The city has informed the county it will not provide animal services in the unincorporated area next year unless the county comes up with more money.
The June 19 email Hot Springs City Manager David Frasher sent County Judge Rick Davis set a $325,000 contract price, an increase from the $211,000 the county is paying the city for its 2017 contract. The county has contracted with the city for animal services since 1999, but city officials have said the county's payment does not provide adequate compensation for the level of service it receives.
The email said the county receives 53 percent of the services, a percentage based on the number of animals the city said are brought to its animal shelter from the unincorporated area. The city approved a $685,000 budget for animal services this year.
"(Hot Springs Police Chief Jason Stachey) will be the county's primary point of contact for this agreement and will transmit pertinent documents to you as soon as the city's ready to proceed," Frasher said in the mail. " ... The county will need to accept the agreement within 45 days of receipt if it wishes to retain the service which will otherwise terminate effective Dec. 31, because, like the county, the city will need to make adjustments in its budget to accurately reflect projected revenues and expenses."
The county has argued the current contract amount exceeds the level of service it receives. It has cited capital outlays it has contributed to, such as the $68,000 cost for a new crematorium the city and county shared in 2015 and the truck the county purchased this year for the animal services officer assigned to the county.
Justices of the peace on the Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee of the Garland County Quorum Court said earlier this week that it may be more feasible for the county to initiate its own animal services program in light of the city's contract demands.
They decided to use the $10,000 the county appropriated last year for the development and design of a county animal shelter on the Garland County Detention Center's 41-acre parcel, a facility JPs said could cost as much as $1 million to construct.
The county's office of financial management estimated $309,000 in annual operational costs for a county animal services program with a five-person staff. The county has discussed partnering with the Humane Society of Garland County to operate the facility and using inmate labor from the jail.
County Tax Collector Rebecca Dodd-Talbert told JPs the voluntary tax, or donation, for a prospective county animal services program added to 2016 tax bills had raised $89,647 through Monday. She said her office has collected $42 million of the $83 million it billed for the 2016 tax year.
"We're forced into a corner, and we're going to have to take a direction," District 12 JP Darryl Mahoney said. "The only direction we can take is to have our own facility. This is the same with many other problems we have with cost sharing with the city.
"There is no one to discuss the issue with. We can't get anyone to come to the table and sit down and say here's what we propose. We received this email that basically said don't talk to me anymore. You're going to talk to Jason Stachey from now on. You're going to get a contract. You have 45 days to sign it or you're out."
Nine people work for the city's animal services department, with two officers regularly assigned to picking up animals in the incorporated area and one working outside the city. Department Director Dan Bugg said the allocation can shift if there's a high-call volume coming from outside the corporate limits.
"We apply as much help or response as it requires," he said.
Bugg said the intake percentage is calculated based on the address of the animal's owner, or where the animal is collected.
"If it comes from a city address, we log it as a city animal," he said. "In June, 63.8 percent were from the county. It ebbs and flows. The lion's share could be from the city next month. The county on average the last few years has accounted for 52 percent of the intake."
Bugg said pickups are but one of the array of services the department provides the county and city.
"The one guy in a truck isn't an island unto himself," he said. "It doesn't take into account everything that's involved, adoptions, court cases, taking care of the animals. It's easy to look at one guy in a truck, but there's a wide spectrum of what occurs once the animal is brought back to the shelter."
Bugg said the department added an employee when the county began contracting with the city.
Frasher said the county would be better served by striking out on its own if it wants to influence how animal services are conducted.
"If the county asks the city to continue animal services to unincorporated areas, the city will be, as now, serving only as a contractor for the county, not as an employee," he said in the email. "The city will retain complete and exclusive control, supervision and administrative oversight of its employees, budgets, equipment, policies etc.
"If the county wishes to assert any degree of control over the foregoing, it may want to consider hiring employees, rather than a contractor, over which such authority may be exercised."
Local on 07/23/2017