Friday, March 22, 2013
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KHS is caring for our community’s animals When the Bremerton Police Department recently received an anonymous complaint about a small recreational trailer overrun with scores of cats and kittens, the first call they made was to Kitsap Humane Society’s Animal Control unit. Over a two-week period, KHS’ officers rescued 97 felines and took them to the shelter for medical care and preparation for adoption into new homes. Many of these cats already have been placed with new owners, while more await adoption. This incident is a poignant example of the importance of a strong humane society in our community. KHS serves as a safety net for both people and animals, ensuring not only animal welfare, but public health and safety as well. Your humane society is in critical need of continued
strong finanIn 2012, 52% cial support, Guest Column of all stray through pri- Eric Stevens, dogs brought vate donations, Executive Director, to KHS were municipal anireunited with Kitsap Humane mal control their owners . contracts, and Society KHS’ procitizens adoptgressive aniing animals in need. mal welfare initiatives result Many people may not real- in the vast majority of aniize that KHS took in near- mals’ lives being saved. Many ly 5,000 animals last year, animals come to us woundincluding 2,579 strays. As an ed, sick and traumatized, but open admission shelter where most of those are rehabilitatno animal is turned away, ed and adopted out with the KHS accepts both stray and help of skilled care, medical owner-surrendered animals, intervention and socializaas well as animals in dis- tion provided by staff and tress recovered by its Animal volunteers. Euthanasia occurs Control unit. about 6 percent of the time, KHS ensures that every when more severe medical or animal admitted to the shel- behavioral issues are present. ter is vaccinated and treated KHS sees a burgeonfor parasites, ensuring the ing animal population. The animals’ health and help- case of the 97 cats rescued ing to control the spread of in Bremerton is a dramatdisease. KHS also helps pet ic case study of pet owners owners reclaim lost animals. not being responsible about
spaying/neutering their animals. KHS’ goal in 2013 is to increase spay/neuter surgeries from an all-time high of 3,751 in 2012 to 4,200. We can work with our community to prevent explosive population growth. Our biggest challenge is financial sustainability. With limited resources, KHS is remarkably efficient. We care for 25 percent fewer animals, yet operate with far less than half the budget of the Seattle Humane Society. But with the growing number of animals being brought in (we provided 108,000 days of care to animals last year) and the increasing number of spay/neuter surgeries being performed, KHS must generate about 10 percent more support from the community than last year. Increasing donations is only one aspect of our three-
business model. Second is running KHS with sound business practices, charging reasonable fees to surrender, adopt, reclaim or spay/neuter animals. Third, with more than 2,500 stray animals and nearly 2,000 animal control complaints received annually, it is critical that KHS maintain its’ funding via animal control contracts with Kitsap County, and Bremerton, Port Orchard, Bangor, Poulsbo and Port Orchard. Just a year ago, KHS was at risk of falling apart. Many changes needed to be made to get the organization back on track and restore the community’s confidence. Since then we have rebuilt the Board of Directors and management team; strengthened the Board-staff partnership; implemented needed improvements in management and governance recom-
mended by an independent external audit; restored public confidence in KHS – raised 31 percent more funds over 2011; and addressed severe budget shortfalls to move KHS toward sustainability We deeply thank our dedicated staff, volunteers, government partners and the thousands of Kitsap residents who support KHS by donating financially or adopting their family pets from KHS. Yet, while much progress has been made, KHS (and the animals we save) still face significant challenges. We know that people care deeply about animals and that we need to maintain a strong partnership with our community, combined with sound financial stewardship, to ensure that KHS is able to sustain its progressive mission. In the absence of that, the animals would be at risk.
Assessing across-the-board cuts by Congress
It’s been more than two weeks since the reckless across-the-board cuts began to take effect and yet U.S. House leadership has failed to bring any proposal to the floor that would replace these senseless cuts. While frustrating, I can’t and won’t accept that Washington is too broken to fix this problem and I will continue to work until we have a solution. In the meantime, the effects of these cuts are beginning to be felt across our region. Last month, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard canceled a job fair that would have hired hundreds of new workers. Now, thousands of workers in our region including folks at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, across Naval Base
Kitsap and at the Unless Congress Guest Column gets its act together shipyard are trying to manage the prosand passes a soluRep. Derek Kilmer pect of furloughs and tion, these school a substantial cut in pay. districts with many students from These deep cuts will also severely military families are going to affect a number of school districts face the loss of a major source of in our area — and will have a income. Schools that have faced major effect on those school dis- years of inadequate funding now tricts that happen to serve a high must eliminate summer school number of military families and programs for struggling first and children. These districts are par- second graders, reduce intervention ticularly vulnerable because they opportunities for students at all levreceive a significant amount of fed- els that are not meeting standards, eral funds, known as Impact Aid. and will be unable to implement an In 1950, Congress set up the Impact updated K-5 reading curriculum. Aid program in order to help those While all students in these school districts with limited tax schools will begin to see the bases on lands owned by federal or impacts of these cuts in the sumtribal governments. mer months, I’m concerned that the
impact could be particularly severe for those students with parents who have been deployed abroad. For those children, their school plays a vital role in supporting and tracking their progression. Without adequate intervention programs, who will make sure our students are on track? And with all of the budget uncertainty our schools are facing, this may not just be a temporary problem. Schools need to budget for the entire year. They need to know whether they can still rely on this important partnership with the federal government. While our nation’s budget problems must be fixed, it will not be solved by taking away basic edu-
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cational services from our families who have given their lives to our country. We must build our educational systems to compete with the national and global challenges of the future, not tear them down. Preserving funding for the Impact Aid program is a step in the right direction and a step we must take to ensure we are protecting every student, in every community. I am working to push my colleagues and the House leadership to get rid of these non-strategic, un-targeted and painful cuts and replace them with a balanced, longterm plan to get people back to work and put our nation’s fiscal house in order.