West Virginia Spay Neuter Program (WVSNP) was the result of collective and persistent political action that highlighted the need for publicly funded spay and neuter services. However, when the funding bill was passed, it was altered to provide only half of what was needed to make a lasting impact. Despite this setback, the West Virginia Department of Agriculture has emphasized equitable partnerships with our grantees to make the most of WVSNP monies. The accuracy of the original funding request has repeatedly been underscored by grant requests routinely hitting the one-million-dollar mark, while available funding was roughly half of that.
The Mug-Z-Moo grant, via FOHO WV, really changed the game for WVSNP. In the 2023 grant cycle, WVDA was able to fully award all requests while FOHO provided individual grants directly to six high volume spay neuter clinics. While this meant full funding on the surface, it also highlighted our greatest challenge and that is our shortage of veterinarians throughout our state. Our spay neuter procedure numbers increased substantially in 2023. Combining 5,824 unique clinic procedures with the WV Dept of Ag. WVSNP total procedures of 17,568, we had a grand total of 23,392 procedures statewide with our funding. Grant recipients travelled 31,309 miles to transport animals to clinics and veterinary services. Several counties have no vet clinics or rely on clinics located across state lines. State Code requires that the WVSNP recipients utilize WV vets. Unfortunately, there is no remedy for these organizations as they struggle to find enough veterinarians in their more remote areas of the state.
Of note on the information below, the VetStart WV as a budget item did not get funded in the 2024 WV State Legislature. We are sure we will see more on this in the future but for now, it was not funded legislatively.
However, there may be a solution with the effort to start the first four-year veterinary technology program, VetStart West Virginia. It is a program academically based at West Virginia’s Land Grant Universities (West Virginia University and West Virginia State University). The intent is to have veterinary technicians/technologists assisting veterinarians thus freeing them to perform more essential duties and foremost for FOHO even more spay neuter procedures. The AVMA suggests 4 veterinary techs to 1 veterinarian but in WV the ratio is 1 veterinary tech to 9 veterinarians. It makes sense that this nationwide veterinarian shortage which is so negatively impacting WV could be helped with this program. We will battle for the limited number of veterinarians to locate in WV. This may be our next best option. What can we in the animal welfare community do to help this program get started? There is budget funding needed from the WV State Legislature for the VetStart Program. You can read more about the program below. Then call legislators on the Senate and House Finance Committees to support the budget funding request by the Dept. of AG for the VetStart WV program. Make sure to contact House and Senate Finance Committee majority chair, vice chair and all the committee if you can. If you are a grantee, use your success to support your plea. See below.
VetStart Brochure
This is a good article emphasizing the need for the VetStart program in our state.
If there is a Delegate or Senator from your area on one of these committees, please reach out to them and the chair and vice chair of the committee. Ask them to support the budget funding request by the Dept. of AG for the VetStart WV program. Do not hesitate to contact others on both Finance Committees to tell your story of how the grant money from WVSNP has impacted you and those in your area if you are a grantee. This may be our best solution for increased spay neuters in our state. It certainly has to help and seems a certain win with this extra assistance to the vets by these highly trained vet techs. And, of course it provides another path for our young people to remain in WV with even more increased career options.
Senate Finance Committee Go to link and click on legislator and all contact info is available in their profile.
Take a few minutes to help our spay neuter effort!
https://www.wvlegislature.gov/committees/senate/SenateCommittee.cfm?Chart=fin
House Finance Committee
https://www.wvlegislature.gov/committees/house/HouseCommittee.cfm?Chart=fin