Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor
The story of SPCA of Upstate New York and Warren County continues.
The Warren County Board of Supervisors Finance Committee met last week to consider — then reject — SPCA’s proposal to contract with the County for services it has previously provided at no charge.
Specifically, that involved physical and technical support on animal cruelty cases, housing and caring for seized animals and documenting facts in sometimes disturbing cases for more than 60 years, the SPCA said.
SPCA says it faces dire finances that threaten its very existence. It proposed a monthly fee of $15,000 plus per-incident fees that amounted to at least $180,000 annually, likely $220,000 with fees.
County Administrator John Taflan told the Finance Committee, “I tried to negotiate a lesser amount, but we did not reach an agreement….At this point, I don’t have a recommendation to move forward, unfortunately, on this proposal.”
New SPCA board president, veterinarian Kyra Haring, tells The Chronicle the proposal was for the minimum they need to keep the shelter going and available to the County when needed.
“For 62 years, we have provided this for free,” she and SPCA Upstate director Cathy Cloutier told The Chronicle for last week’s story. “We can’t do that anymore.”
Mr. Taflan told the committee, “$180,000 is a little more than the county would be willing to pay for a service, just to make sure it was there when we need.”
County attorney Larry Elman added, “From a legal perspective, the goal is not to gift somebody money, but to contract for services. We’d certainly have to clarify what they are intending to do for the county for that amount of money.”
Noting that a second entity expressed interest, although deemed too late, in response to the initial Request for Proposals, the committee agreed to put out another RFP, “this time, focused more specifically just on animal cruelty cases.”
“I don’t know what this will mean,” Dr. Haring told the Chronicle following the meeting. She said she was frustrated not to have heard directly from the county of the committee’s decision.
“It’s ridiculous,” Dr. Haring said, “haggling over modest funding to keep an existing shelter, with all of the framework you need, going. Our only choice now is to get the animals we have now adopted out and shut the doors. I see no way to continue without county funding.”
“I don’t think they understand, they’ll need to start all over,” Dr. Haring said of the County. “One single case, just as an example, there were 60 animals that needed to be tended to. You need a physical building with appropriate cages and runs. If all of a sudden you need to house 60, 30, 5 animals, where are they going and who will care for them?”
Who’s responsible for what
As part if its discussion the Finance Committee noted legal obligations around animal control. By law, the County is responsible for two things — animal cruelty cases that are handled by law enforcement, in this case the County Sheriff’s office — potentially, “and wisely” they said, with help from a humane society. The county is also responsible for rabies control, through the County Health Department.
By law, individual municipalities are responsible for their own dog control services.
Queensbury and Glens Falls are looking to partner in new dog control efforts, committee members noted. Both have been contracting with SPCA Upstate, which said it is terminating those services for lack of resources.
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