Bills of Goods

SB 872 – Animal Shelters or Animal Control Agencies

SPONSORED BY: Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington

DATE FILED: Feb. 13

What it says: SB 872 would require animal shelter operators to sign off on monthly and annual reports indicating what happened to the pets they took in. It would also require shelters to put those reports – including the numbers of pets that were euthanized – online for public view.

What we say: Last year, Abruzzo filed a bill (that later died) that would require shelters to maintain a registry of animal rescue groups, so he's clearly committed to the no-kill animal shelter cause. Proponents of SB 872 claim there would be no fiscal impact, seeing as these reports are already produced. This bill would make shelter operators more accountable, something proponents see as a deterrent to more animal deaths. We're mixed on this, because shaming people for doing their jobs is a slippery slope, but animals matter, too.

Odds of passage: Unlikely. No matching House bill has been introduced, and it hasn't been assigned to any committees.

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