Animal shelter to get no county money
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Smartt’s comments were in reaction to the latest controversy between the Humane Society and the Warren County Commission. It started when the animal shelter once again announced its closure after being informed the county could not fund non-profits during a continuing budget, something Humane Society president Andy Anderson says leaves the organization unable to pay its bills.
“As it is, we don’t have any money,” Anderson said. “So why did we close the door? Not because we wanted to, not because we’re trying to threaten the county, and not because we’re trying to force them to do anything. It’s simply we don’t have any money.
“What can we do? They want to make it look like we put their backs to the wall and we threaten them and we don’t want to cooperate with them. We can’t cooperate. We don’t have any money.”
The most recent tiff has produced an unexpected result. In the county’s new recommended budget, which passed the Budget and Finance Committee with a vote of 3-1 Monday, there will be no funding for the Humane Society Animal Shelter. The local non-profit received $80,000 last year in a dramatic last-minute vote to nearly quadruple funding.
The Humane Society will receive no county funding if the entire county commission approves the measure at its next full meeting Aug. 15.
County Executive Kenneth Rogers says with the imminent closure of Carrier, the county needs to cut every corner it can. As a result he called each non-profit and asked them to cut their requests, noting several did so.
“The county can’t continue to put this kind of money in a non-profit,” Rogers said. “If every non-profit came to the county and said we want to be fully funded, we’d be better to get into the business ourselves.”
And due to the continuing controversy with the Humane Society, the county is seriously considering doing exactly that, with the Budget and Finance Committee discussing funding an animal control facility during its Monday meeting.
“We know that as it stands right now Warren County is not going to be very actively involved with the Humane Society,” Smartt said. “That does not diminish the fact we do have animal control problems in Warren County and we need to address that situation.”
Though Smartt said the county would not be able to make a decision prior to the August meeting, he advocated issuing a capitol outlay note as soon as possible, preferably by the meeting in October, to fund a county-run shelter.
“We need to do it, hopefully, rather quickly so we might even be in business by November or December,” Smartt said. “Meanwhile I don’t have any solution as to what we can do, outside of just grin and bear it as best we can.”
Anderson says she is not sure what the Humane Society will decide to do, but says representatives from the organization plan to be at the August meeting and may, or may not, ask for county funding there. Anderson also noted that if the county opens its own shelter, the Humane Society will be keeping close watch on how the animals are treated.
“We’re here for the animals,” Anderson. “That’s the most important thing to us. We hope people in the county can see that.”