(Wines&Vines) - California wine grape growers will be voting in April via a referendum on whether or not to continue the assessment they have paid annually since 2001 to fund programs and activities of the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Pierce’s Disease/Glassy-winged Sharpshooter Board. The 15-member board advises the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) on use of the assessment funds for research, monitoring and control efforts to stop the spread of Pierce’s disease (PD) and its primary vector, the glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS). Approval of the referendum will extend the assessment and board programs five years (until March 1, 2021). Legislation has required grapegrowers to vote to continue the assessment every five years, which they have done twice: in 2005 and 2010. Legislation authorizing this year’s referendum, Assembly Bill 1642, was passed in 2014, supported by Family Winemakers of California, the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG) and Wine Institute. 

At a Jan. 26 meeting of the PD/GWSS Board in Sacramento, the board was briefed by Kathy Diaz-Cretu of the CDFA marketing branch, which will oversee and conduct the referendum. Diaz-Cretu said CDFA is compiling the final list of eligible voters, expected to number between 5,000 and 6,000, which will include all entities that paid the assessment on grapes crushed in 2014. She said ballots would be mailed to all eligible growers/voting entities March 30, 2015. Voters will have 30 days to return their ballots, and results of the vote will be announced two weeks after the voting deadline.

“We need at least 40% of the eligible voters on the list to vote and return ballots in order for the referendum to be valid,“ Diaz-Cretu explained. If 40% of the ballots are not returned within 30 days, CDFA has the option to extend the voting period another 30 days, a scenario that occurred with the first referendum in 2005. Referendum approval requires one of two conditions:

1. A “yes” vote by 65% of those who vote, and the “yes” voters must have paid the majority of the assessment paid by those who voted.

2. Of those who vote, a majority vote “yes,” and the “yes” voters must have paid 65% or more of the assessment that was paid by those who voted. Should the referendum fail, assessments would cease in 2016, and the provisions of the legislation would become inoperative.

Assessment revenues near $50 million over 15 years

The board sets the annual assessment rate, which has a maximum of $3 per $1,000 of grape value. This maximum rate was assessed only once, for the program’s first year in 2001, as required by the original legislation. The assessment rate the past two years has been 75 cents per $1,000 of grape value, the lowest rate the board has assessed in its 14 years of operation. The assessment has raised $45.7 million during the first 13 years of collection, and the board projects 2014 crush assessment revenue of $2.83 million.