DATCP Board Sends Letter to Legislature

Thursday, October 18, 2007 8:36 AM CDT

On Oct. 12, the Board of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection wrote the following letter to the members of Legislature.

We write to call your immediate attention to the potentially devastating effects we see looming for Wisconsin residents, both rural and urban, if we continue to operate without a 2007-09 biennial state budget. Furthermore, we ask for your thoughtful consideration of the compromise proposal before you next week.

If the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) is forced to operate under 2006-07 funding levels it will be short over $6 million of its $74 million budget. The prior budget funding levels do not reflect actual costs of running the agency through the fiscal year 2008-09. In every program there will be significant shortfalls. The reduction scenarios are as follows:

- If given an entire year to implement the shortfall the result is a 12 percent reduction.

- Due to the fact that we are already into the 4th month of the current fiscal year the results are compounded as a 22 percent reduction.

- In another month, if the budget impasse continues, the compounded effect is a 26 percent reduction.

The anticipated GPR reduction of $2.9 million is worse, and under the same scenario listed above equates to a 14 percent reduction over a year; 26 percent over the remaining 8 months and a month from now, 31 percent for the remaining 7 months of the fiscal year.

In an agency which may already have the tightest budget in state government, we believe it will be nearly impossible for DATCP to meet the statutory requirements to fulfill its core functions. The potential impacts on Wisconsin’s farmers and agriculture businesses are serious. Wisconsin farmers produce 24 billion pounds of milk each year, which Wisconsin dairy businesses turn into 2.5 billion pounds of cheese. Nearly 90 percent of the cheese is shipped into interstate commerce and must meet rigorous mandatory inspection protocols carried out by DATCP Food Safety employees. Likewise our livestock and meat sector has an economic impact in excess of $12 billion and supports 88,000 jobs. Again, all meat is subject to mandated inspection also performed by DATCP Food Safety employees.

From farm to food processing facility to grocery store deli, DATCP IS Wisconsin’s food safety agency. Yet over the remaining months of this fiscal year, a no budget scenario means a 35.8 percent cut in Wisconsin’s food safety program. A cut of this size simply cannot be done without a major reduction in food safety inspection programs.

The picture is equally critical in the Division of Animal Health. With a total of only 36 positions (including clerical staff) the Animal Health Division provides public health services and deals with a wave of diseases and disease surveillance programs. Animal Health Division’s daily responsibilities include monitoring livestock for diseases such as Tuberculosis, Avian Influenza, BSE (Mad Cow surveillance testing -100,000 tests completed last year) and emerging diseases like VHS in fish. Even with their limited resources the Animal Health staff quickly contained a pseudorabies outbreak early this spring in Clark County. Without swift detection and an appropriate response from Animal Health the Wisconsin pork industry could have had devastating interstate commerce restrictions placed on their product. In the absence of a 2007-09 budget the Animal Health division will feel a 38.6 percent cut over the remaining months of the fiscal year.

Similarly, our Trade and Consumer Protection programs, which include NonCall and the Office of Privacy Protection face nearly 11 percent funding reductions.

DATCP’s budget has never been large, especially when compared to its expansive responsibilities. It inspects and licenses more than 100,000 businesses and individuals; analyzes millions of laboratory samples; conducts hundreds of hearings and investigations; educates businesses and consumers about best practices; and promotes Wisconsin agriculture at home and abroad. Yet, in multiple efforts to streamline state services during the past 8 years it has taken the following percentage cuts in its GPR base of, 8.1, 8.4, 15.5, 15.5, 9.4, 6.9, 8.7 and 7.4 each of the respective years. To suggest the same levels of protection can be attained with fewer and fewer resources is not a realistic goal.

As citizen board members, we believe we would be remiss in our duties if we did not alert you to the significant threats that failure to act on the state budget now represents. We appreciate the fact that the two houses of the Legislature each have an obligation to propose budget options as they see fit, and do not want to place our agency in the middle of that important debate. We recognize that many budget options have been discussed and that reduction in some department functions seems evident, as will be the case in most if not all agencies of state government. However, of those options, the no-budget choice is simply the worst. We hope you can come to a conclusion on an overall level of spending and taxes in the days ahead so Wisconsin can adopt a state budget.

We thus respectfully ask for your full and immediate consideration.

It was signed by Michael Dummer, chair, Holmen; Andy Diercks, vice chair, Coloma; Michael Krutza, secretary, Wausau; Cynthia Brown, Menomonie; Richard Cates, Spring Green; Enrique Figueroa, Milwaukee; Margaret Krome, Madison; Shelly Mayer, Slinger; and Brian Rude, Coon Valley.

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