SPOKANE – If you want to know how bad Oregon’s wheat crop looks, you need only study the Oregon Wheat Commission’s budget.

The commission operates on a year-to-year budget. That means commissioners have to anticipate this year’s crop production to come up with their spending priorities for the next 12 months.

The process is aided by the Oregon Agricultural Statistics Service, county extension agents and the commissioners’ personal experience. Ultimately, it is bit of a guessing game.

“We realize there is a margin of error there,” said Judy Rea, chairman of the commission. “We are constantly assessing the production level, and it is a very difficult thing about a budget when you are forecasting in the future.”

In a June meeting, the commission anticipated assessments from this year’s crop would come to $754,000. That’s a 27.9 million bushel crop.

In 2001-2002, the assessment number was pegged at $1.34 million, but because of poor conditions the commission actually operated off assessments of $897,000. That’s a 33.2 million bushel crop.

It wasn’t so long ago, in both 1998 and 1999, the commission had a more healthy $1.3 million in assessment income. That’s a 43 million bushel crop.

Thanks to a $110,000 cash balance the commission squirreled away by reducing expenditures from last year’s budget, as well as miscellaneous income, an $879,000 budget was approved for 2002-2003. That compares with a $924,000 budget in 2001-2002 and $1.37 million budget in 2000-2001.

Rea said the decline in the commission’s budget is almost all due to production shortfalls. She lives in Morrow County, where the majority of her farms’ production is in summer fallow. She expects to harvest 30 to 35 bushels an acre. In good years, production has been as much as 70 bushels an acre.

Rea, who has been farming for 40 years, said there’s nothing in her experience to compare to the four-year series of droughts that has been visited upon widespread areas of Oregon’s wheat production.

“The budget speaks for itself. It’s not pretty. The money is simply not there. That’s all I can say. I sure don’t want to make promises to programs we can’t carry through,” she said, adding that it will be September or October before the commission has a handle on how much wheat was actually harvested.

Tanna Rosebrook, the commission administrator, said there has been a request to form a budget committee to look into the budgeting process in the future.

“Is this something that’s a trend? Is it going to continue?” she asked. “If we are not going to have rain three years into the future, how do we best serve the growers with the money we have. That’s why this (budget) group has been formed.”

The shortfall in Oregon crops has been bad for growers, but it is arguably worse for the commission, which does not receive government payments and isn’t eligible for insurance reimbursements. The commission receives its assessment of 3 cents a bushel only on what is received.

For the most part, the commission maintained funding of its ongoing obligations, only at a much reduced level. Oregon State University wheat research funding was cut from $302,000 to $173,350. Contributions to the Western Wheat Quality Lab in Pullman dropped from $36,050 to $15,000.

Dues to U.S. Wheat Associates, which are supposed to run $144,194, were dropped to $46,000.

Funding to the Wheat Marketing Center has been slashed $79,000. Tri-state activities, budgeted at $13,235 last year, have been zeroed out.

Mack Kern, who was chairman prior to Rea, said the cuts to U.S. Wheat and other marketing opportunities bothered everyone, “but right now, we are doing the best we can.”