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property tax and my inventory tax undergirds the cost of county 

 government, and just the issues that we have heard — for instance, 

 a low birth weight baby in our county — and I've been talking to 

 other county commissioners to try to get this program off the 

 ground. Extension already addresses this with training for teenage 

 pregnancies. 



A low birth weight baby will cost on the average — and I've been 

 using $30,000, and my county hospital tells me I'm too low now. 

 But it only takes five low birth weight babies to come to normal 

 birth weight to pay for my total county extension budget. That 

 coimty extension budget services 1,000 4-H members, about 650 to 

 700 homemakers, it services all of agriculture, it services commu- 

 nity development as we utilize our ag agents, it services the horti- 

 culture needs and their urban cousins, who have lots of needs with 

 their lawn and gardens. I'm talking about the total budget. Five 

 low birth weight babies will pay for that, the savings on those 

 alone. 



We're looking at, in my county, the county welfare budget. When 

 I look back over the last 4 years, it's doubling every 2 years. I was 

 in the State legislature 3 months ago, and I said, "Folks, it may 

 double again in 2 years and again in 2 years, but we won't pay the 

 bill. We have to address why it's rising so fast, and we're not ad- 

 dressing the education side of it." I asked the welfare director, 

 "How many families have you moved off of welfare this past year?" 

 There was none. I said, "With the families that you're working with 

 and cultivating, how many do you see you're going to take off the 

 rolls next year?" There was none. So I see the family skills, man- 

 agement skills, health skills that Extension has to offer covdd effec- 

 tively play a role in lessening the cost of the tax dollar in my coun- 

 ty. 



What does that have to do with agriculture? Agriculture 

 undergirds those tax dollars, and that creates a scenario that I'm 

 less competitive in the world market because my costs are higher. 

 So I look at Extension addressing a broad sector of my community 

 and neighborhood on many areas outside of just production agri- 

 culture itself. We have the skills, we have the people trained, we 

 have the research done. Pilot projects have been done, but cannot 

 be addressed on a broad basis because of lack of funding. 



I'm excited about possibilities in the future for Extension and our 

 communities. We are undergirding this rather heavily in our com- 

 munity. Extension in our county, the county government picks up 

 70 percent of the total cost. In our State, our counties are picking 

 up approximately 56 percent of the total cost of extension. What 

 you're providing here in Washington certainly leverages a healthy 

 partnership out in my State. 



Mr. Stenholm. I want to have one more round, but 111 recognize 

 Mr. Dooley. 



Mr. Dooley. I just have a couple questions. I guess what's driv- 

 ing a lot of concern is how do we get the greatest return on the 

 investments we're making, and I guess a lot of that, when we're 

 leveraging Federal funds by State dollars as well as private dol- 

 lars — I guess you've identified them as three different types of 

 funding. Is there a difference between the applicability or the avail- 

 ability of incorporating or partnering with the private or pubhc sec- 



