The animal shelter budget is about to expire!

Our Board of Commissioners has a full quorum now,  and hopefully their first priority will be to get funding for the Animal Shelter on the May ballot. Timing will be tight, but possible, since Public Health and Shelter staff have everything the Board needs to meet the February 27 deadline. Calls or emails to the new BCC will let them know how important this is.

That’s the “easy” part. Then shelter supporters will have to organize a campaign to convince voters the levy is necessary.

In 2014, voters passed an 8-cents per thousand dollars of assessed property value levy. That doubled what was spent on the shelter by the county. 

The increase in funding was desperately needed. CRG member Larry West, who helped get petitions signed for the Animal Shelter levy, says it was desperately needed. The Shelter’s problems weren’t being solved by the Board of Commissioners, so concerned citizens organized committees to get a levy passed. He says the Shelter before the levy was “beyond dismal.” People would break into it to take their dogs being held in quarantine and he suspects some were stolen to be used as bait animals for training fighting dogs. Food for the animals in the shelter depended on donations and anything that broke down couldn’t get fixed. Animal feces were prevalent throughout the facility.

The levy was renewed in 2017 at 8-cents. In 2021 the levy was increased to 11-cents to meet increasing demands, and it again passed by a solid majority.  In 2024, Public Health proposed a 47-cent levy to help fund renovations at the shelter, which would have helped provide matching funds for grants as well. Voters rejected that plan by a wide margin.

The 11-cent levy just isn’t enough to meet the rising costs of supplies and veterinary bills. Spaying and neutering animals is a vital part of what the shelter does to help keep the stray animal population down. An increase in the levy is desperately needed. Hopefully it will be an amount that voters will support.