Some reaction to governor's proposed legislation to eliminate many boards and commissions

Washington Ag Today December 11, 2009 Governor Christine Gregoire will introduce legislation for the next session to eliminate 78 state boards and commissions. She has already eliminated 17 by executive order.

One of the entities requiring legislative action is the Agricultural Burning Task Force. Jim Jesernig, who represents the Washington Association of Wheat Growers and other ag interests in Olympia, says that task force is important to wheat growers for a couple of reasons.

Jesernig: “It is a forum where the Save Our Summers, American Lung Association, the grower groups and others, can work with the Department of Ecology to come up with a win-win situation that people can work a very difficult issue through. For those of us who were in the middle of the burning wars in the early 90s this is a much preferable way to manage this issue, with the department, with everyone at the table. You take that away and suddenly no one has an ability to have a say in how this issue is managed. It only would save somewhere between four and six thousand dollars a year so it is not going to balance the budget. It allows for folks that have very strong concerns on all sides of the issue, including the department that is tasked with regulating the issue, to have an open forum. So we don‘t think it makes a lot of sense to eliminate that group.”

When lawmakers gather in Olympia next month Jesernig says the state budget deficit will dwarf all other issues.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.