Federal Professional Pay and its Impact on the Status of the Federal Veterinary Workforce
The National Association of Federal Veterinarians (NAFV) is committed to advocating for, and providing support to, the mission that Federal Veterinarians are tasked with accomplishing. This is the central function that drives our organization’s work. How that breaks down into practice takes many shapes, including keeping in tune with the status of the federal veterinary workforce and identifying its needs. Currently, the most important issue for NAFV is two-pronged. First, is the chronically high vacancy rate that is plaguing the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) veterinary workforce, especially in midwestern districts. And second, which we believe is one of the factors contributing to the first, is the need for pay equity as it relates to federal veterinary professional pay.
A big portion of the federal veterinary workforce is composed of Supervisory and Public Health Veterinarians (SPHVs, and PHVs) who work for USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service. As we illustrated in our turkey club example, federal veterinarians across the board are crucially involved in ensuring that safe and wholesome foods are accessible to the American public at affordable prices. This is especially true for FSIS veterinarians. As such, USDA’s mission of ‘Do Right and Feed Everyone’ involves a well-staffed veterinary workforce that is prepared to employ a slew of scientific methods including food safety, public health, preventative medicine, emergency preparedness and response management, foreign animal diseases, etc. Thus, Public Health Veterinarians have been deemed a mission-critical occupation for the Department.
Nevertheless, SPHV and PHV vacancy rates in FSIS have been chronically-high for the past decade or so; hovering somewhere between 11-19% nationwide, and in some districts, being as high as 23%. A recent FSIS report to the Senate states the current national vacancy rate for the FSIS federal veterinary workforce to be at 19%. Such high vacancy rates put a strain on the remaining workforce, with many NAFV members reporting elevated levels of stress and effects of worker burnout. The Government Accountability Office has conducted several reports on the workforce which included recommendations on how to implement different strategies to meet full staffing levels. The last of these reports was conducted in 2015, yet the issue persists.
Many factors are contributing to high-vacancy rates, but two of the most important ones influencing this dynamic are worker burnout resulting from having to make up for the high-vacancy rates, coupled with the pay inequity between private-practice veterinary salaries and federal/public veterinary salaries. Average private veterinary starting salaries are around $85,000/year, compared to GS-11/GS-12 salaries which is where veterinarians start in the federal pay scale. That is a difference of $20,000 - $30,000 right off the bat, and if you couple that with having to cover multiple positions in some cases, it is a balance that does not weigh in favor of a federal career or happy family life. As such, federal veterinary professional pay is our top priority, as it could alleviate both issues of high vacancies and low retention.
While professional pay will not fix everything, it does, at the very least, illuminate and adequately compensate them for the critical role that veterinarians play in the overall U.S. public health and emergency response structures. It also will make it possible for more veterinarians, wherever they are in their career, to look at feasibly transitioning into public service. Further, it is worth noting that FSIS PHVs are not the only ones who would and should benefit from federal professional pay. There are veterinarians across different agencies in the federal government who are conducting scientific and public health work amongst other medical professionals from different fields, often alongside colleagues who are receiving professional pay, and doing the same type of work. Examples of such agencies include CDC and the USPHS, two agencies that are heavily involved in the COVID-19 response.
Professional pay for veterinarians will increase recruitment and retention of well-prepared veterinarians into the Federal Government, which is a crucial component necessary to meet the USDA’s mission of providing safe and wholesome food to the American public. In recognition of the importance of this effort, NAFV is implementing a renewed and reinforced effort into accomplishing this during the next Congressional term. Our goal is to have a fully-staffed Federal Veterinary Workforce that is committed and fulfilled by a career in federal service.
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