OLYMPIA — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill on April 6 to maintain fees that support brand inspections by the state Department of Agriculture.

The legislation will keep inspection fees from expiring in 2024 and reverting to fees in place in 2019. The agriculture department estimated it would have lost $560,000 a year and had a deficit by 2027.

Senate Bill 5439 doesn’t raise fees and eliminates a $20 fee to call out a brand inspector, which the department said discouraged inspections.

The agriculture department checks livestock that are being sold to guard against theft and to compile records that can be used to backtrack the movements of a diseased animal.

The Washington Cattlemen’s Association supported the bill. The House and Senate passed it unanimously.

By coincidence, the governor signed the bill on Beef Day, an annual event during the legislative session in which the cattle industry serves up beef.

“It was a good bill, and it was signed on a good day,” said Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, the bill’s prime sponsor.

The program is entirely supported by livestock owners. To keep the program solvent, lawmakers raised fees in 2019. The fees were to sunset July 1, 2024.

The agriculture department will submit an annual report on the program’s financial condition to lawmakers.