Hartford Business Journal

20 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | APRIL 29, 2024 FOCUS: HIGHER EDUCATION Dr. Mark Albin is a veterinarian with the Powder Ridge Veterinary Hospital in Middlefield. He said the state's vet shortage is so severe that a new associate veterinarian his practice recently hired fielded job offers from 17 other nearby hospitals. HBJ PHOTO | DAVID KRECHEVSKY Pet Project Legislature considers restoring grant program to help reduce veterinarian shortage for qualified Connecticut students to attend. The bill also sought to appropriate $100,000 from the state budget to cover the cost of the program's first year. If approved, the money would be available during the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2025. The bill was introduced by the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, and moved earlier this month to Appropriations. That committee, however, voted unanimously on April 15 to approve an amended bill that removed the funding. That wasn't really a surprise, given the constraints of the legislature's short session this year and the desire to avoid going over the state budget's fiscal guardrails. State Rep. Mike Demicco (D-Farm- ington), a member of the higher-ed committee who co-sponsored the bill, said after the Appropriations' vote, that he wasn't disap- pointed the funding had been stripped. "Hopefully, we'll be able to fund it next year," he said. The key for him was making the legislature aware of the issue and setting up the grant program for funding in the future. "Even if we can't fund it this year, at least get it back," he said. The impetus for the bill, Demicco said, was the complaint of a constit- uent whose daughter had to delay her veterinary school career because she was not initially accepted at the several schools to which she had applied. While the constituent suggested funding a full veterinary medicine program in Connecticut, Demicco said it made more fiscal sense to bring back the grant program, which was named after former UConn College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources Dean Kirklyn M. Kerr. The General Assembly origi- nally funded the grant program in 2008. Over a nine-year period, it provided $1.5 million to 38 students to attend veterinary school at Iowa State University. Current UConn College of Agricul- ture Dean Indrajeet Chaubey testified on behalf of the bill to resurrect the grant program. Chaubey said he understood that it likely would not be funded this year, but he remains optimistic about the future. He also said UConn does assist graduates who want to pursue a veterinary career in other ways. "We do have pre-vet programs in two of our departments," he said. "We make sure that once they graduate, they have all the prereq- uisite courses, that they fulfill all the requirements to be able to apply to veterinary college." By David Krechevsky davidk@hartfordbusiness.com T he numbers may surprise any reasonable person, but espe- cially anyone who owns a pet. There are 3,896 accredited colleges and universities in the United States, and just 33, or 0.85%, of them offer veterinary medicine programs. By comparison, more than 100 schools nationwide offer degrees in video game design. The lack of programs is particularly acute in the Northeast, with just three schools, all private, offering programs — Tufts University in Massachusetts, and Cornell and Long Island universi- ties in New York. While the University of Connecticut has a well-known College of Agricul- ture, Health and Natural Resources, it has never had a veterinary medicine program. It did, however, have the Kirklyn M. Kerr grant program, which from 2008 to 2018 paid the tuition for students and allowed them to get a veterinary degree at Iowa State University for nearly the same cost as an Iowa resident. Funding for that program disap- peared during a tough budget cycle seven years ago, but a bill making its way through the state General Assembly this spring seeks to resurrect it. The proposal is significant because Connecticut, like many other states, has a vet shortage, which has led to longer waits at veterinary emergency rooms (up to eight to 10 hours). It can also take weeks to schedule routine appointments and surgeries. The Connecticut Veterinary Medical Association last year said a poll of its members found that 74% of practices with open positions for veterinarians have experienced timeframes of over a year to fill those roles. 'Get it back' House Bill 5338 revives the Kerr grant program to allow UConn's pres- ident to sign an agreement with an accredited veterinary medicine school to reserve "not more than five" spaces Indrajeet Chaubey Mike Demicco

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