We feel it is necessary to increase the stipend provided to canine handlers as this dollar amount has not changed in over a decade. Canine Handlers currently receive $300 a month per dog to offset the cost of fuel and travel to maintain our Canines. If possible, we would like to double their stipend. To do this we need $50k a calendar year and would like to raise funding for at lease two years for a projected cost of an additional $100k. 

For canines obtained from the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation we provide up to $15,000 for training our members to be prepared with a canine. Up to $4,000 per Canine Team is provided once per Team to attend the Canine Search Specialist Course. We also provide up to $6,000 for each Canine Team to attend a Canine Certification Evaluation. This means a Live Find Canine Team can cost the Task Force as much as $35,000 and a Human Remains Detection (HRD) Canine Team can cost the Task Force up to $10,000. Three (3) Live find Canines Teams are expected to join the Task Force this year and we would like to recruit an additional four (4) HRD Canine Teams, the cost on such an improvement to our capability would be $145k.

Our Canine Teams work best in pairs with a manager and at least one pair of spotters. We typically deploy them with at least one Medic and possibly a HazMat Specialist. This means while in the field we typically have five (5) to seven (7) personnel in a group to support two (2) canines along with everyone’s gear and dog crates. Vehicles are in high demand in disaster areas, and we would like to be able to purchase two (2) new high roof, extended, 4x4 Transit Passenger Vans to support Canine Operations. These vans have been appropriately specified and are $72k without tax and with taxes, radios and light packages they are roughly $100k each. We would like to purchase two (2) for a total cost of $200k.