As part of Kern County's recently passed $4.4 billion budget, roughly $1 million will go to planning and designing a new county animal shelter. The new facility will help with the chronic overcrowding that the Kern County Animal Shelter has been dealing with for years. 23ABC's Corey O'Leary spoke with Kern County Animal Services Director Nick Cullen to learn more.
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00:00 The Kern County Animal Shelter has been dealing with overcrowding for years now and this week the county took steps in an effort to remedy the
00:06 Situation by allocating money for a new shelter 23 ABC's Corio Leary has the details
00:12 As part of the county's recently passed
00:15 4.4 billion dollar budget roughly 1 million dollars will go to planning and designing a new animal shelter
00:23 The new shelter will help with the chronic overcrowding that the Kern County Animal Shelter has been dealing with for years
00:30 The Board of Supervisors that guard acknowledging that there's a crisis about
00:35 Animals in our community and I'm super happy that there's some more resources being provided to animal services more resources being provided
00:44 For the animals in addition to staffing increases
00:48 there are 1.2 million dollars that are going towards the designing and planning of a new facility one that will be able to serve the
00:56 Amount of animals that the current shelter sees every year. I can tell you that the design phase
01:01 Will take into account our annual intake of animals and it'll be structured to
01:07 Accommodate that number of animals Cullen says the current shelter takes in around 12,000 animals
01:13 Annually more than the current facility can handle. He says he wants the new facility to better serve the Kern County community
01:19 One of the primary hopes for animal services is a more community-based facility
01:27 someplace where the community could come for resources more
01:32 Visually appealing facility than where we're at right now. And of course better environment for the animals
01:37 in addition an extra
01:41 $1,000 is going towards increases in spay and neutering programs
01:46 Increasing the amount of animals that are spayed and neutered can help fight the persistent problem of animal overpopulation
01:52 There's being more resources added to the program to affect more spay and neuter surgeries for the community
01:58 Cullen told me he feels good about the amount of money allocated to animal services in the new budget in
02:04 Northwest Bakersfield Cori O'Leary 23 ABC News connecting you