Marana officials are considering a proposal from the Humane Society to take over shelter operations for the town, which would end a decades-long relationship with the Pima Animal Care Center.
The Marana Town Council will discuss the proposal from the Humane Society of Southern Arizona on Tuesday. If approved, the contract would allow the Humane Society to take over the town’s animal shelter services beginning July 1, with the town handling the animal control and enforcement services with its own employees instead of using county animal care employees.
On Jan. 20, the town released a request for proposals for Marana’s animal sheltering services. As of the Feb. 10 deadline, the Humane Society’s proposal was the only one submitted.
“From the level of service standpoint ... PACC has not been able to be as responsive as if we thought would be helpful under the particular circumstances,” said Eric Montague, the town’s finance director. He said the town does regular reviews of all of its services to see if changes are needed.
Montague said the town has received information from residents and employees, including police officers, who said they have experienced slow response times when calling PACC for services, Montague said.
The increasing cost of PACC’s services was also a factor in the decision to seek a new contractor.
“For the current fiscal year, we’re estimating close to $230,000 will be spent,” he said. The contract began in the 1980s and was capped at $10,000. About $100,000 of the town’s $230,000 costs is paid through by various licensing and adoption fees.
The increase in cost can be mostly attributed to a “significant change” recently in PACC’s policies, he said.
In 2012, Pima County formed the Pima Alliance for Animal Welfare with four sponsoring agencies, including PACC and the Humane Society. The alliance’s focus was to reshape animal care in the community and to reach a goal of no abandoned pet going without a home, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry wrote in a memo addressing Marana’s proposal.
At that time, PACC was euthanizing more than 50 percent of the animals that came to the shelter, but the live-release rate has increased to 90 percent, Huckelberry wrote in the memo.
Pima County declined to submit a proposal for PACC to continue serving Marana for a number of reasons, Huckelberry said.
Marana’s proposed agreement for a new shelter contractor says that at the end of a required hold time, the animal would become the financial responsibility of the contractor.
For PACC, that would mean the animal’s care would be paid for by taxpayers of all the other partnering jurisdictions, but not Marana, the memo said.
The legally required hold time is three days for dogs without licenses and cats, and five days for dogs that are licensed, but the average length of stay for animals brought into PACC is more than 10 days, Huckelberry wrote in the memo.
“We are also concerned that this provision incentivizes euthanasia at the end of the legally mandated stay,” Huckelberry said.
With the Humane Society’s reported live-release rate of 95 percent or higher on an annual basis, Montague doesn’t believe the provision will lead to an increase of euthanized animals.
“This high live-release rate would suggest that HSSA shares the regional view of providing for the compassionate care and treatment of animals,” he said.
If the proposal is accepted, the Humane Society will provide drop-off and kenneling for animals brought in by Marana animal control officers, including medical services, and will assist in animal cruelty and hoarding investigations, in addition to providing licensing services and biannual rabies clinics and adoption events for the towns’ residents.
The first-year estimate for the town’s cost of sheltering services through the Humane Society is $46,125, based on an annual intake of 600 dogs and cats, the proposal says.
Those costs would increase by 4 percent in the second year and 3.85 percent in the third year. Marana is seeking a three-year contract with two one-year options for renewal.
A few weeks ago, a Facebook group called Marana Companion Animal Advocates and Friends formed in response to a number of items in the proposal they found concerning.
While the group has no objections to the Humane Society, there are some concerns in removing the contract from PACC.
“Obviously the Humane Society does have a very high live-release rate and a few years back changed to a no-kill model, and in doing that they basically very, very strictly restricted their intake policy,” said Christy Holliger, a Marana resident who formed the group and is a member of the PACC advisory Committee. “They don’t take a lot of non-adoptable or less adoptable pets.”
The Humane Society also charges higher fees than PACC to surrender a pet, even strays, and higher fees for an owner to retrieve a lost pet, Holliger said.
“There’s a lot of fees involved and there’s a very closed intake policy for the Humane Society to keep that no-kill model going,” she said. “I’m sure they don’t want to change their policies so that their live-release rate suddenly goes down, so they’re going to make the cost up some other way and that’s going to be through fees to the residents of Marana.”
Marana residents also question what this means for town taxpayers who voted on the $22 million bond for PACC’s new shelter, which is under construction.
“We clearly sent a message that we believe our pets deserve better, and that new shelter was a big part of this,” Holliger said. “Are we expected to pay for this new shelter and not be able to use it, while also paying for a new sheltering service?”
In addition to shelter access, Marana residents also won’t have access to a number of recently developed PACC programs paid for by federal grants, like the Community Cat Program or the shelter’s help desk, which offers alternatives to surrendering pets.
The council will be reviewing two options at Tuesday’s study session to either renew the agreement with the PACC or contract with the Humane Society and hire animal care officers to manage enforcement. It’s unclear if a formal recommendation will be made Tuesday, Montague said. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in council chambers, Marana Municipal Complex, 11555 W. Civic Center Drive.
