Last year, the Companion Animal Capital Fund (CACF) received $8 million. This year, in an unexpected move, New York legislative leaders and Gov. Kathy Hochul cut the CACF by $3 million from the emerging budget. 

The fund provides shelters and rescues with the money they need to make capital improvements to ensure they meet new standards that will be required of them by the Companion Animal Capital Standards Act, signed into law last year.  

The new standards will go into effect in December 2025.

“We need this $8 million more than ever before,” said Libby Post, executive director of the New York State Animal Protection Federation.

“You have some shelters that are really, really old. The floors are concrete, and they’re not sealed, so they’re porous. Diseases can foster quickly,” Post told Capital Tonight. “A facility’s physical plant is the foundation of the new standards.”