In order to combat recent budget cuts, the School of Veterinary Medicine will cut funding to the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory and the Arbovirus Testing Program.
The LADDL provides “surveillance of animal diseases that may impact public health” as well as “diagnostic infrastructure for animal agriculture in the state,” said Peter Haynes, dean of the Vet School.
The LADDL was historically a state-run laboratory, but the Vet School assumed full financial responsibility four years ago from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. The program had long been underfunded, and the Vet School thought it could enhance the budget for the program, Haynes said.
“The School of Veterinary Medicine did everything it could and has worked hard to maintain adequate funding for the laboratory, so it could maintain accreditation,” Haynes said.
The Vet School’s current funding must also cover the expense of the laboratory and when cuts are made to the school’s budget, the laboratory’s budget must also be reduced, Haynes said.
“We were not prepared to take away educational funds to support the laboratory,” Haynes said. “LADDL gets caught up in the ‘perfect storm’ that is affecting the funding of all of higher education in Louisiana.”
The Vet School is hoping to move the program back to the Department of Agriculture and Forestry to separate the distinct academic and service roles of these programs, Haynes said.
Mike Strain, commissioner of the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, said the department had agreed to take back the lab but as of now the laboratory will not be allowed to transfer out of the University.
The department is “hoping to get the laboratory back on track” and is working to keep the lab going. Cuts to the lab’s funding are critical, Strain said.
It’s essential that the lab continues research on animal diseases like West Nile and rabies that can also affect the human population, Strain said.
“The program is synergistic with the [Vet School], but it maintains a separate identity,” Haynes said.
The Vet School is responsible for the LADDL, and because higher education does not separate funding between the program and the school, the program’s mission is impacted by the cuts that are distributed to academic programs, Haynes said.
Haynes said he is concerned about future funding levels as the Vet School is “getting close to the tipping point.”
“The School of Veterinary Medicine and its professional program, research programs and our service to the state has and will continue to experience considerable adverse effects from the ongoing loss of state support, not unlike other academic programs on our campus,” Haynes said.
With a small number of students and an intense requirement for medical and scientific technologies, budget cuts are difficult to manage at the SVM, Haynes said. Together these create limited degrees of freedom within the current funding model, he said.
“The only thing that is certain is that there is so much uncertainty, and budget cuts are creating considerable anxiety throughout the campus and making plans for the future so hypothetical,” Haynes said.
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Contact Kate Mabry at [email protected]