension and the department’s budget for 2026.

“Considering our exiting year’s budget performance, there are going to be some budget challenges that we have to overcome,” said County Administrator Jason Matthys. “We don’t know specifically what it’s going to be. We’re in the neighborhood of $1.4 million that we have to make up.”

In a memo to F&P members, Matthys said the county’s 2026 budget will be “extremely challenging” and present financial obstacles, including reduced federal funding that will impact services and associated costs.

He further said the county is currently examining every single position when it’s vacant on whether it should be filled or not.

“It’s also further important and inherent to examine mandated and nonmandated programming, due to reduction in federal funding,” Matthys said. “We don’t even know the full extent of what that is going to be.”

According to the memo, the UW Extension has evolved over the years to its current model, in which all staff people providing UW Extension services (horticulture educator, crops educator, nutrition educator, etc.) are state staff and often shared by more than one county. The funding for these positions, in most cases, is cost shared between the county and state, and is agreed to annually by contract.

“Some time ago, the county had opted to support Extension activities in the county and for a number of years we had a very strong Extension department in the county,” Matthys said. “But technology has advanced itself so that they can capture a lot of those services online rather than have one-on-one’s in office.”

For the 2025 budget, Pierce County shared two positions with three other counties: crops and soils and dairy educators. St. Croix County opted to no longer support those positions, which led the Pierce County Agriculture & Extension Committee to leave those two positions vacant.

“However, the county opted to reinvest and support 4H,” Matthys said. “But in looking forward, what is our outlook for Extension and knowing that we need to make some changes in staffing?” Matthys said.

The proposed budget for UW Extension in Pierce County for 2026 is $161,018, and of that amount, $144,063 are contracted staffing costs, Matthys said. In collaboration with Area Extension Director Kari Weiss, Matthys examined the proposed staffing structure and associated programs to determine how best to maintain the 4H education program and yet reduce the total budgetary costs.

“I reached out to Kari Weiss, let her know that there may be some challenges with us continuing to support Extension activities,” Matthys said. “But at the same time, when we look at Extension as a whole, which components are the most heavily used in Pierce County? That is 4H.”

“An alternate 2026 budget was drafted to reduce the total contracted staffing costs from $144,063 to $82,813. (-$61,250),” the memo states. “This would allow for the 4H education program to continue with 1 FTE educator and .5 FTE support staff. These staff and associated program would still be managed by the Area Extension Director as it is today.”

Matthys also recommended the committee consider combining the Ag Extension and Fair committees due to their shared programming interests. This would reduce the department budget by an additional $2,155 that is currently budgeted for meeting per diems.

Weiss also recommended eliminating software purchases, 4H awards, printing and supplies, reducing the budget by an additional $7,250.

Ultimately, Matthys recommended an overall budget of $90,363 for UW Extension services in 2026, a reduction of $70,655.

“I worked with Kari (Weiss) on ways to continue to support 4H,” Matthys said. “She was diligent and took a deep dive on how this could work.”

The committee voted to forward the recommendation to the Pierce County Board.