Fewer state dollars are funneling into the University, and it's costing University outreach and networking programs a lot more than money — it is hurting the University's ability to get its name into communities across the state and develop new programs.

"We are losing 50 positions all over the state and $1.2 million in funding," said Gary Beaumont, a spokesman for the University of Illinois Extension program.

UI Extension includes a team of professional youth educators who organize programs informing communities about the University's research.

Of the 50 positions UI Extension is losing, 23 are youth educators. These educators serve many roles, anywhere from mentors to agriculture experts.

Statewide, the program has 450 employees allocated into four main divisions: agriculture and natural resources, community and economic development, nutrition and consumer sciences and 4-H youth development.

Jeanne Harland, president of Extension Partners, an advocacy group for UI Extension, said the program is important to teach new, more efficient methods the University has developed.

"Research alone does not do any good," Harland said. "U of I Extension puts knowledge to work."

The Lafayette, Ill. resident is a farmer and has learned about agricultural techniques through UI Extension. She said the program is not only losing funding for staff, but also for people working in the field.

Even though the University's UI-Integrate program is not directly losing money, its goal of getting feedback from departments to create a new database system is facing delays because of the budget cuts. Many of the current database programs can easily fail because they are old.

The UI-Integrate program was created in July 2000 to replace a 25-year-old administrative network system.

In order for UI-Integrate to create a new program that best suits the needs of the University, program officials need feedback from major units like Admissions and Records and Payroll, but also individual departments, said Richard Mendola, assistant vice president for Administrative Information Technology Services and project executive for UI-Integrate.

"Because of the budget cuts, people do not have the free time to come to our focus groups," Mendola said. "The less participation we get, the longer our project will take to complete."

The program is run by a team of leaders from the Champaign-Urbana, Springfield and Chicago campuses of the University.

"Everyone is pretty overwhelmed with the budget cuts," Mendola said. "Our project may go to the bottom of the list of things."

The five-year project is expected to be completed in June 2005, and missing any major deadlines can delay it from six months to one year, Mendola said.

The $197 million project has three components: UI-Integrate, costing $150 million, Decision Support Project and upgrading cable networks.

"We cannot afford to take longer," Mendola said.

Aside from state funding, alumni donations are also on the decline. This resource usually brings in $90,000 a year from about 70,000 alumni, according to Jim Gobberdiel, director for marketing and communications for the Illinois Foundation.

"Right now the number of people donating is down because overall people are just not giving," Gobberdiel said.

The Illinois Foundation had the best year ever in terms of alumni donations during the fiscal year that ended in June 2002.

Gobberdiel, however, said the foundation isn't planning any extra events to increase alumni donations because their organization is suffering from the budget cuts as well.