Recently, the WI Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer (DATCP) board of directors voted to approve new food and dairy license fees for the Food Safety Program. After board approval, the rule had to be sent to the WI Legislature for review by appropriate legislative committees. Since the Legislature did not take any action on this fee rule, the Department plans to adopt and publish this rule before May 1, 2008, so that new fees take effect beginning with annual license cycles starting on July 1, 2008.

It should be noted that at the public hearings earlier this year, every individual/organization which testified, including WDPA, unanimously opposed these proposed fee increases due to the size of the increases. It’s extremely rare for DATCP to ignore public testimony when it is presented in a unanimously, cohesive fashion.

However, there is one silver lining in this issue. Due to the recently completed biennial budget, the actual fee increases will be slightly reduced. The 2007-09 biennial budget, signed last month by Governor Doyle, contains a provision to transfer $350,000 from DATCP’s Agricultural Chemical Cleanup program (ACCP) to DATCP’s Food Safety program. The Wisconsin Dairy Products Association was the only dairy organization to support this money transfer. WDPA testified earlier this year at budget hearings in support of this fund transfer. Our association supported this transfer provision since we knew that if would reduce the level of fees our members have to pay to support DATCP’s Food Safety program.

As of today, DATCP has not released the final new dairy license and food fees which will be reduced due to the ACCP fund transfer. Listed below are the fees in the final rule which the DATCP board approved in August. There is also a listing of how DATCP (back in August) envisioned the fees being reduced if the ACC fund transfer was included in the approved biennial budget. Once DATCP issues the finalized fee structure– now that the budget has been signed– we will share those numbers with our members.