NM Cattle Growers Discuss Fate
Of Livestock Inspection Board

TUCUMCARI, N.M. — As the New Mexico Livestock Board faces financial turmoil again, the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association took a stand at their summer meeting here on what direction to take with regard to the livestock board's looming crisis.

Some New Mexico cattlemen want to do away with the livestock board, which oversees brand inspections in the state, but Phil H. Bidegain, president of the NMCGA and a rancher near Tucumcari, says they are in the minority.

A show of hands at their meeting here proved him right.

Association members at the summer meeting voted overwhelmingly to support the livestock board. By an almost three to one margin, they voted to keep the brand board and keep a portion of property taxes to fund it. They also voted to increase certain fees.

The NMCGA does not run the livestock board, but their vote most likely will carry a great deal of impact in the state capitol.

"Any one of these solutions is going to take legislative change," Bidegain says.

In New Mexico, the governor appoints the nine-member livestock board. Two of the members represent the public. Three members, however, are also members of the NMCGA.

The livestock board oversees brand and cattle inspections, an increasingly important issue in this day of bio-terrorism and concerns over animal health.

"The livestock board started out as a sanitary board and dealt with health issues mostly anyway," says Joe Culbertson, Amistad, N.M., rancher. "We're coming back to that."

Bidegain says he opposes doing away with the livestock board because of the health issues, something that Richard Traylor, chairman of the Texas Animal Health Commission, agrees is a growing concern. Traylor also ranches near Las Vegas, N.M., and is a member of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association.

"I know there is an economic crunch, but I can tell you in Texas, you don't know what it is yet," Traylor says. "We don't have a brand law status. We have no way to trace animals that have health problems."

He notes that Texas lost its tuberculosis-free status in June.

"When you look at your status," Traylor says, "you can only appreciate the system that you have because of the traceability of those infected herds or animals. Under federal law, you have to be able to find those herds."

Chronic wasting disease, Traylor says, has the attention of Texas animal health officials as well as those in New Mexico and Colorado.

He says a project underway in Texas now would allow the animal health commission to regulate captive herds.

"The Texas Parks and Wildlife regulates the white-tailed deer and mule deer," he says, "but we've worked out a memorandum of understanding between our commissions where we're running tests right now on the captive herds to see if we have the disease. If we do, we have other problems. I can assure you that the health issues will help you come to grips with the economics real quick, because we are in a situation where we haven't completed the numbers yet, but it's in the millions of dollars. When we go to the feds July 9 with a program, we've got to come up with something real quick."

Carl Lane Johnson, a Tatum, N.M., rancher, questions the service the livestock board staff performs.

"The brand people, and I'm speaking strictly about our part of the country, they serve no purpose," Johnson says. "It's expensive and time-consuming. They have not saved anybody any money. They have not offered the service. They are completely worthless as far as health issues are concerned. We're not getting what we're paying for in my part of the world."

Johnson says, however, he is willing to sit down with others and figure out a program that will work.

But most of the discussion revolved around not whether to keep the livestock board or not, but how to fund it.

"I think we need to look at this in a little different light," says Dick Manning, a Santa Rosa, N.M., rancher.

He says a lot of states have dropped brand inspecting and New Mexico is faced with paying more for the service.

In many instances, Manning says, states that have dropped brand inspecting are now going back to it.

"It's going to cost Texas $15 million to try to go back and duplicate what New Mexico has," Manning says. "I know this cost is borne by our people, but let's look at what's happened in New Mexico to the livestock industry. Our cattle have been removed from the federal lands by the bucketful. You've got 11 counties now that are on the verge of bankruptcy in New Mexico."

In 1955, Manning says, there were no elk in Grant and Catron counties. In 1988, the elk inventory was 11,000 in Catron County alone.

He says cattle were removed from grazing allotments because of overgrazing by elk.

"For every calf that left in 1988," Manning says, "it represented a circulating and tax loss of $28 per year to Catron County."

Manning says that if the people in the cities want elk and wildlife on the land instead of cattle, then they need to pay for it.

"Let's look at taxing elk from the cities and let them share in this bill," Manning says. "If the general public wants elk instead of cows, then let's figure out a way to put this burden in its proper prospective and let the city folk pay for it."

Don Cullum, a Lordsburg rancher, says a lot of the problem is that many people aren't paying the taxes on all their cattle.

"The other day when I was standing in my corral trying to cut some cows and the wind was blowing about 80 miles an hour," Cullum says, "I had dirt in my face and I couldn't see what I was doing. I finally decided to go down to the house and see if the wind would quit blowing. I got a phone call when I got to the house. It was the tax assessor. He was trying to find out something about livestock. Our county's so broke, he decided maybe he'd better find out how many livestock's in the county. He didn't know the difference between a heifer and a cow. He caught me in a real bad mood. I told him he was a moron and don't ever call back."

Cullum says he doesn't like paying for a service that other people are getting and not paying for.

"I want to pay what it takes to run the livestock board," Cullum says.

He says that if people are having problems with inspectors, they need to speak up and set things right, not do away with the board.

Bill Sauble, chairman of the livestock board and NMCGA member from Maxwell, N.M., agrees with Cullum that not all livestock owners are paying their fair share in taxes.

"We estimate that roughly 30 percent of the livestock in the state are not on the tax rolls," Sauble says. "That's costing the board in excess of a million dollars a year in lost income."

Sauble says if they could get 85 percent of the livestock on the tax rolls, 50-cent inspection fees could be lowered to 25 to 30 cents.

The property tax portion that goes to the livestock board is 60 percent of the board's revenue.

If the property tax revenue is taken away from the livestock board and all other fees, except for the inspection fee, then the inspection fee would go up to probably $1.30 a head.

Linda Davis of CS Cattle Company at Cimarron, N.M., suggests raising the brand renewal fee to $25 a year, or $75 for three years.

In New Mexico, brands must be renewed every three years. The fee is currently $50 for three years.

Sauble says they took that proposal to the legislature last year.

"We proposed to take the brand re-record fee from $50 for three years to $75 for three years," Sauble says. "That would generate somewhere around $300,000."

Sauble notes that about 30,000 notices went out this summer to re-record brands.

"That alone would raise enough money where we wouldn't have to raise any other fees for three to four years," Sauble says.

Sauble says the issue of people not rendering their livestock for tax purposes cuts across the board and includes beef cattle, dairy cattle, cow-calf operators and yearling outfits.

"The horses are the absolute worst," Sauble says. "Last year, there were about 15,000 horses on the tax rolls statewide. Horses are the one single species that are absolutely not there."

Sauble says buffalo, however, appear to be fully represented on the tax rolls.

"Ted Turner probably has every single one of his on," Sauble says.

He says compliance in getting livestock on the tax rolls would solve a lot of the financial problems of the livestock board, at least for the next decade or two.

The county tax assessors are charged by law to get the animals on the tax rolls, and country treasurers collect that money. The problem appears to be with the treasurers and assessors, who are elected officials and don't want to irritate the people who voted for them.

"They are reluctant to go after what they see as a very minor portion of their county's income," Sauble says.

There were also calls for cost-cutting by the livestock board, but Sauble says they've cut about all they can.

Independent studies say the livestock board is running a lean operation. There is no fat to trim, Sauble says.

"This fiscal year," Sauble explains, "we will come in under budget $250,000. Last year, we cut expense in excess of $200,000. Everything we do is geared to cutting expenses and operating at bare bones."

The problem, he says, is not with expenditures.

"If we were receiving that money that was legally due to us under the property taxes," Sauble says, "we would be operating in the black."

Jimmy Bason, Hillsboro, N.M. rancher and immediate past president of the NMCGA, says that when a Mexican rancher sells a calf and moves it to the U.S., he spends $13 to $15 a head in fees, not including transportation.

"And we're complaining whether we're going to go to 50 or 60 cents to keep the best brand laws in the United States of America," Bason says.