Legislature will vote on bill to save California goat herders for two more years

“I didn’t have goat herders on my bingo card for this budget year,” said Asm. Vince Fong, R-Kern County, at an Assembly Budget Committee hearing this week. But ever since a 2022 ‘bureaucratic accident,’ goat herders have frequented the Legislature’s agenda — and The Sacramento Bee’s pages.

In the latest effort to save goat herding — a key wildfire mitigation strategy — the Newsom administration proposed a budget trailer bill that extends the monthly minimum wage policy for another two and a half years. In the meantime, the bill would commission a $1 million report from the Department of Industrial Relations and Employment Development Department on the wage and conditions of herders in the state. The Assembly and Senate will vote on the bill next week.

If the bill passes, “it means we get to stay in business for another two and a half years,” said Tim Arrowsmith, owner of Western Grazers. His company oversees four to seven herders at any given time for wildfire mitigation programs.

In July, The Sacramento Bee reported on the realities of California’s goat herders, most of whom are Peruvian migrants on H-2A visas and live in trailers next to herds, monitoring the animals 24/7.

Because herding is an around-the-clock job, in 2001 the state decided to set a monthly minimum wage alternative for herders. In 2023, this wage meant a herder makes $4,528 per month.

But a March 2022 “bureacratic accident” left goat herders out of monthly minimum wage policy, quadrupling their wage to $191,000 annually. Herding operators said it would drive their business into the ground. The Legislature passed a budget trailer bill last year that extended the monthly minimum wage to Jan. 1, 2024. A bill introduced in February would’ve remedied the situation, adding goat herders to the labor code where they’d been left out. But the Assembly Labor Committee never called it to a hearing, forcing the Governor’s office to step in before the Jan. 1 sunset date.

This bill extends the monthly minimum wage another two years, and requests a report from the DIR and EDD. The report, as outlined by the Newsom administration’s proposal, would investigate wage violations, demographic information on sheep and goat herder and their employers and the use of H-2A visas in the herding sector.

Herder operators like Arrowsmith are grateful for the further extension. But it’s still only a temporary fix, with another looming sunset clause.

“Makes it difficult to be in business and to plan when all they do is kick the can down the road,” he said.

Though herding may sound antiquated, the industry has grown as a wildfire prevention strategy. In 2021, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention awarded more than $10 million to targeted grazing projects. The hearty animals eat nearly anything, including overgrown brush that fuel wildfires. Citrus Heights, Elk Grove and West Sacramento have all contracted herds in recent years to mow overgrowth in open spaces. It’s a cheaper, quieter and much cuter landscaping solution than lawnmowers and chainsaws.

Budget trailer bills insert language from the Governor’s staff, Department of Finance or Legislature into the annual budget, dictating how it is implemented. Trailer bills can also be a mechanism to change existing state law. The Assembly and Senate will both vote on trailer bills after Labor Day, according to an Assembly Budget Committee staffer.