Washington Ag Today July 28, 2010 A routine compliance audit of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association done for the Cattlemen’s Beef Board concludes that the NCBA breached the financial firewall during the periods tested and that NCBA did not maintain sufficient documentation in many instances to adequately support separation of expenditures between the policy side of NCBA and the beef checkoff side of the organization.

Although the audit went back several years most of the compliance issues occurred in fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

Cattlemen’s Beef Board Secretary-Treasury Robert Fountain Jr. provides some examples of non-compliance.

Fountain: “Consulting fees for the purpose of investigating a certified beef program for the policy division; travel performed for the purpose of initiating an NCBA member insurance program and time spent by employees in meetings related to non-check off revenue development were charged in full or in-part to the checkoff.”

Fountain says the findings are extremely troubling to the Beef Board.

Fountain: “For this reason CBB will begin a more comprehensive compliance review of NCBA for 2009 and 2010.”

The audit report has been forwarded to state beef councils and to the USDA-Agricultural Marketing Service, the oversight agency for the beef check off, for review and input.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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