WUD Staff

The Producer Review Board (PRB) met on June 6th in Modesto. After administrative items, which included the election of officers, CDFA provided several updates. First up was the quota administration budget. Some CDFA staff have left the program leaving CDFA understaffed in administering the Quota Implementation Plan (QIP). CDFA is hiring to fill the positions and make sure they can accomplish all the required tasks accurately. This includes audits of the plants paying into the QIP, which was discussed later in the meeting. Next was a discussion on the quota fund. Because the assessment rate had not been looked at in a while and milk production has been increasing over the last two years, the quota fund currently has more in reserves than is necessary. Therefore, the board voted to reduce the assessment rate to $0.2830 per cwt starting August 1 and increase it to $0.3400 on March 1, 2023. The current rate is $0.3650. There was a discussion about authorizing CDFA staff to adjust the rate between parameters established by the board to maintain a more stable reserve fund. This concept will likely be discussed at a future meeting.

CDFA then updated the board on legal issues and petitions recently received. There was discussion around the topic of how to prepare an appropriate petition that met CDFA’s procedures for petitions. CDFA had included a document on Department procedures for handling petitions in the meeting materials and referred to that document. Several additional topics were brought up to be included on the agenda for the next PRB meeting, including starting the discussion on the five–year producer survey that was included in the QIP and to review the procedures for updating and maintaining the voter roll through CDFA.