COLUMBIA, Pa. — Volunteers with CCAT, Columbia’s trap-neuter-return program for stray and feral cats, asked Borough Council on Thursday for $5,000 after the group was left out of the borough’s draft 2027 budget.
CCAT is the only community organization that currently gets nothing in the draft, a volunteer said.
“We have had successful metrics over the last three years that are astounding,” a CCAT representative told council. She said volunteers have trapped, neutered, vaccinated and returned or adopted 227 cats and kittens, at no charge to anyone in the 17512 ZIP code.
Volunteers trap three weeks out of every four, she said, putting in about 43 volunteer hours each of those weeks, not counting fundraising. The group has also started taking in kittens and bottle-feeding them around the clock until they can be adopted.
She said police have called CCAT when kittens were dumped in a box and when an injured cat was found in a backyard and the borough’s animal contractor had no one available. “Who calls? Who goes out? CCAT,” she said.
‘Self-sufficient’
A council member said that when he joined council in 2024, he was told the program had agreed to become self-sufficient, and that 2025 was supposed to be its last year of borough funding. The borough still gave money in 2026, he said, and 2027 funding hasn’t been decided.
A longtime CCAT volunteer said he had never heard of that agreement. “I feel as though Borough Council has been bullied into this situation from one person,” he said, without naming anyone.
“This council isn’t bullied by any one person,” a council member responded.
The CCAT representative said everyone who started the program is gone and the group now does far more than it originally agreed to. “Just because that was the agreement five years ago, does that mean it has to be the agreement now?” she asked.
A council member noted that funding every request could mean raising taxes, and asked CCAT to provide a financial statement. The representative said she would.
Later, a resident who said he is part of CCAT said the group had offered to help a resident who has complained to council about cats, and was turned down.