COOS BAY - Regular shoppers at the Safeway in Myrtle Point know Samantha Orchard. The 27-year-old Coquille woman works there two days a week, bagging groceries and offering escorts to the parking lot.

Judging by her friendly demeanor and ready smile, she's well-suited for her job. But if not for the Oregon Commission for the Blind, Orchard figures there is no way she'd be employed. Which makes the prospect of the state shutting down the agency unnerving to her.

"I'd still be living at home with no job," she said Wednesday, following a hearing about the commission's fate.

Orchard is legally blind, and even with glasses her sight is only 20/200. The commission contacted Safeway to see if Orchard could get a job with the grocery store and then initially paid her salary. Safeway cuts her paychecks these days, but Orchard still benefits from items provided by the commission, including a magnifying glass to help her read at work.

It's her independence that Orchard said she most appreciates. She lives independently and is able to walk to the Coquille Public Library with a cane and use the computers there thanks to her instructor at South Coast Education Service District. She speaks glowingly about being able to read newspapers online instead of having to ask her mother to read the print version.

If the commission were to cease to exist, Orchard figures she could make do. But teenagers with visual impairments and older people with macular degeneration have local advocates for the blind worried.

"What concerns me is the future people who won't be receiving the training," said Carrie Kokel, a contract agent who works for the commission and has been blind for 25 years.

The Commission for the Blind is one of many services at risk of losing funding in the face of state budget shortfalls. The Legislature's Ways and Means Committee has proposed 10 percent cuts, but what really attracted the group's attention was when Gov. Ted Kulongoski recommended the commission be suspended, with its services dispersed to other state agencies. The two dozen people who gathered Wednesday fumed about the governor's proposal, suggesting he should see what it's like to be blind. They also questioned whether the state would save money by shuttering the commission.

The commission's orientation and career center in Portland attracts people from all over the state to learn cane travel, Braille, and how to live without sight, said Pat Macdonell, the center's director.

Kokel and others were skeptical that the services would continue if overseen by other agencies. Without vocational training, people will rely more heavily on the state for help with health care and living expenses.

The budget cuts proposed by the Ways and Means Committee would take away about $173,000, leaving a budget of $1.7 million. But Macdonell noted that the state provides only about 11 percent of the commission's budget. The rest comes from the federal government.

The governor hasn't formally proposed the suspension to the Legislature, said Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, co-chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Although he isn't sure if the governor could unilaterally cut the program, Buckley said his committee does not recommend suspending the commission.

"In our view, the commission is performing a role that is important to a good number of Oregonians," said Buckley. "We do believe in its mission."

There currently are about 2,000 people with open cases before the commission, Macdonell said, though  doctors suggest the state's blind population could be as large as 20,000.

As the population ages, more may be on the way, Macdonell said,

"Macular degeneration has become an epidemic," she said.

Although Orchard already has received the training to make her life more rewarding, she is paying close attention to what happens in Salem.

"I realize that I myself could have a visually impaired child and the commission may not be there to help," she said.