Pueblo Zoo warns 30% city funding cut would threaten accreditation, asks council for $944,000

Abby Cross, executive director of the Pueblo Zoo, told the Pueblo City Council on Aug. 18 that the zoo faces a projected annual deficit of about $90,000 if the city applies a requested 15% cut to nondepartmental funding — on top of a roughly 15% cut last year that left the zoo about $300,000 short over two years.

Cross said the zoo submitted a city operating request that complies with the 15% cut — $767,655 — but proposed an alternate, larger request of $944,000 to avoid steps that could leave the nonprofit unable to meet accreditation standards. “A 30% cut in city funding, almost $300,000 in 2 years, is no easy thing to overcome,” Cross said. She said a cut of the size contemplated would set the zoo back “almost five years” and could exhaust reserves in fewer than four years.

The zoo’s operator, the Pueblo Zoological…