The ongoing budget negotiations between Gov. Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania General Assembly could force the Penn State Cooperative Extension, located at 1015 Bridge Road in Creamery, near Skippack, to close its doors and eliminate the Montgomery County 4-H Club.

        According to Amy Shollenberger, an extension educator,  the university is in "grave danger of losing the extension and all its programs and research, including the 4-H Club for our youth."

        Shollenberger said the closure would likely lead to the disbanding of the local 4-H and the cancellation of its annual fair in August.

        Kathryn Bieler, a freshman at Upper Perkiomen High School, could feel the impact of the closure. Bieler joined the county's 4-H Livestock Club to learn about cows.

        "I've always been interested in these animals," said Bieler, who lives on a 127-acre farm on Fruitville Road in Upper Hanover. "And I love to eat beef."

        Bieler is currently raising a market hog. In the fall, she hopes do the same with a steer. She expressed hope that the problem can be solved.

        "Otherwise, I won't get the chance to raise the steer," Bieler said.

        Shannan Bieler said the elimination of the local program would be "absolutely disheartening" to her three daughters.

        She said 4-H teaches Kathryn, Lindsay, 12, and Taylor, 9, the values of responsibility, leadership, national pride and business acumen.

        "It's a huge disgrace that the governor and the legislators have not been able to pass a budget," said Shannan Bieler, a former Upper Hanover supervisor. "The impact of that might hurt no one but the kids."

        However, an extension of the nine-month stalemate continuing between Wolf, a Democrat and the Republican-controlled legislature would prevent Bieler from cultivating and showing a steer.

        July 1 – the start of the 2016-17 fiscal year – is the deadline to keep the facility open and the programs going, according to Shollenberger.

        She said imposed employee travel restriction has cancelled many spring meetings, training and informational sessions.

      In terms of programming, the most significant impact act of the impasse has been the scarcity of program books, according to the educator.  Shollenberger said local educators have been forced to borrow extra books from neighboring counties, or rely on photocopies, since new books have not been published to provide record-keeping resources for the students.

        The local 4-H club provides 18 animal and farming related clubs for approximately 400 traditional members, consisting of children between the ages of eight and 18, according to Shollenberger.

        Through educational outreach programs, that number reaches 11,000 aannually, according to the educator.

        On Tuesday, March 8, during the livestock club's monthly meeting, Shollenberger explained the details to the members and their parents.

        The Penn State Extension and the college's agricultural research programs are funded through the state general funds, known as the Land Scrip Fund, which is located in the Department of Agriculture's budget, according to economic talking points distributed at the meeting.

        It states that the Land Scrip Fund represents the state's commitment to the 150-year-old land-grant partnership between Penn State and federal, state and county governments.

        "Although the college's agricultural research and extension programs enjoys strong support at all levels of state government, the Land Scrip Fund was part of the governor's line-item veto and is currently zeroed out," the paper states.

        Further, the document predicts that failure to allocate the $50.5 million would have "an adverse, cascading effect on agriculture" throughout the Commonwealth. It predicts the potential annual loss of an additional $22 million of USDA capacity funds to the college as part of the federal commitment to the land-grant partnership, approximately $56 million of grant funding competitively awarded to the college, mainly from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, approximately $13 million of county funds as part of the counties' commitment to the land-grant partnership as well as program, facility, and job losses at all 67 county extension offices that would be closed.

        The 45 children attending the meeting composed letters asking their state representatives to settle the budget dispute approve funding for the extensions and their programs, according to Shollenberger. She said they have been sent to the governor as well as legislators from 10 House and five Senatorial districts. One student included President Obama on the letter.

                The following day, Wolf,  during a meeting with 4-H students in Harrisburg, discussed his commitment to agriculture and to the land grant system, according to a news release on the governor's website.

        It states that his proposed 2016-17 budget includes a five percent increase, or an additional $2.4 million, for the Agricultural College Land Scrip Fund, described as the "largest increase for Penn State's Ag Sciences and Extension since 2012 when the Republican-controlled legislature cut land scrip funding by 19 percent."

        On the same day in Coopersburg, state Rep. Justin Simmons (R-131^st District) held a news conference to denounce Wolf's most recent budget proposal, which includes an 11 percent increase in the personal income tax.

        At the event, Simmons and two other Republican legislators called on the governor "to release badly needed education funding to school districts and back off his demands for increases in the state income tax."