The Park County Animal Shelter in Cody has cut half of its workforce to balance the books after seeing lower donations and governmental funding.

Executive Director Jona Harris made the announcement public Monday.

“We’re currently functioning on three full-time employees, one part-time employee and myself,” she said in an interview with the Powell Tribune.

The shelter laid off five staff members.

“Our expenditures are high and our donations are low,” she said. “We have seen a decrease in donations and we rely on community donations. It’s just the economy and everybody is feeling it. Daily operations are what’s suffering. Daily operations is what keeps the doors open, and that’s what we severely need right now is operations funds. And like any business, payroll is the most money. In order to support a balanced budget, we have to lay off people.”

She said at present the shelter doesn’t have too many animals for the “skeleton crew” now available, but they’re relying heavily on volunteers to help out and the reduced staff may lead to restrictions on how many animals they can take in the future.

“We’re in such financial hardship,” she said. “If we don’t get financial support we can’t keep the doors open.”

Harris said those who donate are much appreciated, but sometimes it’s harder to get people excited to donate to operating expenses as opposed to big projects like the new building completed a few years ago and during which fundraising was a success.

“We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our current donors for their generous support over the years,” Harris said in the release. “Your contributions have been instrumental in helping us build our new facility and give quality care for countless animals while maintaining our operations. We also want to thank our amazing community, including our volunteers and donors, who have supported the shelter for the past 30-plus years. Your dedication and compassion have been the backbone of our organization, and we are confident as the economy improves, our donor and volunteer base will strengthen as well.”

While it’s just one part of the overall funding picture, Harris said she was disappointed the Park County commissioners declined to fund the shelter for the second year in a row after historically giving the shelter $10,000 per year. Harris had asked for $20,000 to cover both the current year and the prior year.

Last year commissioners declined to provide any funding for a number of reasons, including issues they saw with it being a no-kill shelter and with the Trap-Neuter-Release program for stray cats. Those were issues once again, Harris said, as well as concerns about the shelter taking in dogs from other states.

“If I'm going to put in money from Park County, it should go to help Park County citizens,” Park County Commissioner Lee Livingston said.

He has been the shelter’s toughest, but not only, critic within the commissioners for the past two years, and said in an interview Tuesday he’s less concerned about it being a no-kill shelter than in taking in animals from other areas. He’s also no fan of the stray cat program, which traps stray cats in certain hotspot areas of towns, sterilizes them and then releases them back into the same area.

“It’s not good for the songbird population,” Livingston said. 

Harris said all dogs they have taken in from out-of-state, 3% of the total intake, were adopted.

“We have to get revenue from all sources as a nonprofit and the county commissioners aren't providing any,” she said.

The Park County Animal Shelter in Cody has worked as a no-kill shelter since 1996, according to its site, and last received funds in fiscal year 2021-2022, when it received $9,000 after asking for $10,500. The next year it neither asked for or received funding.

The City of Cody provides the shelter $4,166 per month.

“It’s the principal,” Harris said. “We need all the money we can get, it’s just devastating [the commissioners] don’t see the value of the animal shelter.”

New hours

Due to budget cuts, the shelter will now be open five days instead of six days a week.

The shelter is also asking for volunteers to help clean the cat and dog hall and general facility cleaning due to staff shortages.

New hours are Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m.

To make a donation, visit, parkcountyanimalshelter.org/donate or text DONATEPCAS to 53555.