From Claudia Looze

Highland

To the Editor:

In April 2025, Iowa County was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted county systems and crippled access to land records used for real estate transactions, deeds, liens and property searches. Restoring those records has required outside cybersecurity and data-recovery help, the rebuilding of a system involving more than a million document images, and costs the county has acknowledged may exceed available cyber-insurance funding. More than a year later, restoration work is still underway.

Now at budget time, Iowa County is facing serious financial problems, and hard decisions are unavoidable. But not every cut is a savings. We ought to know that by now.

The county is considering eliminating most UW Extension programs while keeping only 4-H.

UW Extension is a bargain.

For a relatively small county investment, residents get access to the latest research, up-to-date information, and practical help on agriculture, dairy and livestock, crops, economic development, small businesses, tourism, housing, broadband, and other issues important to rural communities.

And Iowa County doesn’t have to hire all those people, pay all those salaries, or provide all those benefits.

When somebody offers you this much support for this little money, you don’t ask how quickly you can get rid of it.

You ask where to sign.

If we give up that partnership, help that is now a phone call away may have to be found on the open market — if we can get on someone’s schedule and afford the bill.

Absolutely, save 4-H. We need to invest in our kids.

But those kids also need an Iowa County worth staying in.

4-H helps build the next generation. Extension helps sustain the farms, businesses, jobs and communities that generation will inherit.

Iowa County needs to fix its finances.

Throwing away one of its best bargains is not the way to do it.