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Nevada agriculture seeks lab upgrades and proposes higher pesticide registration fee as plant-health work grows
Summary
Officials from the Nevada Department of Agriculture told legislators they want to consolidate two plant-related budget accounts, buy replacement laboratory equipment including a liquid chromatograph mass spectrometer, and noted a recently approved temporary increase to the pesticide registration fee that would raise roughly $1.276 million.
The Nevada Department of Agriculture asked a legislative subcommittee on Tuesday to consolidate two plant-related budget accounts, replace aging laboratory instruments and to make recent fee increases permanent during the budgeting process.
Megan Brown, administrator for Plant Health and Compliance at the Nevada Department of Agriculture, described several one-shot equipment requests and replacements, including a liquid chromatograph mass spectrometer (LC-MS) to update a 15-year-old instrument used for pesticide-residue testing. "This is going to replace a piece of equipment for pesticide laboratory testing," Brown said, adding the lab supports pesticide-residue analysis for ground and surface water, pesticide-use investigations and testing of medical and recreational marijuana samples.
Department leaders told the subcommittee they also plan a cost-neutral consolidation of budget account 4552 into 4545 to reduce fiscal-administration duplication and to streamline shared staff work. Director Goicoechea and Administrator Balkan said cross-coding and repeated journal vouchering consume staff time and consolidation will make cost allocation and grant management easier.
Fee increases and revenue: Assemblymember Anderson asked how much additional revenue the department expects from an annual pesticide registration fee increase. Kathy Balkan said the department anticipates approximately $1.276 million in additional revenue from the fee change and that about 11,000 registrations are processed annually. Balkan said a portion of the fee revenue would flow to a specialized account and estimated that account would increase by about $440,000.
Balkan said the fee change had been approved as a temporary increase in a recent hearing before the quarantine officer and that the department intends to seek permanent authority during the interim. "If they are not approved...we would obviously go back to our previous levels," Balkan said, describing the temporary status and the department's plan to pursue permanence in the budget process.
Laboratory capacity and timeliness: officials said replacing old instruments would reduce the need to send samples out of state for testing and speed results for producers and veterinarians. Director Goicoechea said the department currently pays other states for testing and replacing equipment would allow more in-house testing and faster turnaround, which is important for time-sensitive investigations.
Pest-response funding: committee members asked about federal grant funding for episodic pest responses, such as a recent grasshopper/cricket threat. Department staff said that money typically flows from USDA APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) and that allocations vary by year and region; Montana was expected to receive a larger share in the current cycle. "We are at the mercy of APHIS when it comes to those funds," an agency official said.
No formal committee votes occurred during the presentation. The hearing on budget account 4545 closed after questions and the committee moved to the next item.
