Volume 8, Number 1 - February 14, 2002

At the Annual Meeting, AAGIWA's Board of Directors hired former GIPSA Administrator Jim Baker to act as an industry liaison for the association for over the next five months. His duties will include developing contacts with the poultry industry and beef feedlots to promote the use of official grain inspection, and to advise and consult with the association and with Industry, Federal, and State officials, at our request, as issues arise.

Compliances's Jan Hart has responded to two issues raised in Las Vegas, industry consultation on fee schedules, and the exclusion of users' fees on fee schedules. On the first issue, compliance will continue to require that fee schedules be submitted to our customers for comment prior to approval. Her reasoning is that because we hold a monopoly within our boundaries, we are similar to other regulated monopolies such as utilities, who must hold public hearings prior to rate changes. Allowing our customers to comment in advance fulfils the role of a public hearing. As to excluding users' fees from fee schedules, she stated that they can be shown on the fee schedule for informational purposes, but they must still be included in the fee itself. The purpose of this is so that customers can look at one place on the fee schedule to find the price of a hopper inspection, for instance, without having to add several lines to figure the fee. Jan reminded us that users' fees are still allowed to be shown separately on billing invoices.

North Dakota Grain Inspection's Lori Grieger is working on AAGIWA's website. Anyone with suggestions or comments should contact her at lorig@graininspection.com, or Tim Adams at mphsgrain@aol.com We would like to include links to any members' websites, or to any other relevant sites. You can view the website and watch its progress at www.aagiwa.org.

Please join us in welcoming the Ohio Valley Grain Inspection as AAGIWA's newest member. Linda Meny is the Agency Manager for Ohio Valley. Also returning to AAGIWA as new members are Schneider Inspection Service, led by Mark Beaupre, and the Missouri Department of Agriculture, represented by Larry Kitchen.