It just got a lot cheaper to bring home a new best friend from the Guilford County animal shelter: Throughout August, Guilford County Animal Services is slashing pet adoption fees from $75 to $25 as part of the national Clear the Shelter campaign, an annual push to find homes for dogs and cats currently living at the shelter.
In the 2024-2025 budget adopted last year, at the encouragement of former Guilford County Manager Mike Halford, the county raised the adoption fees significantly at the shelter in a move that seemed to be patently unwise. While the county would make $50 or so more on adoptions with the new fees, it would also no doubt mean that the animals would be in the shelter longer requiring overburdened county animal staff to continue feeding and caring for them – and it meant the taxpayers would continue paying for those services as well as expensive medical care provided at the shelter.
It seemed to be clearly a penny wise and pound-foolish decision…