Posts Tagged: Hansen

ANR develops cost-recovery strategy to improve REC facilities

UC ANR leadership is proud of its outstanding network of nine Research and Extension Centers across the state. Including academic salaries and temporary funding, UC ANR invests close to $14 million annually in the REC system. We are committed to continuing to make an investment of this magnitude, recognizing the importance of each individual REC, and the REC system to our research and extension missions. 

A freeze on state operations and maintenance funding since 2006, and a virtual absence of deferred maintenance funds, necessitates a close look at how the annual investment is used so as to position the RECs for a long, successful future. UC ANR leadership is taking the long view to its programmatic collaboration and growth. As a result, we are developing a strategy for cost recovery to continue to operate and improve the facilities so that we can better serve researchers and their research and extension activities – well into the next decade, not just the next three to five years.

Key attributes of the strategy include:

• improved clarity of how full-cost research rates are calculated and how researcher costs are derived, based on a researcher's specific and agreed upon needs for labor and facilities,
• establishment of rates four to six months in advance of the effective date for the rate (i.e. rates published in January for projects beginning in July, or some variation of) in recognition of the need to project costs in advance of research start date,
• development of a cost structure that reflects different project needs and differences in costs required to support the needs, and
• ability to confirm researcher costs for specific, itemized research needs over a multi-year timeframe at time of proposal submission to a funding agency.

A move to this new way of calculating research rates will take some time to establish across all nine RECs. Our goal is to have this rolled out between January and March 2018 and to go into effect for any projects (new, renewed or expanded usage) beginning July 1, 2018. This is an ambitious goal given the review and approval process in place that ensures fairness of proposed methodology and charges. However, we are committed to making this a high priority in order to improve the research experience.

To assess feasibility of the approach, the Desert REC will move to a new model in the very near term and serve as a pilot study for the July 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018 timeframe. The new model includes different rates for different services (land, water, pesticides, labor, etc.). The new model applies at Desert REC for both new and continuing projects and provides the opportunity to identify any issues early on and make the necessary adjustments. The remaining RECs will develop research rates for REC services over the next few months and the new model will be refined and adapted in 2018-2019 for the remaining eight RECs.

For 2017-2018, researchers continuing projects at all RECs, except Desert REC and West Side REC, should plan on an additional 10 percent to their 2016-2017 research rate to cover increases in salaries and benefit rates and reflect a reduced subsidy by center funds applied to the full cost rate. New and renewed projects will be billed at a researcher rate of $27.46 per hour. A new project is one that has not been submitted to, and approved by, the REC previously. This higher rate reflects the need to reduce the subsidy applied to the full cost rate.

Researchers at West Side REC will be billed at a rate 10 percent above the 2016-2017 West Side REC research rate for all projects.

Developing a new strategy for setting research rates based on different rates for different services will take time, thus the decision to move forward as outlined above. The pilot assessment at Desert REC will illustrate the impacts of a new strategy on both researchers and business operations and help identify best practices to support the transition to a new strategy. We are committed to maintaining a system of RECs that are positioned to address present and emerging research needs for the long term and meet the planning needs of researchers.

Research and Extension Center	New projects and projects renewed at the end of the 3-year cycle	Continuing projects (2nd and 3rd year)
Desert	Charges based on services utilized (acreage, water, labor etc.)
West Side	2016-17 rate + 10%	2016-17 rate + 10%
Hansen, Hopland, Intermountain, Kearney, Lindcove, Sierra Foothill, South Coast	$27.46	2016-17 rate + 10%

Wendy Powers 
Associate Vice President  

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

Research-based irrigation saves water

The Hansen Research and Extension Center hosted a water workshop this week, touching on a topic that is one of the University of California's top priorities, according to an article in the Ventura County Star.

“We want to make sure the community knows about what Hansen is doing and share some of the research sponsored by Hansen," the story quoted Jose de Soto, the center director.

Sixty to 90 percent of residential water is used outside the home, but typically gardeners irrigate based on estimates of plant water needs, Ventura County farm advisor Jim Downer said.

“They are not research-based,” Downer was quoted in the article. “They are based on what people think will happen.”

Downer said he has established plants in four different climates of California, watering them at varying rates to measure the needed usage.

“We’re not growing crops or looking for yield. If it looks good, there’s no need to water,” Downer said.

 

Proper irrigation saves water.

Santa Barbara funds CE; Faulkner Farm supporters write letters to editors

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to save the local UC Cooperative Extension programs by approving additional funding, according to the Aug. 11 Lompoc Record.

“State cuts to the UC system, combined with local funding reductions, would have reduced the Extension program’s presence in Santa Barbara County to practically nothing without the infusion of cash from the Board of Supervisors,” writes reporter Sam Womack.

In other South Coast news, Ventura County residents have been writing letters to the editors of the Ventura County Star and the Santa Paula Times voicing opposition to the Hansen Trust Advisory Board’s recommendation to sell Faulkner Farm.

In the Aug. 9 Ventura County Star, Douglas Nelson and Nicholas Deitch of Mainstreet Architects + Planners write that they were hired by UC to provide a Master Plan for the Hansen Agricultural Center at Faulkner Farm.

“We worked for over a year with the first Hansen Trust Advisory Board, UC staff, UC Cooperative Extension and design focus groups from the local community,” they wrote. “Through a collaborative process, we developed a long-range plan for the Hansen Trust - a plan that was based on principles and goals reflecting the vision of benefactor Thelma Hansen.” They call the recommendation to sell Faulkner Farm “a very short-sighted decision.”

In the Aug. 6 Santa Paula Times (available only in print form currently), Mike Mobley and Ginger Gherardi of Santa Paula urge readers to “help in preventing this travesty by writing a letter” to President Yudof and VP Dooley.

Retired director says Faulkner Farm is fulfilling mission

In a strongly worded op-ed published yesterday in the Ventura County Star, the retired director of UC Cooperative Extension in Ventura County, Larry Yee, said the historic Faulkner Farm continues to fulfill the mission of the Hansen Trust and should not be sold.

The op-ed came in response to a recent decision by the trust's advisory board to recommend that UC sell the farm.

Beginning in 1989, Yee worked personally with then 90-year-old Ms. Thelma Hansen, who was interested in applying her family's sizable fortune to sustain local agriculture. When she passed away in 1993, she left almost all of the family estate -- nearly $12 million -- to UC to create the Hansen Trust to benefit and sustain local agriculture through research and education.

Yee wrote in his op-ed that he had many conversations with Ms. Hansen from 1990 to 1993, when he was overseeing her care.

"She made it abundantly and unequivocally clear that she desired a center for agricultural research and education be created and developed with her gift," Yee said.

And, he said, in consultation with University attorneys, the trust advisory board saw no need to change the language of Ms. Hansen's 1990 trust document because it covered such a facility.

Over the years, Yee said, the Hansen Agricultural Center at Faulkner Farm has developed into a respected county treasure, recognized throughout the state and country for its work with research and educational programs that well served agriculture in Ventura County.

"It is my hope that the UC administrators and the UC Board of Regents will categorically reject this shortsighted and irresponsible request to sell the Faulkner Farm and dismantle the Hansen Agricultural Center," the op-ed says.

Water conservation study using landscape plants at the Faulkner Farm.

Op-ed outlines board's reasoning for farm sale

An op-ed written by members of the Hansen Trust Advisory Board appeared in the Sunday Ventura County Star with details about the board's reasoning for recommending that the University of California sell the Faulkner Farm in Santa Paula.

John Krist, Chris Sayer and Edgar Terry wrote that the historic Faulkner Farm, which now operates as the Hansen Agricultural Center, did not provide the boon for agriculture that was expected when the facility was acquired by the trust 13 years ago.

On the contrary, "ownership of the property has saddled the organization with crippling financial and logistical burdens," the authors wrote.

The op-ed says Thelma Hansen's objective when she bequeathed much of her estate to the University of California in 1990 was to support and maintain University research and extension activities and related facilities in Ventura County.

However, a large share of the Hansen Trust's annual budget has been devoted to maintaining the Faulkner Farm's historic structures and grounds. Only 10 percent of the trust’s annual budget of approximately $1 million is now available for direct support of activities benefiting local agriculture.

The Hansen Agricultural Center entrance.

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