Slicing and Dicing

This week has been quite a journey for producers who serve on the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and the Federation of State Beef Councils, as they faced a declining checkoff budget head-on and were forced to make dramatic cuts in most program areas – totaling more than $3.2 million overall.

After meetings of State Beef Council executive directors in Denver early in the week resulted in a recommended program outline and budget for Fiscal Year 2009, the producers who serve as chairmen and vice chairmen of the joint checkoff committees raked through the budget numbers, debating passionately to identify the least painful cuts for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2008. Next came the review by the producers who serve on the Joint Budget Committee, which made additional adjustments to the recommendation from the committee leadership and sent that recommendation to the Operating Committee. This morning, the Operating Committee, members of which listened in on the previous discussions to keep up with all the comments along the way, made a recommendation to adopt the budget from the Joint Budget Committee and forwarded that recommendation to the Beef Board Executive Committee for ratification and forwarding to USDA.

Whew. Yes, that’s a lot of meeting and debate – in fact, nearly 40 hours of meetings in four days. But it leaves no doubt that the outcome is a proposed national checkoff budget that is focused on the priorities of those producers and importers who volunteer on checkoff boards and committees and represent their fellow cattlemen and importers nationwide. Following is a summary of how the numbers fell out according to Beef Board budget components. Although you’ll note a steep decrease in the promotion budget, this recommendation does maintain enough funding for a viable national print and radio advertising campaign within that budget component. Specific project proposals will come before the joint checkoff committees during the summer cattle industry conference in Denver this July.