Brenda Heineman, human resources director for the City of Auburn, offered the City Council cost estimates Monday for the City to participate for the next 2½ years in the new King County regional animal control system.
“We won’t know the final costs until we know how many cities in King County opt into the 2½-year contract and those that opt out,” Heineman cautioned. “But after calling around, we have learned that most cities have indicated that they will stay with King County for the next 2½ years.”
Many of those cities, including Kent and Tukwila, want to start talking about a sub-regional model apart from King County. The county has even offered to help with the discussions.
Auburn’s current animal control contract with the county ends June 30, so its costs for the remainder of the year under the new regime would be $116,484. Estimates for 2011 and 2012, respectively, are $264,097 and $354,670.
Heineman said the City has considered other options:
• Putting together its own program.
• Going with another agency that offers services. Heineman said she had approached two such agencies, but neither had the shelter capacity for Auburn.
Auburn is among 32 cities now contracting with King County for animal control and sheltering that would henceforth pick up the full cost of services the county has subsidized for years if they choose to participate.
Auburn residents would lose their dedicated animal control officer, Tom Harris, and the county would replace him with another officer, he or she also serving the cities of Algona, Pacific and Enumclaw, and the unincorporated areas east of Auburn to the King County line, about 300 square miles.
Auburn, however, has indicated it would be willing to pay the cost for another half-time officer. Its current enhanced services cost about $98,000 annually.
The City turned over its animal control and animal sheltering services to King County in the 1980s. By contract, the City paid for the service by remitting to King County the licensing fees collected here. As costs went up over the last 25 years, however, King County could no longer make that contract, or any with the other 32 contract cities, cover the costs of business, based solely on the amount of licensing fees collected.
Paying its share
In the next 2½ years, Auburn will pay its share of the new county program according to the number of services it uses.
But there are ways to cut the costs.
“Your licensing rate is about 18 percent, and in the unincorporated area of the county, we’re closer to 25 or 30 percent,” Carrie Cihak, director of strategic initiatives for King County Executive Dow Constantine, told the Council. “So we think there’s some significant potential for you to raise your licensing rates. Under this model, for every license that is sold to a resident in Auburn, that licensing revenue gets attributed back to your city to help cover some of the costs. The other great benefit of licensing is that it helps to reduce the costs by helping to return animals directly from the field to the homes rather than have them go to the shelter.”
Cihak said King County hopes to increase the number of volunteers who work in its animal shelters and provide foster care for the animals. It also hopes to bring in more donations.
“We are also starting to look at grants, and there are some pretty significant grants we can apply for,” Cihak said.
Cihak said that stabilizing the model in the next 2½ years will open up the possibility of bringing a privately-run shelter into south King County to help reduce the costs of the system.
There are no plans to close the animal shelter in Kent.
