MDC endorses revised fee package, asks board to pursue statute changes to shore up fund reserves

The Medical Discipline Committee recommended that the Veterinary Medical Board pursue legislative changes to Business and Professions Code section 4905 to increase statutory fee caps and adopt a tiered veterinary-premises fee structure. The MDC approved the staff-drafted legislative proposal (option 2), which would make several statutory-cap changes and create small, medium and large premises renewal and initial fees.

Lede: committee members said the board's fund projections showed a structural deficit later in the decade and that delaying fee changes risked insolvency. The MDC voted to ask the full board to submit a legislative proposal that increases statutory fee caps for veterinary licenses and authorizes a three-tier premises fee (small, medium, large) and raises caps for RVT and VACSP fees; the committee selected an option that shifts a greater share of the increase to veterinarian premises while moderating RVT fee increases.

Why it matters: staff modeled several multi-year scenarios and concluded that, without statutory cap increases, the board's reserves could fall below required minima in the later…