Salem County leaders and mayors seek short- and long-term animal shelter options; committee to meet April 16

Salem County commissioners, municipal mayors and residents on Monday discussed a countywide shortage of animal-control shelter capacity and agreed to form a volunteer committee to seek short- and long-term solutions, with an update requested at the commissioners' April 16 meeting.

The discussion brought mayors and municipal officials together to outline immediate steps — including using vacant municipal buildings and volunteer-run temporary kennels — and longer-term options such as shared-service grants, partnerships with Rowan University's veterinary program and a possible county-run shelter.

Mayor Ladana Landau of Pinsgrove said she had begun looking for grant and fundraising opportunities and offered to help with donor outreach. “Maybe we can do some type of fundraisers, and all these folks that are that have an interest in it, they can come together and work with us,” Landau said.

Madison Township Mayor Don East and other small-town officials described low but steady local intake that nonetheless strains municipal budgets. East said his township averages about six dogs a year and noted that the county’s many rural areas make drop-offs and transient animals harder to track. “We’re averaging about 6 dogs a year,” East said, adding that some years see spikes when animals are abandoned with litters.

Ken Brown, a township official who said his municipality had spent more than $40,000 and added $100,000 to this year's budget for animal-control expenses, urged stronger penalties for abandonment and emphasized the financial pressure on small towns.

Several speakers urged short-term use of empty municipal buildings for kennel-style housing, supervised by volunteers, to keep animals off streets and provide basic care while longer-term solutions are developed. Resident Isabella Getz of Kearneys Pointe Township suggested using county-owned or municipal buildings for temporary holding and tapping volunteers for walking and basic care: “Short term, we need somewhere to put these dogs … these buildings can be used in the short term just to house these dogs,” she said.

Assemblyman Dave Bailey and other elected officials said they would assist with policy reviews and help identify funding. Bailey said Gloucester County, which provides a shelter service, spends roughly $2.1 million a year and draws substantial revenue; he recommended considering scaled estimates for Salem County. “We are here to support you,” Bailey said, offering to help review policies and funding approaches.

Sheriff’s Office representative Mike Peterson told the group the sheriff’s office prepared a county shelter proposal in 2010 that estimated a roughly $1.2 million startup cost at the time and recommended county-level funding, municipal billbacks, fundraisers and grants. Peterson said about half the responding New Jersey counties operate county-run shelters, indicating a county shelter is feasible but costly. “There is proof of concept that this is done on a county level,” Peterson said, and the 2010 plan can be updated for current costs.

Participants also cited operational hurdles: a shortage of local veterinarians to perform spay/neuter and medical work, volunteer burnout at smaller rescues, and limits on out-of-county transfers because many shelters prioritize in-county animals. One official said the county spayed or neutered over 600 cats last year but that local veterinary capacity is constrained.

Short-term and community-based programs such as trap-neuter-return (TNR) for feral cats, expanded licensing and microchip registration, volunteer training for trapping and short-term quarantine space were discussed as ways to reduce inflow and manage public-safety risks. Several speakers recommended pursuing a shared-services grant (one attendee said there is a shared-service grant program with awards up to $400,000) and exploring an improvement-authority-led site acquisition for a permanent facility.

Commissioners invited volunteers to join a small working committee to develop proposals; several municipal representatives and residents volunteered to help. The group set a target to reconvene with recommendations at the county commissioners meeting on April 16 and to begin meeting sooner as needed.

Formal action at the end of the session was limited to routine business: the commissioners adjourned by motion, which was moved, seconded and approved by raised hands.

Background: attendees cited prior arrangements, including volunteer-run shelters and shared municipal contracts that became unsustainable. Officials noted that a combination of pandemic-related adoptions, return-to-work patterns and regulatory changes have increased pressure on shelters and kennels. The sheriff’s office said it will share the 2010 county-shelter proposal for revision, and municipal leaders agreed to gather local data on intake volumes, facility capacity and budgets for the committee.