Executives at Dairy Management Incorporated – the organization that annually uses about $160 million in dairy farmers’ mandated check-off funds to promote and research dairy products – spent time last week defending the top executives’ wages while dairy farmers are struggling across the nation.
Dairy farmers are assessed 15 cents per hundredweight for promotion and research, with 10 cents of that going to state and regional programs and 5 cents going to the national DMI program.
News reports based on the non-profits organization’s records show that DMI’s top 10 executives were paid a collective $8 million in 2017 and that chief executive officer Thomas Gallagher was paid more than $1 million in three years from 2013 to 2017, the most recent records available. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story said executives and some board members have used funds to attend the Super Bowl and for health-club benefits.
Sarah Lloyd, a Wisconsin Dells dairy farmer who served on the board, said she sometimes would weep about the situation when returning home from DMI meetings.
Gallagher told reporters he understands farmers’ frustrations, but defended the salaries as being comparable with other organizations’ wages for similar positions.
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