New animal-shelter plan by March 31? Kent official gives report

Kent city staff told the City Council Tuesday that a small work group of King County and city officials from throughout the county expect to have a recommendation by March 31 regarding a new regional model for animal control and sheltering.

Jeff Watling, Kent parks, recreation and community services director, serves on the city-county small work group that will come up with an animal-care and control program run mainly by the cities, rather than the county. Thirty-two cities currently contract with the county for animal-control and sheltering services.

“We have a very tough task,” Watling said at the workshop. “By the end of March we plan to come up with a recommendation to the county and cities for their councils to look at. If there is sufficient interest among the cities, we will draw up contracts for a regional model by the end of June.”

The county, citing a variety of issues, is pulling out of the control and sheltering business, with a deadline of June 30. It operates two shelters – one in Kent, and another in Bellevue. The county will continue to offer the services for unincorporated areas, however.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us over the next eight weeks,” Watling said.

The County Council adopted an ordinance Jan. 25 submitted by County Executive Dow Constantine to extend the deadline for closing the Kent and Bellevue shelters to June 30 from Jan. 31.

Constantine wants more time to work out a regional model with the 32 cities, including Kent, that contract with the county to run the shelters, animal-control services and the pet-licensing program.

Watling said the cities asked for an extension of that Jan. 31 deadline after city officials met with representatives of several community agencies, including the Bellevue-based Seattle Humane Society and the Lynnwood-based Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). City officials discovered after meeting with those groups that there is not enough shelter space in the county to handle all of the dogs and cats without the Kent shelter run by the county.

“We also asked the nonprofit groups if they had any interest in opening a satellite office in South King County and they all said there were not interested,” Watling said.

County officials say revenues from pet licenses and other supporting fees have fallen about $2 million short per year of the $5 million cost of providing animal care and control. With a projected budget shortfall of $56 million in 2010, the county wants out of the animal business to focus on its other services and programs.

Finding a way to fund animal care and control looms as a major hurdle for the small work group.

“Most of the costs of the program are not met by the revenues from the pet-licensing fees,” said John Hodgson, Kent chief administrative officer, during the staff report to the City Council. “Some people say you can get more people to license their pets, but that’s been tried and it has not been enough.”

Hodgson told the Council that by June it might have to address ways to help fund animal control and sheltering.

Councilman Les Thomas asked Watling to have the small group look into animal care and control services in Maricopa County in Arizona where jail inmates help provide care to animals under a program run by the county sheriff.

Council President Jamie Perry asked Hodgson if the city had any kind of backup plan if a regional model fails to be approved.

“We have an internal (city staff) team working on that,” Hodgson said. “I don’t think anyone wants a regional plan to fail. Des Moines and Renton do have their own animal programs. If we do it ourselves, we’d have to decide what type of services we provide from picking up dead animals to care and sheltering and what is financially viable.”

The Council claims it wants the county out of the sheltering business not only to save money, but also to improve treatment of the animals through a new regional model.