As California faces a $24 billion budget deficit, state leaders have only days to figure out which critical services and programs will be sacrificed to make up the difference. We need to make sure animals are protected.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has again proposed to suspend the "animal adoption mandate," which would reduce the holding period for stray dogs and cats in the state's municipal animal shelters by three days.
The savings generated by suspending this mandate is a paltry 0.1 percent of the $24 billion deficit. These funds are the only state dollars that presently go to assisting local governments with the costly problem of pet overpopulation.
This holding period is critical to give pet owners more time to locate lost animals and to give unclaimed animals more time to either be adopted or transferred to an animal rescue group.
TAKE ACTION
Please take two minutes to make a brief, polite phone call to Governor Schwarzenegger's office at (916) 445-2841. You can say: "My name is [your name] and I live in [your town]. I know the budget situation is dire, but I'm calling to express my concern with the Governor's proposal to suspend the animal adoption mandate."
After you make your call, send a follow-up message to the governor and your state legislators, and tell your friends and family in California how they can take action too.
We're working the halls of the Capitol hard on this one, but we need your help. As California struggles to come to terms with the current economic downturn, we must ensure that animals do not bear the brunt.
Thank you for all you do for animals.
Sincerely,
Mike Markarian
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
The Humane Society of the United States
2 comments:
"The savings generated by suspending this mandate is a paltry 0.1 percent of the $24 billion deficit. These funds are the only state dollars that presently go to assisting local governments with the costly problem of pet overpopulation."
Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding was that the state has not been consistent in assisting local governments with $$'s and this has resulted in an ever increasing debt unpaid.
So, the "savings" would not actually reduce the current and/or projected spending... rather it would simply result in a slight reduction in the cumulative amount owed to local governments.
Brad Jensen
Cypress,CA
Just because they haven't paid much doesn't mean they can't think about paying sometime in the future as projected spending and projected deficit.
I thought from what I had read they had never paid anything. Then someone told me they had but didn't provide a number that was actually paid.
In any event, it would eliminate the state's need to pay additional mandated funds to the shelters, but not reduce in any way what they already owed the various cities.
To me, it is a criminal moral blindness.
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