Recruitment and retention of veterinarians in federal service is presenting an ever-greater challenge
Since 2009 the Government Accounting Office (GAO) has performed investigations into the status of the federal veterinary workforce. In February of 2009 they published a report titled: Veterinary Workforce: Actions Are Needed to Ensure Sufficient Capacity for Protecting Public and Animal Health. Each report since has come to similar conclusions of inadequate numbers to meet the needs of the Agencies full mission space of current and surge capacity emergency responses. Some federal agencies are experiencing vacancy rates as high as 40% in some areas despite instituting recruitment and retention incentives. A more comprehensive approach to filling the chronic void in federal veterinary services is needed rather than the current inadequate patchwork of incentives. From the simplest forms of authorities Agencies already have (but may not be using) to overarching initiatives requiring OPM or Congressional authority to implement much is required to meet the requirements of the American and global communities needs for public practice veterinary expertise.
The National Association of Federal Veterinarians (NAFV) is coordinating with a group of like minded partners and constituents to address these critical shortages. The key areas of "Recruitment and Retention" are ensuring locality pay is adequate for the rural locations these public service veterinarians are required to work in, Special Pay for those hard to fill positions especially where locality pay may not be able to be established, Specialty Pay for advanced degrees, specialized training and Board Certification to enhance the performance of the Agency's mission, Student Loan reimbursement beyond the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, hiring bonuses, retention bonuses and ultimately Professional Pay to bring public sector salaries to be competitive with the private sector.
NAFV is working with the American Veterinarian Medical Association (AVMA) to commission another GAO report since the last one was over 8 years ago. Significant changes in the additional needs for public practice veterinarians has occurred (COVID-19, Avian Influenza, African Swine Fever in the western hemisphere) and the economics driving new veterinarians into private practice rather than a career in public practice. AVMA has been successful in obtaining additional resources for recruitment and retention in the Food Safety and Inspection Service but more in needed and other federal agencies have similar needs.
According to the GAO Report, "The federal government lacks a comprehensive understanding of the sufficiency of its veterinarian workforce. More specifically, four of five component agencies GAO reviewed have assessed the sufficiency of their veterinarian workforce to perform routine activities and have identified current or future concerns. This includes USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and Agricultural Research Service (ARS); and DOD’s Army. Current and future shortages, as well as noncompetitive salaries, were among the concerns identified by these agencies. HHS’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not perform similar assessments and therefore did not identify any concerns. In addition, at the department level, USDA and HHS have not assessed their veterinarian workforces across their component agencies, but DOD has a process for
doing so. Moreover, there is no government-wide effort to search for shared solutions, even though 16 of the 24 federal entities that employ veterinarians raised concerns about the sufficiency of this workforce. Further exacerbating these concerns is the number of veterinarians eligible to retire in the near future. “GAO’s analysis revealed that 27 percent of the veterinarians at APHIS, FSIS, ARS, Army, and FDA will be eligible to retire within 3 years"1.
We have now reached a critical point in the delivery of Federal veterinary oversight of programs. Without filling this gap our food safety programs could be in jeopardy, our disease control mechanism are not up to the task of controlling such potential human pathogens as avian influenza, our international trade recognition status may be in question and the monitoring of potential human pathogens of animal origin will be suspect.
We are therefore requesting a GAO Report to analyze the current veterinary workforce situation and explore options such as veterinary professional pay, use of special pay, addition of specialty pay for advanced degrees and certifications, greater use of direct student loan repayment incentives in hiring to resolve the recruitment and retention issues.
The column from the National Association of Federal Veterinarians is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDmanager audience.
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