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Board makes veterinarian hiring top priority as shelter weighs mobile unit and on-site surgery upgrades
Summary
The advisory board adopted hiring a veterinarian as its top goal and directed staff to study outfitting an on-site surgery suite; staff detailed recruitment challenges, local private-practice offers, and cost estimates for mobile and fixed surgical options.
The Animal Control Advisory Board voted May 7 to make hiring a veterinarian the board’s top goal and asked staff to get cost estimates to outfit the shelter’s euthanasia/treatment room as a surgical suite if necessary.
Why it matters: shelter leadership said hiring a veterinarian could cut outsourcing costs and improve throughput by enabling on-site spay/neuter and other surgeries. The board also discussed a mobile surgical trailer as an alternate or complementary approach.
Jen (staff member) told the board the veterinarian position has been advertised and the advertised part-time rate was raised to $97 an hour (a reported part-time-equivalent of $97,000 annually if full-time extrapolated) but the county has not yet filled the role. Jen and other board members described aggressive private-practice recruiting packages in the region that the shelter must compete with: publicly posted local private positions offering salaries from about $150,000 for condensed work schedules to $75,000 sign-on bonuses or $100,000 sign-on packages in the private market. Jen said the county’s part-time role lacks full-time benefits such as public service loan repayment that some nonprofit and 501(c)(3) employers can offer.
Board members discussed the relative cost and practicality of upgrading existing on-site space versus buying a mobile surgical trailer. Steve (chair) cited a vendor quote for a bare-bones towable trailer of about $80,000 and said a full fixed build-out previously quoted in early planning was far more expensive (Lampe recalled an earlier estimate that was in the hundreds of thousands). Lampe said the shelter’s current room used for euthanasia and basic treatments was "adequate for cats and small dogs" but would require equipment purchases (anesthesia machine, drug inventory) and staff supervision to operate for surgeries. Lampe told the board, "For us to really sit down and have a solid conversation about what is the cost benefit analysis of a veterinarian on staff ... the actual cost is more complex than just dollars and cents." (Attribution: Hollis Lampe.)
The board directed staff to produce a preliminary cost estimate for outfitting the in‑shelter room and to continue recruitment. The board also asked staff to explore whether the county or other local agencies had refrigerated Connex storage available and to provide cost/benefit information about a tag engraver, portable ultrasound and other items volunteers suggested.
Ending: The board approved a set of five goals (veterinarian hiring as No. 1) by motion and vote and asked staff to return with cost estimates for a surgical suite plan B, mobile options and a fundraising path to support capital items.
