Legislature considers brand inspections, NU budget

By Fred Knapp , Senior Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media

2 de Abril de 2025 a las 17:00 ·

Nebraska Capitol (Photo by Fred Knapp, Nebraska Public Media News)

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The future of inspecting cattle brands in the western two-thirds of Nebraska, and who should pay for that, were debated in the Legislature Wednesday. And senators continued to consider how much money the University of Nebraska should get in the next two-year state budget.

Cattle brands – marks made on cattle by hot irons – are used to keep track of who owns which animals, and to prevent theft. Currently, in the western two-thirds of Nebraska, when a rancher sends cattle to a feedlot, they have to pay to have the cattle inspected.

Registered feedlots pay an annual fee and undergo quarterly audits from brand inspectors.

Sen. Teresa Ibach, vice chair of the Legislature’s Agriculture Committee, wants to change that. Ibach wants to do away with the requirement for inspection of cattle leaving feedlots, and with the requirement for the feedlots to pay. She said it’s an unneeded expense, and one that feedlots in the eastern part of the state don’t have to pay.

In Wednesday’s debate, Ibach, a farmer and rancher who represents southwest Nebraska, where wide-open spaces and sprawling ranches increase the possibility of cattle going astray and led to the creation of a brand inspection area in the last century, said the current law is unfair to feedlots in her area.

She contrasted it with a district represented by Sen. Ben Hansen in eastern Nebraska outside the brand inspection area, where smaller operations run by farmer-feeders posed less risk.

“If you operate a registered feedlot in my district, District 44, or many of the others in rural Nebraska, you’re subject to a brand inspection and all the fees, paperwork and audits that go with it," she said. "But if you operate a feedlot in Senator Hansen’s district, you’re not subject to the same brand inspections, fees or paperwork."

Sen. Tanya Storer, a rancher who represents a Sandhills district, said changing the brand inspection fees currently paid by feedlots would shift the cost of the inspections, carried out by the Nebraska Brand Committee, onto cattle producers. Storer gave an example of what a 50,000 head feedlot currently pays, and what it would pay under Ibach’s proposal.

“This bill takes that feedlot from 50,000 a year to 1,000 dollars a year… this is a drastic change in the funding structure of this committee,” she said.

And Storer disputed the idea that the brand inspectors provide no benefit to the cattle industry.

“While it’s called the brand inspection agency, we should be calling it the livestock inspection agency," she said. "These are deputies, these are law enforcement officers. So when we talk about weakening and doing anything that breaks that chain and in essence starts defunding that agency, it’s no different than defunding the police, quite frankly."

Wednesday’s debate renewed a longstanding dispute between different parts of the cattle industry. Sen. Ben Hansen recalled the attitude of former Sen. Tom Brewer, a recipient of two Purple Hearts for wounds received in Afghanistan, toward the subject.

“I'm reminded of something my former colleague and good friend, Senator Brewer, said when he introduced brand legislation. He said, in essence, he would rather drive a road filled with IEDs in a war zone again instead of introducing another brand bill,” Hansen said.

After about four hours of debate, senators voted 26-2 to give first-round approval to an amended version of Ibach’s bill. Ibach promised to negotiate with Storer before the next round of debate, adding that she would not ask for the bill to be brought up again this year if they could not reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, the Appropriations Committee once again delayed deciding how much money to recommend for the University of Nebraska in the next two-year budget.

In January, Gov. Jim Pillen recommended cutting about 2%, or $14 million of the $700 million the state gives to the university. This week, as Pillen and NU President Dr. Jeff Gold have been negotiating, the committee is considering a 1.25% increase. Gold said that’s in part because the situation has changed, with the university facing the prospect of tens or hundreds of millions in cuts from the federal government.

“I think that had a lot to do with the shift in understanding it, particularly recognizing the fact that there are a lot of forces in play that were not in play when the governor proposed his original budget that need to be balanced,” he said.

Gold said his priority in addressing any shortfall in funding is to look for efficiencies in areas like administration. Once those possibilities are exhausted, he said it will be time to look at changes to academic programs.

“That's always based on the question of, how many students are there, how many graduates in an individual major? Do we need duplication or triplication of a program? In other words, there are programs that are taught on all three of our undergraduate campuses. Do they all need to be staffed the same way? Is there any opportunity for synergy? We're not talking about eliminating those programs. We're talking about just creating some efficiencies there,” he said.

Uncertainty about the state budget appears to hinge on whether the 1.25% increase Pillen has endorsed would apply to the second year of the budget as well, or only the first – a difference of about $9 million. Appropriations Committee member Sen. Rob Dover said he hopes Pillen and Gold can reach an agreement.

“I would like to see them find some kind of compromise from their positions," he said. "Now, there's enough people on the committee right now that aren't comfortable going just one and a quarter and flat, and that's one reason we're not voting. There's not five votes to pass it, and so we're hoping that the governor and the President Gold can work it out."

Committee member Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said she thinks legislators should move ahead on their own.

“Members of the committee appear to be waiting for the approval of the governor on what we do with the university budget. I would prefer that we as a committee decide what we can afford to fund for the State University, because that is our job as the appropriators of Nebraska, and it is not the governor's job to appropriate the funds, but to administer the funds and the programs,” she said.

The committee will meet again Thursday.