Auburn City Council members must decide on a possible new animal contract with King County by June 21, their last chance to act before the current contract expires June 30.
King County has given Auburn and other contracting cities two options: enter into a six-month contract on July 1, a choice that would leave the City on its own afterward; or, enter as of July 1 into a 2½-year contract.
In a recent letter to King County, the City expressed its interest in the 2½-year contract. It is one of 27 currently contracting cities to do so.
The City had to give the County an indication of the way it meant to go with the contract because the county had to recalculate the costs to each contracting city when Federal Way, Burien and other smaller cities pulled out. The greater the number of cities participating, the lower the costs will be.
City officials have decided for now not to go with the option they chose three years ago, an enhanced officer who covers only Auburn 40 hours a week. Instead residents will share an officer covering a 300 square mile area extending east to the county line.
Auburn has two contracts with King County. One is for basic service, which provides for the animal shelter in Kent, pet licensing, and a field officer who covers the district. In addition to the basic services, the City pays 100 percent for the enhanced services officer. The City took that step three years ago because residents were complaining to Council members that service was slow and poor. And when King County did not have enough animal control officers available to run the shelter, it pulled them out of the field.
But under this new plan, the county will assign six animal control officers to four districts, so that when one officer is out, there will be another to cover for him or her. These will be field officers only, having nothing to do with the animal shelter.
“King County says this should remove the issue of not being able to respond quickly enough to citizens’ concerns,” said John Fletcher, employee relations and compensation manager for the City of Auburn. “Our rationale for not going with the enhanced animal control services is that if we do, we won’t be able to tell if the new model that King County has come up with works. Citizens will have an officer for the district. It’s 300 square miles, but that animal control officer is going to be in the urban areas, not spending a lot of time in the rural areas.”
Through August 2011, the City may go back to the County and request an enhanced services officer.
“That’s not off the table, but we want to hold King County’s feet to the fire,” said Fletcher. “They say, ‘Here’s the product we give you,’ and we want to know if it’s going to work.”
King County recently proposed a sales tax increase, which would provide a second animal control officer in each of the four districts, but its fate won’t be known for months.
What King County collects in licensing fees has not paid for animal control, including sheltering services, for many years. Indeed, for more than 20 years the County has subsidized the services. Now, it wants to fully recover its costs by asking cities that choose to contract with it to pick up more of the expenses. To do that, the county has devised a formula based on the number of animals from each city brought to the shelter and the city’s population.
The City will still work toward some type of future regional shelter model. City officials have been studying different models seeking the best, most-cost-effective solutions that would still provide for animals.
“We just don’t have a shelter that’s big enough or modern enough,” said Brenda Heineman, human resources director for the City of Auburn. “Look at the King County shelter in Kent. It’s a very old shelter. They’re trying to make a lot of upgrades to it. They made some great strides, but they have a way to go.”
Recently, Auburn solicited proposals of interest from people interested in providing shelter services. It received one from Dan Richardson, owner of No Place Like Home Pet Resort in Puyallup. Richardson told city officials his boarding facility isn’t set up to handle impounded animals at the moment. To do so would require a number of improvements, he said, but he will study the idea and get back with the City.
He said that to make it work financially, he would need “two Auburns.”
“We just want to see who’s out there,” Heineman said. “Most veterinarian hospitals don’t want to do it, because you can’t mix the animal populations. If you bring in stray animals, you don’t know if they have diseases,” Heineman said. “They brought some stray cats into Pierce one time, and they had diseases and didn’t isolate them, and they had to kill all the cats because the disease spread.”
Some basics of the proposed agreement:
Animal control
• King County would be divided into four districts: north, east, and two in the south. Six full-time animal control officers would be dedicated to work in the field five days per week, one officer dedicated to each district. Cities could coordinate to buy enhanced levels of service.
• Resources for the region would include one field sergeant, one animal cruelty sergeant, and a call center staffed by three people with after-hours dispatch through the King County Sheriff’s Office.
• Field staff and shelter staff will have separate, clearly defined responsibilities.
Animal sheltering
• Animals from all four districts would be housed at the county shelter in Kent, with support from two staff transferred from the Crossroad shelter in Bellevue. A volunteer and foster care coordinator would be added.
Animal licensing
• The county would administer a single licensing system for the region, but license fees collected from residents of each individual city would be credited back to that city against its share of the program’s cost. The idea is to give each city a strong incentive to increase its rate of pet licensing to lower its costs.
Benefits
King County claims that the new regional system would provide one place to call to find a lost pet, get a license or register a complaint. The public health system should be better able to identify and track issues related to animals, such as rabies, officials say. For the cities, county officials say, a regional system would allow local police to focus on traditional law enforcement.
Costs
Pet licensing revenue from fees and related fines currently cover about 60 percent of the proposed regional service model. With a total program cost to cities estimated at $4.1 million, after their license fees are credited back their net cost is estimated at $1.9 million.
The proposal allocates costs 50-50 based on the relative populations of cities and their use of the system. For example, if a city has 20 percent of the population but accounts for only 10 percent of the animals that arrive at the shelter, then that city’s cost allocation for sheltering will be about 15 percent of the total.
The “Agreement in Principle” proposes a 2.5 year agreement, through the end of 2012, during which time the parties will work to increase system revenue and reduce costs. The agreement could be extended by mutual agreement for an additional two years.
