Oregon county might defund 4-H/OSU Extension over religion rules
Published 10:00 am Wednesday, June 19, 2024

- Tim Hearden/Capital Press Quinn Rosser, 13, of Red Bluff, Calif., greets passers-by while wearing a 4-H clover suit at a downtown open house to highlight local clubs. The event on Oct. 12 capped off National 4-H Week.
Fallout from a flap over religious expression is again threatening to defund 4-H and Oregon State University Extension Service programs in Josephine County, Ore., but this time the blow might be fatal.
Two of three members of the county’s Board of Commissioners — John West and Herman Baertschiger Jr. — voted preliminarily during a June 11 budget meeting against the program’s budget and related tax collection, with a second hearing scheduled to take place June 24 and a final vote due June 26.
Last year, West and Baertschiger did the same thing, forcing the program to rely on reserves, but if it happens again this year, the Extension Service office now located at the Josephine County Fairgrounds will shut down, according to Jamie Davis, Southern Oregon Regional director for OSU Extension.
“There will not be a local program here,” Davis said in a telephone interview after the meeting, held at the Anne Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass. “These are all services that will take a step back and not be available in Josephine County.”
The Extension Service provides youth education, Master Gardener and farm support programs, among others. More than a dozen members of the public spoke at the meeting in defense of the programs.
Details have yet to be worked out about how and when to shut the doors if funding doesn’t materialize, but 4-H programming would last at least through the county fair in August.
“OSU will do a thoughtful closeout,” Davis said. “That transition will take a few months. We want to part ways with the community in a really thoughtful manner.”
However, Davis still holds out hope that it never comes to that.
“We are really hopeful and optimistic our budget (and tax collections) will be approved by county commissioners,” she said.
In 1996, after the county reduced its funding for Extension programs, voters approved a special district and tax rate to fund those services. But commissioners last year opted not to collect those taxes, and are threatening to do so again this year. Taxes this year would amount to $4.59 per $100,000 of assessed value, or $13.77 on a home assessed at $300,000. The tax revenue would generate an estimated $441,800 and would pay for 3.5 positions and office costs, with OSU picking up an additional $515,057 tab for another 10.5 positions, including faculty, some of whom serve multiple counties.
The county-state cost-sharing arrangement is practiced elsewhere in Oregon, with counties paying office and overhead costs and the state picking up faculty costs. If county support goes away, however, so do the faculty positions. The county leases office space to the program for $1 annually.
West and Baertschiger have focused their dissatisfaction on the fact that many 4-H participants left the program last year in favor of a new group, Youth in Ag, which embraces religion.
“This whole mess started when the vast majority of them left and went and did their own thing because they didn’t like the way they were being treated,” Baertschiger said Tuesday. “That hasn’t been reconciled.”
Baertschiger, who lobbied back in 1996 to create the taxing district, contended it was sold to voters as a way to fund the 4-H livestock program. The actual language of the measure as outlined in the county’s Voters Pamphlet that year mentions a range of programs in addition to 4-H, including agriculture, forestry, home economics and community development.
“Don’t you think it’s a problem we levy taxes that was based on kids in the livestock program but now those monies are no longer going there?” Baertschiger asked.
West said, “The bottom line is, there’s not hardly many kids left in the program.”
Participation in 4-H dropped from about 300 to 130 currently, with many families leaving to join Youth in Ag because they were unhappy with Extension policies regarding religion.
Kim Gasperson, a former 4-H volunteer leader, told commissioners at last year’s budget hearing that the 4-H program had excluded children “because their sponsor was a religious organization,” while Jen McGowan, president of Youth in Ag, said 4-H program supporters want to exclude religion.
“One of the things you want to say is, ‘Keep religion out of it,'” McGowen said. “Well, on the back of the dollar bill it says, ‘In God We Trust.'”
“I can speak for the parents that are in Youth in Ag,” she told commissioners. “They fully support you and all of their family members would completely support you defunding that.”
The Youth in Ag organization was formed in February of last year “exclusively for charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes,” according to paperwork McGowan filed with the Oregon Secretary of State. McGowan, who is a member of the county Fair Board, did not address commissioners on Tuesday and did not reply to an emailed request for comment.
Neither McGowan nor Gasperson addressed reports that youths had been asked to turn their T-shirts inside out because they displayed a cross.
Davis, asked on Wednesday what prompted the exodus, declined to discuss specifics.
“We’re moving forward,” she said.
The Extension Service’s website provides a frequently-asked-questions section that addresses religious neutrality.
“4-H does not exclude anyone based on religion,” it states. “Personal religious expression by participants that does not convey government endorsement of a specific religion or exclude others is permissible.”
OSU’s 4-H policy, adopted five years ago, outlines the rules:
“As a publicly funded program serving youth, the activities of the 4-H program must be consistent with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as the Oregon Constitution. 4-H programs may not include religious activities and cannot include specific and overt references to a specific religious belief in club names or symbols.”
According to the policy, volunteers and youth may wear their own clothing or jewelry with religious symbols and may engage in private religious activity during 4-H activities, although group prayer led by a volunteer or employee leader is not permissible.
Commissioner Dan DeYoung was the lone member of the board favoring the Extension Service budget and tax collections, saying at Tuesday’s meeting that elimination of county funding means OSU funding goes away, too.
“You’re throwing out the whole damn family with the bath water,” he said.
According to Davis’ presentation to commissioners, budgeted faculty include four members assigned to agricultural programs, including a Master Gardener program with 125 volunteers who provided 588 hours of outreach service in 2023. In addition, one faculty and two assistants are assigned to nutrition education; one is assigned to community health; and two are assigned to forestry and natural resources.
Also, one faculty member and one assistant are assigned to 4-H and youth development, with activities including clubs, camps, in-school programs, workshops and special events engaging more than 1,000 young people.
For more information, visit the Josephine County Extension Service website, at beav.es/c2T.