(The Center Square) – A bill that will end the ability of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to raise fees for animal market licenses, animal dealer licenses, animal trucker licenses and animal transport vehicle registrations is now headed to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.
Senate Bill 622 passed the Assembly with a 57-42 vote after the bill was passed 22-11 by the Senate a week earlier, both on partisan votes.
The bill came after DATCP had proposed increasing a livestock market fee from $420 to $7,430, trucker license fees from $60 to $370 and animal dealer fees from $220 to $670 last year before receiving significant pushback and later proposing smaller increases.
Those changes came after a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that blocked legislators from oversight on rulemaking with Evers telling agencies to bypass having rules heard in committee and instead simply enact them.
That leaves in question if Evers will sign or veto the bill.
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau and Americans for Prosperity–Wisconsin collected public feedback, sending it to DATCP after the rules were proposed.
DATCP said in a fiscal estimate that the bill would force the agency to operate with a negative cash balance unless the fees or a funding source are changed.
“This bill would remove DATCP’s ability to propose fee adjustments through the statutorily set administrative rulemaking process,” the fiscal estimate said. “Without revenue adjustments, the appropriation will operate in a negative cash balance until additional funding sources are identified.”
DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski said in testimony that the programs had a negative cash balance of $267,000 at the end of last fiscal year, which is expected to grow to more than $1.1 million by the end of this fiscal year and said that Evers’ last budget proposal asked for seven new full time positions while four were ultimately granted.
