Hardwood flooring manufacturers, along with green sawmills and plywood producers, would be removed from Hardwood Checkoff assessments if a request filed Sept. 7 by the original sponsors—the Blue Ribbon Committee—is accepted by the United States Department of Agriculture, according to a statement from the BRC.
Excluding those groups from the Hardwood Checkoff would mean assessing 1,051 fewer mills. The program would be funded by 375 mills that sell kiln-dried lumber.
A checkoff is a program administered by the USDA that puts money assessed from industry players into industry-wide marketing campaigns. Famous examples include the “Got Milk?” and “Pork: The Other White Meat” campaigns.
The Hardwood Checkoff, if implemented without the BRC’s request, would assess a fee of $1 per $1,000 in sales from 1,426 mills. Manufacturers of unfinished strip flooring, molding, dimensional components, etc., would pay a rate of $0.75 per $!,000 on raw product. Hardwood plywood mills with sales over $10 million would pay a rate of $3 per 1,000 square feet of production.
The BRC also requested the assessment be lowered to $0.50 per $1,000 in sales. Mills with less than $2 million in sales remain exempt.
The reductions in fees and mills assessed would create a $3 to $4 million annual program, compared with what the BRC at the beginning of the process envisioned as a $10 million program.
The lowered amount, however, would still be 10 times greater than what has been collected through voluntary programs in the past, the BRC said.
The Hardwood Checkoff has faced opposition from the beginning. The recent request comes after the BRC conducted an “extensive process of listening to the input of many in the industry,” the BRC said.
The BRC hopes the USDA accepts the request and moves “expeditiously” to issue a final proposal and announcing a referendum vote.
“Although we never anticipated a process which would require five years or more of work, we are pleased that so many in the industry have been given the chance to review and understand the Checkoff fully and communicate their views,” the BRC said. “It is time, in our view and apparently many others, for the debate to end and a vote to be taken on the Hardwood Checkoff.”
