A6 The BulleTin • SaTurday, april 3, 2021
Bill
Continued from A5
The bill also got endorsements from the
Oregon State Chamber of Commerce, Or-
egon Restaurant and Lodging Association,
Oregon Business & Industry and National
Federation of Independent Business/Or-
egon.
A couple of those lobbyists also sug-
gested that lawmakers go further by letting
some businesses defer even more of their
2021 payroll taxes than the bill allows, or
using some of the state’s share of $780 mil-
lion in federal aid available under Presi-
dent Joe Biden’s pandemic recovery plan as
a one-time offset of payroll taxes.
Acting Director David Gerstenfeld of
the Oregon Employment Department,
whose staff was consulted in the drafting
of the state bill, said officials are awaiting
Sale Barns
Continued from A5
“It just gives people more
choices,” said Mangan, who
works with 100 member mar-
kets in 11 Western states and
Canada. “Like I tell produc-
ers, it’s what works best for
your operation.”
Trent Stewart, owner of
the Central Oregon Livestock
Auction in Madras, described
video marketing as “the fu-
ture.”
He also works part time as
an auctioneer for Superior
Livestock, based in Texas,
supplementing his income by
traveling for auctions in dif-
ferent states.
The Central Oregon Live-
stock Auction has averaged
about 70 sales and 34,000
head of cattle per year over
the last decade — a far cry
from years ago when sale
barns in both Madras and
nearby Redmond sold 50,000
head each.
Video auctions and special-
ized sales, such as purebred
or organically raised cattle,
are one way local auctions
can find new customers and
charge premium rates, Stew-
art said.
“That’s the only way to try
and stay alive in this game
now, is a niche market, so to
speak,” he said. “Just selling
commodity cattle anymore
U.S. Treasury Department guidance about
how it conforms to a ban on using federal
funds for state tax cuts. Gerstenfeld said
that as drafted, the bill has raised no ob-
jections from the U.S. Department of La-
bor, which oversees state unemployment
systems.
What the bill does
The bill does these things:
• Businesses can defer payment of up to
one-third of their 2021 payroll taxes until
June 2022 if their tax rate has gone up by
half a percentage point.
• Payroll tax rates for 2020, which were
set before the onset of the pandemic a year
ago, would be the basis for rates in 2022,
2023 and 2024.
• The Employment Department would
base its payroll tax collections for the
state trust fund on a 20-year horizon, in-
doesn’t pay the bills.”
But, as Stewart points out,
video auctions aren’t for ev-
eryone. Smaller ranchers
with only a few cattle are bet-
ter suited for the sale barn,
meaning they will continue
to play a vital role in the live-
stock industry.
“The worst thing in the
world that could happen is
have a lot of these sale yards
shut down,” Stewart said. “If
they don’t keep these auction
yards in business across the
U.S., it’s going to be ugly for
all producers.”
Fewer cattle, rising costs
Data from the Livestock
Marketing Association sug-
gest some signs of stability
for the sale barn, according to
Mangan.
A survey conducted by the
Livestock Marketing Associ-
ation shows 89% of livestock
producers use the local auc-
tions to market at least some
of their cattle.
The number of registered
packers and stockyards,
meanwhile, has remained sta-
ble since 2010, dropping by
just one to 1,204 by 2019.
“Really in the Western U.S.,
yes we had those two (auc-
tions) close, but we haven’t re-
ally seen a trend in the last 10-
15 years of markets closing,”
Mangan said.
Overall declining cattle
Phone
stead of the current 10 years, and the tar-
get would be lower. The state trust fund
was at $5 billion at the start of the pan-
demic; it is about $3.7 billion now. The
agency has paid out a total of $8.4 billion
in benefits over the past year, but much of
it was from federal funds. Slightly more
than $700 million has gone to 100,000
Oregon self-employed and gig workers,
who had been ineligible for any benefits
until Congress passed the coronavirus re-
lief act last year.
Oregon was among the few states that
did not borrow from the federal gov-
ernment to pay unemployment benefits
during the Great Recession a decade ago.
Gerstenfeld said he does not anticipate this
time that the state will have to borrow; em-
ployers would repay the higher costs and
interest through higher payroll taxes.
e e
Continued from A5
By year’s end, Gerstenfeld
said Oregon wants to return
to its pre-pandemic standard,
answering 90% of calls within
5 minutes. Currently, only
15% of calls are answered
that quickly.
The department hopes
new hires, thorough training
and a gradual easing of the
economic crisis will enable it
to get on top of the situation
— albeit not for another nine
months.
The employment depart-
ment’s phone lines have been
a nightmare since the outset
of the pandemic.
Nearly 1 in 8 c Oregon
workers lost their jobs in the
first month of the pandemic,
260,000 altogether. In that
time the state’s jobless rate
jumped from a historic low
of 3.6% to an all-time high of
13.2%.
Callers flooded the em-
ployment department seek-
ing help with unemployment
benefits. The vast majority
of callers encountered only
busy signals. Those who did
get through spent an aver-
age of more than three hours
on hold, and even then most
calls were never answered.
The huge volume of calls
was just part of the problem,
pwong@pamplinmedia.com
numbers and rising costs,
however, are putting sale
barns to the test.
Derrell Peel, extension live-
stock marketing specialist for
Oklahoma State University,
said the number of cattle na-
tionwide peaked in 1975 at
132 million head. That figure
dipped to a low of 88.2 mil-
lion head in 2014, and has
since recovered modestly to
93.6 million head.
“In the broadest sense of
the word, there are not as
many animals that need to be
sold,” Peel said. That is due
partly to greater efficiency at
beef processing plants, and
larger animals being bred on
the ranch.
“We produce as much beef
today as we did back then, but
we do it with many millions
fewer cattle,” he said.
Ethan Lane, vice president
of government affairs for the
National Cattlemen’s Beef As-
sociation, said the industry is
focused on increasing “negoti-
ated cash trades,” like competi-
tive bids at the sale barn, which
in turn will drive up the base
price in direct transactions.
“Everybody in the indus-
try is trying to achieve the
same thing,” Lane said. “The
question is, how do we get it
done?”
The Cattle Market Trans-
parency Act, sponsored by
Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.,
and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.,
seeks a solution that, in part,
would direct the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture to es-
tablish regional mandatory
minimum percentages for
negotiated cash trades, thus
reintroducing competition to
restore prices.
Lane said the association
is “extremely supportive” of
the bill’s objectives, but does
not support mandatory pro-
visions.
“We have a voluntary
framework that we’re work-
ing in right now, trying to
increase negotiated trade in
these regions,” he said.
“What they’re selling mat-
ters, too,” Lane added. “That’s
part of the business model,
figuring out where to go and
where to get the best price for
your livestock.”
Across the board, market
owners and industry repre-
sentatives say local sale barns
are still vital .
Mangan, of the market-
ing association, said livestock
auctions are the lifeblood of
many small Western com-
munities, and the only place
producers can determine fair,
competitive prices.
“Auction markets have al-
ways been a vital part of the
livestock industry,” Mangan
said. “In my opinion, they al-
ways will. It’s where the com-
petition is.”
Nike
Continued from A5
The movement to stop
MSCHF from shipping the
shoes to customers has al-
ready passed, according to
MSCHF lawyer Megan K.
Bannigan. The company had
sent out at least 200 pairs by
the time Nike formally re-
quested the restraining or-
der — all but one pair of the
shoes have already shipped to
owners.
“All of the shoes that were
sold and that have been sold
in this limited edition have
already gone out,” she said
Thursday.
Nike promptly asked U.S.
District Judge Eric Komittee
though. The employment
department and its person-
nel struggled to adapt to ex-
panded jobless benefits Con-
gress authorized in March.
The agency’s antiquated com-
puter system couldn’t keep up
either, sending out mislead-
ing or incorrect information
to unemployed workers —
adding to confusion and fuel-
ing more calls.
The situation has improved
somewhat in the interven-
ing year, but it’s far from re-
solved since callers typically
spend more than an hour on
hold and many still can’t get
through at all.
The department has hired
hundreds of personnel over
the past year to process
claims and deal with ques-
tions and comments. On
Wednesday, Gerstenfeld said
the department now pro-
cesses 99.9% of new claims
within three weeks.
Faster processing doesn’t
always mean faster payments
— many claims require ad-
ditional work — but it’s a big
switch from last spring, when
some claims were stuck in a
bureaucratic purgatory for
months at a time.
“We know we’re not yet
meeting the service levels we
need to, but we’re seeing real
improvements,” Gerstenfeld
said.
to order a recall of the cus-
tom Air Max 97 sneakers, but
the request was denied.
Komittee wrote in an or-
der that despite Nike being
granted the temporary re-
straining order, MSCHF can
still attempt to prove that the
shoes are protected under the
First Amendment for “rights
of artistic expression.” Until
that occurs, the last pair of the
sneakers cannot be distrib-
uted. MSCHF planned to raf-
fle off the final pair this week.
Although Nike can’t elimi-
nate the shoes from the mar-
ket, the lawsuit sends a warn-
ing shot to other companies
in the sneaker industry look-
ing to do similar collabora-
tions in the future.
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