Florida – In April 2012, Broward County Commissioners “unanimously passed a resolution that requires Broward County to develop and implement a financially feasible No Kill Strategic Plan incorporating programs and services utilized in successful no-kill communities across the nation.”
The Sun Sentinel reports that in budget year 2011, Broward County’s kill rate was 63% and in 2012 the kill rate dropped slightly to 58%:
In the year before the no-kill vote, from April 2011 to April 2012, 10,821 cats and dogs were put down. That decreased to 10,158 in the 12 months after the vote, county data show.
While the article doesn’t provide raw intake numbers (and I couldn’t find them on the county’s website), it’s clearly a staggering number of shelter pets being killed. County officials seem to feel the answer is more money:
“The commitment the county made towards working towards no-kill is there wouldn’t be a taxpayer impact,” [administrative manager for Broward Animal Care and Adoption Stefanie] Chicko said, “so everything we’ve done has been through no changes to the current budget, no changes to additional staffing.”
For the coming budget, the animal care division will ask for more money to increase staff, Chicko said. The budget is about $4.3 million now.
There is also talk of putting a property tax increase to a public vote in November 2014, a la Miami:
The proposed tax increase equates to about $18.92 per household, [Pets’ Broward] said. The money would be used to build a spay and neuter facility for mass sterilizations.
Broward County has a dismal animal care history, and is still killing 28 animals a day according to the Sun Sentinel. It’s hard to take comfort in a funding referendum that might happen in a year and half, if it gets on the ballot. That’s a lot of 28-dead-shelter-pets days from now.
(Thanks Clarice for the link.)
28 animals a day! That means a little over 3 animals an HOUR…a little over one every 20 minutes!!! How about cutting the budget on the death serum used to kill these babies!!! Heads need to roll in the Broward County’s government.
I’m not familiar with the details of the Broward County Animal Shelter but I doubt that a increase in budget will solve the issues. Many other No Kill Shelter across the country are basically working with a shoe string budget and have been successful.
“Renewing their desire to reduce the number of dogs and cats euthanized in county shelters, Broward commissioners Tuesday pushed forward a host of measures aimed at regulating and reducing the furry population.”
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-animal-regulations-broward-20130611,0,5814478.story
Don’t forget that while the county animal control is euthanizing over 10,000 animals, the Humane Society on Griffin is euthanizing over 70% of their animal intake and they take in twice as many animals as the county. The problem is one of tremendous animal overpopulation. Where are 30,000 animals a year going to go? We must reduce the number of intakes in order to ever have a no-kill county.
HI – Thanks for sharing…what can citizens do? Can we organize to get support for the increase in funding (part of the solution), do presentations with service organizations to promote awareness/support of the No-Kill approach to solving the overpopulation/euthanization problem, other ideas? There are people who care out there … if we pool our power, we stand a better chance…open to suggestions. Thank you all! :o)