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BWSR Meeting Minutes January 23, 2002 Page Eight bigger program in the future and may look at local governments starting to pay for some of these positions due to the budget cuts. The Manure Lab Certification Program where MDA works with the University may be eliminated in 2004. The University and MDA will continue this program with one staff. The ethonal proposal is to go from .20 cents a gallon to .18 cents a gallon. Most of the plants have expanded. The expansions are not. in the ten-year program. With regard to the contracts MDA has with the U of M Extension and other agencies, the Commissioner is working on this issue and would like to continue the partnership with all agencies. Some of the Sustainable Ag technical contracts will be reduced but not eliminated. The Beaver Damage Control program will be eliminated. MDA and MDH are in a bonding bill to co-locate a new lab. Administration is going to propose a new building for the Department of Agriculture. It will not be connected to the Health building and may be located on Lafayette Road. Jim Anderson, Minnesota Extension Service (MES), discussed the reorganization at the last meeting. MES was originally looking at a 10 to 15 percent cut relative to the reallocation and structuring. Now with the state budget cuts they are looking at an additional 5 to 10 percent. We are now at 25 percent relative to the Extension situation. Last month MES entered into the first stage of the reallocation which included early retirements. They are currently in the second phase, which is focused on field staff. Legislative hearings on this have been held and legislative forums statewide. They are looking at four to 20 positions being reduced on campus. The President of the University said that they will not fund Extension through tuition. Extension needs to be looking at funding through outreach activities. Extension did have two positions funded through a line item in the Department of Agriculture for manure management education and they have been playing a large role in producer workshops relative to feedlot issues. As of 2003 these positions will disappear. Dan Wilson, Department of Health (MDH), reported on the Well Program and the Drinking Water Program. The overwhelming majority of drinking water money is not general fund. The Drinking Water Program gets it's funding primarily through EPA grants and through the connection fee and that's not impacted. The Well Program gets 100 percent of its revenue from fees. And we are increasing fees approximately every four years. During the last session we were granted a fee increase that has become effective this July. We should be okay for the next three maybe four years. Lisa Thorvig, Pollution Control Agency (PCA) reported that only 13 .percent of their funding comes from the general fund. We are mainly fees and federally funded. The bad news is the part of PCA that is funded by general fund is mainly our water programs. We have been asked to take a 10 percent. cut in our general fund for the next four years, which is about four million dollars every two years. Lisa distributed information regarding the accounting summary and change item description that