Agenda - 04-19-2011 - 4c - Laserfiche WebLink

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5 NCACC Outstanding County Program Awards Orange County's Community Spay & Neuter Program: A Summary February 28, 2011 This involves a three way partnership between the County's Animal Services Department, Social Services Departments and AnimalKind, a Triangle area non-profit. As Diagram I shows, this partnership brings together pets, their owners and vets, offering low-cost spay and neuter services to qualifying residents. The program is innovative and unique in creating this partnership to make pet sterilization available to residents of limited means, reduce "surplus pets" in County communities, and control the long-term costs of animal services. In 2010, the Board of County Commissioners received and approved Managing Pet Overpopulation: A Strategic Plan for Orange County, North Carolina. Animal Services staff and the County's Animal Services Advisory Board prepared this plan on the basis of ongoing discussions of the critical need to organize low-cost or no cost spay neuter options to targeted residents, and the view of many animal welfare experts that it is not possible to adopt our way out of the problem of pet overpopulation. The County had taken its initial step in this direction in 2007 when Commissioners increased the licensing fee for reproductive dogs and cats from $10 to $30 and committed the $20 differential to a Community Spay & Neuter Fund. As a result of this decision, approximately $25,000 is available annually from the licensing fee differential, and each year a significant portion of the County's expenditures have been reimbursed through the North Carolina Spay and Neuter Program. Because of our mutually beneficial partnership, based on strong and respectful working relations, we have been able to make very good use of available resources to provide pet sterilization to the County residents who are targeted by the program. In the last calendar year, 383 cat and dog spays and neuters were provided (a 70 percent increase from the prior year), and in 2009 the total was 225 (a 30 percent increase from the preceding year). It should be underscored that the pets of DSS clients accounted for 249 of the spays and neuters provided in 2010 and 127 of those provided in 2009. These are what we refer to as "no pay" spays and neuters, and most result from clients responding to program notices that DSS receives from Animal Services and places in monthly reports for a number of their public assistance programs. The "no-pay" option is available because of the expertise and influence of DSS staff, who asked for this option because they believed that even a $20 co-pay requirement would be cost-prohibitive. Almost all pet sterilizations are organized by our non-profit partner. As part of its The $20 Fix, AnimalKind enters into and manages its own agreements with various veterinary establishments. Under our annual agreement, AnimalKind administers the application process for Orange County residents (as it does generally for its own program), whether this is the no-pay option for DSS clients or the $20 co-pay for residents whose household income is less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level. 215 N. Dawson St, Raleigh, NC 27603 * Phone: (919) 715-2893 * Fax: (919) 733-1065 * www.ncacc.org