Video Story
Watch VideoSurprise: El Paso County cuts include Humane Society funding
Story By: Bill Folsom
Source: KOAA
Budget cuts by El Paso County Commissioners have taken at least one group by surprise - the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, which is a private non-profit that contracts animal control services with the county.
Humane Society leaders weren’t contacted during discussion and learned after the vote that the county would reduce the amount agreed to in their contract. It's a cut of eighty-thousand thousand dollars.
Doctor Wes Metzler, Executive Director of the Humane Society, says "It's twenty-percent of the operating budget that we have for El PasoCounty animal control. So, you take away one fifth of our resources. Yes, that's fairly significant."
The contract is for all of 2008, but the budget cuts passed by Commissioners start mid year.
CountyCommissioners voted this week on nine million dollars in cuts to meet budget short-falls. Most of the cuts have been in county departments
