Beef Board Approves Fiscal 2006 Budget

Reduction in Reserve, Administrative Components Recommended

The Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) approved a $52 million beef checkoff budget for fiscal year 2006 during its summer meeting in Denver July 30.  This culminated a year-long budgeting process and several days of joint industry committee meetings to consider specific proposals for checkoff funding.

The breakdown of that budget, which must be approved by USDA before any funds are expended, includes the following budget elements: promotion ($25.5 million); research ($7.3 million); consumer information ($5.8 million); industry information ($1.35 million); foreign marketing ($5.1 million); producer communications ($2.2 million); unallocated programs ($2.185 million); evaluation ($230,000); program development ($120,000); USDA oversight ($200,000); and administration ($2.065 million). The 2006 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, 2005.

Included in the  budget recommendation to send to USDA, CBB members voted on two budget amendments that stemmed from recommendations made earlier in the week by the Beef Board Executive Committee and its Administration Subcommittee. Those amendments increased the total budget for national checkoff programs by $2 million in fiscal 2006 by decreasing the Beef Board’s reserve from $5 million to $3 million and shifting $185,000 from the administrative budget to the unallocated program budget.

Based on the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court affirming the constitutionality of the Beef Checkoff Program, Executive Committee members and other CBB representatives said they felt comfortable reducing the reserve so they could dedicate as much of producers’ checkoff investment as possible directly into programs aimed at building demand for beef.  The Beef Board’s administrative budget is limited by law to not more than 5 percent of projected revenue in any given year.  Actual expenditures have always fallen well below that level, so the Board felt comfortable trimming the budgeted amount there as well.

“The purpose of the checkoff is to put as much of the $1-per-head assessment that we pay as producers directly into promotion, research and information programs aimed at increasing beef demand and, as a result, building opportunities for producer profit,” said CBB Chairman Al Svajgr, a cattleman from Cozad, Neb. “We believe that these budget amendments will allow us to accomplish that, while still maintaining the fiduciary responsibility that we accept as Beef Board members.”