Advocates for Chicagoland Animals want to thank Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for the thoughtful search and selection process recently conducted for a new Executive Director of Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC). The new Executive Director is a true animal lover and we hope that under her leadership, great strides can be made moving Chicago toward a No Kill reality.
However, the new Executive Director has been given a huge task to complete while being hampered by an extremely limiting budget. We realize that the city is facing many budget constraints, but it is a travesty that CACC has a budget that is between one-fourth to one-half the amount budgeted for cities of comparable size. The City of Los Angeles, with a population of 4 million people, has a $23.98 million budget for FY 2016-17 to manage its animal services operations. LA Animal Services took in 45,608 cats and dogs in FY 2015-16, slightly less than double Chicago’s intake of 23,000 last year. (LAAS also took in 6,060 other animals.)
Houston, Texas, with 2.16 million people and the largest urban landmass in the U.S., has a $14.8M budget for its animal care and control operations; 27,179 animals were sheltered there in 2015. Another Texas City, San Antonio, is home to 1.38 million people; its animal care services operate with a $12.5M budget. The San Antonio shelter system took in 31,371 animals in its FY 2014-15.
By comparison, Chicago, a city of 2.719 million people, allocated just $5.7 million in FY 2016 to care for its stray and homeless animals.
We believe that Chicago can be a beacon for progressive sheltering in the country. Given the appropriate leadership and financial support, this can become a much-needed positive public relations story for the city. Please consider voting for a more appropriate and enhanced budget to support the life-saving efforts that are being made at CACC. As stated in our previous petition, moving to a No Kill model at the city shelter will eventually save money for the city. But to get there, a more reasonable appropriation needs to be made for this operation and facility.
