Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Vdl Staffing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Veterinary Diagnostic Lab asks board to help fund two staff positions and deploy federal equipment funds
Summary
VDL director Hemith Naikiri told the board the lab has a 25% case increase at the poultry testing site, needs two additional staff at MPTL, has a $250,000 MALDI‑TOF purchase funded by ARP and a $1 million congressional earmark for lab infrastructure, and seeks help finding sustainable personnel funding.
Hemith Naikiri, laboratory director of the University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab (VDL), asked the Board of Animal Health for help identifying funding and recruiting options to fill two critical positions at the Minnesota Poultry Testing Laboratory (MPTL). He said MPTL is operating with a skeleton crew (about a dozen staff) while case volume there has increased roughly 25% in the first five months of the fiscal year.
Naikiri outlined capital support already secured and outstanding needs: the lab received $250,000 in federal American Rescue Plan funds to purchase a MALDI‑TOF mass spectrometer (expected to arrive in January) but noted lifecycle and maintenance costs—roughly $150,000 to $400,000 over the equipment lifetime. Separately, the lab has a $1,000,000 congressional discretionary earmark for Billman lab infrastructure; Naikiri said the funds will be deployed for equipment and a planned upgrade of the lab information management system.
"Any help with finding ways to fund these two positions is what I wanted to highlight," he said, explaining the positions are essential to maintain turnaround times and support poultry‑industry testing and foreign‑animal‑disease response.
Board members asked for options including state funding, industry support and creative federal matching; Naikiri said the lab is also tapping federal funding where possible and is recruiting research fellows via CDC/APHL fellowship programs to augment capacity.
