Summary


The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services provides voluntary grading services to food establishments that process poultry in accordance with the cooperative agreement established between the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and this agency as authorized under Section 583.052, Florida Statutes. Under the statement of work provided in this cooperative agreement, the Department shall charge fees to the poultry processor in order to collect all costs incurred by this agency associated with this service and administration of this program. Historically, rule language specific to the fee schedule was promulgated every three to five years to provide a multi-year revenue base to ensure coverage of current and projected program costs. The agency is now seeking a modification to this fee schedule to collect revenues needed to support all program costs for the current fiscal year (FY 2010/2011) only. Subsequently, the agency will assess the revenues needed each fiscal year and proceed with annual rule adoption of fee increases as needed to support all program costs.