Animal advocates have been pushing for animal services to be separate from police for months, citing a potential reduction in bureaucracy.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones presented his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2026 to city leaders Monday night, animal advocates said they breathed a sigh of relief seeing one recommendation they have been asking for for months.
Among the recommended structural changes for more efficient city operations was an item to realign Animal Care and Control, which is currently a bureau within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, into the Department of General Services. Alongside the proposed change was the explanation “to allow Animal Care and Control to more directly benefit from the general services department’s administrative strength and non-sworn perspective for non-sworn services.”
Other than more resources and space for Charlotte’s overcrowded shelter, the department separation is the top request animal advocates have echoed, with a handful of speakers sharing that message at city council meetings.
Kelsey Joseph, a board member with nonprofit Friends of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Services, told WCNC Charlotte anchor Vanessa Ruffes that she and other shelter advocates were “excited and we’re optimistic” about the possible change. However, she has not heard what the entire restructuring would consist of.
“These could be huge steps in the right direction to bettering animal welfare and outcomes in Charlotte,” Joseph said on Live Impact News on WCNC+. “There’s a multitude of reasons why the shelter should be separated from CMPD. The two biggest ones that I often highlight are the need to make it easier to volunteer… from start to finish to become a volunteer there, it takes a lot of time and energy just to walk some dogs and cuddle some kittens.”
In late 2024, Josh Fisher, CMPD Animal Care and Control Director, told WCNC Charlotte, he was aware of the community push for separate departments and could think of benefits and challenges with the idea.
“The second piece of this is that right now we need to reduce the layers between the director of Animal Care and Control and the city manager,” Joseph said. “We’re hoping with those changes that those layers will be reduced, ultimately decreasing bureaucracy and increasing life-saving work.”
An example of the current struggle from the animal perspective is that funding requests for new kennel assistants could get pitted against requests for more 911 operators and have to pass through the police chief before making it to city leaders.
“Not a job I envy in the slightest, because I live in the city of Charlotte, and I know when I dial 911, I want somebody to answer,” Fisher said. “So, when it comes down to a telecommunicator or a kennel attendant, there’s a clear priority there from a public safety perspective. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t need the kennel attendants.”
“They have to weigh out those priorities,” Fisher said. “Because they are competing priorities and there’s a finite amount of money for the city of Charlotte.”
He said dividing the department would allow city leaders to hear animal needs separately from police needs.
Fisher also said separation would cut down on layers of approval needed in the grant-seeking process and reduce barriers to volunteering, which currently requires a drug test and background check, since people are being vetted for a law enforcement agency.
A potential challenge, he said, is that separation would likely come with added expenses.
“In order to create an additional city department, it would come with a price tag,” Fisher said. “That’s something that would have to be decided by the city manager’s office and the electeds.”
There will be a public hearing on the proposed budget on May 12, with budget adjustments one week later. Council is set to consider adopting the budget on June 9.
Contact Vanessa Ruffes at [email protected] and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
