Loudoun Ponders Axing the County Horticulturalist. Good Idea or Bad? (Arlington: cost of, military)

[Caladium]

Looks like the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors plans to cut funding for the county horticulturist. This person advises and organizes agricultural efforts around the county, and also organizes the Master Gardener program.

So, if you know how popular the Master Gardener program is around here, you can imagine the bunch of people up in arms about this.

Eliminating this job would save the county $88,000. But some people assert that a county horticulturist brings in much more money than that.
Not sure how that works.... anyone know more about this issue who can explain it to us?

A quote from Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) is intriguing:

"One of the things we often talk about is public-private partnerships. And I think this is the perfect example of such a partnership. We have an expense of $88,000, and it brings in almost three and half times that."

Any insight into this? I'm open to the idea of keeping him if I can understand the benefit.

[Carlingtonian]

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think!

OK. I think 88K is a tad steep for a community-organizing job. I don't know about cutting it entirely, though. I wish Arlington had an arborist to keep idiots from fellling their big old trees, as they do in Takoma Park (whose tree ordinance requires that you get the arborist's approval before cutting one down). Not the same as a horticulturist, but close maybe.

Public-private partnerships, however, are very often just a boondoggle--a way for private industry to belly up to public coffers and gorge. The "partnership" entails elected officials awarding contracts to their political allies and buddies, whereupon the officials get "consulting" jobs after they leave office. It's a real disease. Private industry will always have the added expense of the profit margin, unlike government. (Not that government is always efficient, but at least there's not this built-in additional expense.)

Some things make sense for private industry to do because they've already invested in the cost of manufacturing for their consumer industry (e.g., Boeing or Lockheed can build military planes cheaper than the government could, because they've already invested in the factories)--but I think it's gotten way out of hand. Manufacturing is one thing, but intellectual products and public services are different.

Arlington County is very bad about this--hiring tons of consultants to produce studies and then trying to get volunteers to do work that paid County employees should be doing.

[cdmurphy]

Here's a sort of "annual report" from the Master Gardener program that sheds some insight on what all they do. I do not see where Higgins got that figure.

It seems like the position is also partly supported in some way by the Virginia Cooperative Extension. On the statewide Master Gardener site, there is a list of all the jurisdictions and whether or not the MG coordinator is paid or volunteer. About 20% are volunteers; the rest are locally paid.

[Caladium]

Here's the thing... I'm a gardener and I do make an effort to educate myself and follow good practices. I find a wealth of reliable information online. So, if this guy's job is mostly to provide information I don't think the position is necessary anymore.

Plus, couldn't the master gardeners find a volunteer among their group to lead their education sessions? Why do they need a county employee?

OTOH, the people in the western rural half of Loudoun may use the horticulturist in a lot more ways. But if you do, now's the time to say so because merely having the master gardeners rally to the defense is not going to save this job from the chopping block, IMO.

[Hesky]

To be honest, I had no idea Loudoun county had a Master Gardener program.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Hesky

To be honest, I had no idea Loudoun county had a Master Gardener program.

They do and it's extremely popular. I've thought about joining it from time to time but it's one of those clubs that has a lot of mandatory commitments and dues that are more than I want to pay for a garden club. Maybe when I retire I'll have time for something like that.

Seems like a nice group of people, though. They usually have booths at the farmers market. You might want to check out one of the demo gardens, too. The one at Ida Lee park is pretty cool.

[stpickrell]

I wonder why they couldn't gradually phase it out, replacing it with a volunteer organization that receives use of county meeting rooms, parks, etc. So next year, maybe cut it 1/3, cut it another 1/3 the year after that, and zero it out then.

I don't see the need to have a government-funded position/program, to be honest.

[Lehuster]

Originally Posted by Hesky

To be honest, I had no idea Loudoun county had a Master Gardener program.

Indeed, and no doubt it is not the only absurd local government job that should not exist of which I am unaware.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by stpickrell

I wonder why they couldn't gradually phase it out, replacing it with a volunteer organization that receives use of county meeting rooms, parks, etc. So next year, maybe cut it 1/3, cut it another 1/3 the year after that, and zero it out then.

I don't see the need to have a government-funded position/program, to be honest.

They'll still have use of the meeting rooms and parks. They just won't have a county employee as their coordinator.