Adopt a Shelter Pet Account Community Cats

The act authorizes the Colorado pet overpopulation authority (authority) to distribute money to encourage a pet animal facility, a pet animal rescue, and a spay and neuter organization located in Colorado (animal welfare facility) to trap, neuter, and return to its habitat a free-roaming domestic cat that may have a caretaker and is not socialized to humans (community cat). The adopt a shelter pet account in the pet overpopulation fund (account) provides the funding for these services. The authority will allocate funding pursuant to the direction of the authority's board of directors (board).

The authority must not favor a particular animal welfare facility's shelter model over another when allocating money to an animal welfare facility. A pet animal facility must be licensed and in good standing with the department of agriculture and located in Colorado to be eligible for money to support trapping, neutering, and returning to the community a community cat (trap-neuter-return). An animal welfare facility allocated money for trap-neuter-return may spend the money only on:

• Trapping, sterilizing, vaccinating, and ear-tipping community cats in Colorado;
• Veterinary care for the treatment and sterilization of community cats in Colorado;
• Training for community cat caretakers and animal control personnel in humane trapping and trap-neuter-return protocols in Colorado; and
• For an animal welfare facility that is a spay and neuter organization, veterinary materials and support for mobile clinics in Colorado.

The act changes the composition of the board and board member qualifications as follows:

• Replaces the representative of the Colorado federation of animal welfare agencies or its successor organization with one representative of an animal shelter;
• Replaces the representative of an association organized for Colorado animal control officers with one representative of a Colorado animal control agency;
• Replaces the member of an animal rescue organization with one person who is a member of a pet animal rescue;
• Modifies the qualifications of the representative from western Colorado by requiring that the person represent an animal shelter or a pet animal rescue or be a veterinary professional licensed with the state board of veterinary medicine located in western Colorado;
• Adds one representative from southern Colorado and one representative from eastern Colorado, both of whom must represent either an animal shelter or a pet animal rescue or be a veterinary professional licensed with the state board of veterinary medicine located in their respective regions; and
• Adds one representative of a pet animal facility located in a county with a population of 50,000 or less.

The board member who represents the general public must not also be on the board of any animal welfare organization. Any other board member may be a member of a board or subcommittee of a board of an animal welfare organization, but no more than one member of the board may be on the board or subcommittee of the board of the same animal welfare organization. A member of the board shall recuse themself from any board action or vote if they have a conflict of interest, including a vote on any allocation of funding to the board member.

The board must annually publish on the pet overpopulation fund website the name of each grantee receiving money from the pet overpopulation fund, the amount of money provided to a grantee, when a grantee received a grant, and the names of each board member.

The act requires at least 70% of all money awarded for grants from the pet overpopulation fund to be used for animal welfare facilities that are headquartered and located in a Colorado county with a population of 200,000 or less and requires the board to consider awarding at least 50% of the funds designated for these rural communities to counties with a population of 50,000 or less.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)