SB921: Large animal veterinary grant program; State Veterinarian to establish, report.

Legislative Summary

State Veterinarian; large animal veterinary grant program; report. Directs the State Veterinarian to establish a large animal veterinary grant program no later than July 1, 2026, to provide grants to increase or stabilize the number of large animal veterinarians, as defined in the bill, practicing in areas of the Commonwealth that have been identified by the State Veterinarian as having a shortage of such veterinarians. The bill directs the State Veterinarian to annually select from a pool of applicants no more than four large animal veterinarians to participate in the program and to develop, in consultation with the Board of Veterinary Medicine and relevant stakeholders, selection criteria for applicants to participate in the program. The bill also requires the State Veterinarian to submit a report evaluating the extent to which the program has helped to address the shortage of large animal veterinarians in the Commonwealth to the Board and the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources and the House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources no later than July 1, 2030. This bill is identical to HB 2303.