Extension director blames budget deficit for delay in appointing agent

MACHIAS — The state’s budget deficit was blamed Friday for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service’s decision not to fill the vacant job of blueberry specialist until sometime in 1991 or even later.

Dr. Judith Bailey, director of the Extension Service, said Friday that she had not appointed anyone to staff a search committee that would seek out candidates for the position of blueberry specialist.

“There is no point in appointing a search committee without permission to fill that position,” she said.

Bailey said she had received a “great response” to a recent survey of blueberry growers, processors and other people in the industry who urged her to lose no time in replacing blueberry specialist Tom Degomez, who vacated the job six months ago to accept a similar job in Arizona. “We are compiling data from the survey,” she said.

“Because of the (state) budget, every position is frozen. If you take 15 percent out of the budget, nobody will be hiring anybody,” the director said.

Two weeks ago, she met with berry growers and other industry representatives at the University of Maine at Machias and was told by one grower and member of the Maine Blueberry Advisory Committee that people in the industry felt that they had been “abandoned by the Extension” because Bailey and others had not been quick to replace Degomez.

The specialist would be needed this winter and next spring, they said, to conduct blueberry schools, be responsible for research programs and to hold instructional sessions for people who want to earn any of the several licenses required by the state to apply pesticides on blueberry fields.

Bailey said that a decision on the hiring request would not be made until sometime in January, when the state budget will again be a factor of major concern.