The Montana Department of Livestock provided the Senate Agriculture Committee an overview of the agency’s divisions, brand-enforcement program, animal-health work and facility investments.

Brian Simonson, deputy executive officer, said the department’s central services division manages business functions and attached agencies such as the Milk Control Board and the livestock loss board. He told senators the state budgets roughly $450,000 for livestock claims with about $100,000 set aside for mitigation grants and that the department spends roughly $675,000 per year under its USDA Wildlife Services cooperative agreement for predator control, primarily aerial work for coyotes.

Simonson described the state’s brands enforcement work: about 50,000 recorded brands, a network of deputy brand inspectors and 12 livestock market offices that support change-of-ownership tracking. “We have office staff in all 12 of those markets across the state,” he said. The department also enforces livestock movement and change-of-ownership requirements.

Animal health work sits in the department’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (NVDL) in Bozeman; Simonson said a new 55,000-square-foot building is under construction and targeted to open in early 2026. He said the lab performs about 200,000 tests annually, including disease surveillance for brucellosis, chronic wasting disease and other livestock pathogens.

On meat inspection, Simonson said Montana participates in a Cooperative Interstate Shipment program that allows state-inspected product moving out of state to receive a USDA stamp if the facility participates. He said meat-inspection workload has increased and the department is requesting additional full-time inspectors to support expanded processing and diversification of slaughter facilities.

Department legal counsel and other staff attended to answer questions on brands, loss board staffing and agency priorities; Simonson invited senators to visit department offices at the Scott Hart building adjacent to the Capitol.

Senators asked for a department briefing on grizzly-livestock conflict and on the status of processing and inspection capacity across the state.