Stray or unwanted animals impounded at either the Grantsville or Tooele City shelters have greater odds of finding a new home than if they’re held at the Tooele County Animal Shelter.
And the disparity may be related to funding, according to records from all three facilities.
The Tooele County Animal Shelter, which is run via a contractual agreement between the county and the Tooele Veterinary Clinic, euthanizes more than half of the animals received there, according to records obtained from the county under Utah’s Government Records Access Management Act.
Other local animal shelters, in Grantsville City and Tooele City over the past year, euthanized 3 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
The Grantsville shelter is considered a “no-kill” shelter because it does not euthanize animals unless they’re deemed too feral, aggressive, sick or injured to be suitable for adoption. The Tooele shelter is also close to no-kill status.
“We cope very well,” said Julie Higgins, Tooele City shelter supervisor. “We’re actually managing to improve the shelter, to keep up with things. Recently we had a roof put on the outside kennels so the dogs can’t climb out. We’re always trying to improve where we can.”
Veterinarian Joe Roundy, who contracts with Tooele County to manage the county shelter, has told the Transcript Bulletin in the past that he believes the different levels of funding available to shelters across the valley plays a key role in the number of animals those shelters are able to save.
According to each municipality’s respective records, funding available to each local animal shelter varies widely, even when the size of the shelter is taken into account.
The Tooele City Shelter, which likely will intake nearly 1,500 animals by the end of this year, has the largest budget, with almost $250,000 set aside for animal control. The total budget amounts to roughly $170 spent per animal brought to the shelter.
The Grantsville City Shelter, which with roughly 280 animals received this year is considerably smaller than the Tooele shelter, has a total animal control budget of nearly $70,000, or approximately $245 per animal — more than any other shelter in Tooele Valley.
At the other end of the spectrum, Tooele County is set to spend just under $8,000 — an estimate based on county records — on its animal shelter contract this year.
Tooele County was the only governmental entity that did not provide the Transcript Bulletin directly with an animal shelter budget because the county does not have a separate budget for the shelter, said Tooele County Auditor Mike Jensen.
Instead, Jensen provided a series of invoices from the Tooele Veterinary Clinic as record of what the county has paid under the animal shelter contract so far this year. The Transcript Bulletin then used those invoices to estimate the county’s approximate annual spending on the contract.
Past records indicate the county shelter takes in between 220-260 animals per year, putting the county’s animal shelter spending at roughly $35 an animal.
The contract situation makes the county’s budget difficult to compare with the other municipalities, which operate their shelters directly. The Granstville and Tooele city shelters both include expenses for shelter building and facilities, for staff and animal control officers, vehicle maintenance, communication costs and other expenditures as well as animal supplies.
The county contract simply reimburses Roundy for the boarding and euthanasia of animals that are put down at the shelter when no owner or adoptive family comes forward before the shelter needs to make room for additional incoming animals.
That reimbursement comes to an average of $85 per animal put down by the shelter, but that figure does not include the approximately 33 percent of animals that were claimed by their owner, nor does it include the 10 percent that were adopted by the public in 2013. Roundy does not bill the county for the care of those animals.
And, despite the low level of funding, the Tooele County Animal Shelter does nearly as well with in-house adoptions and with returning lost animals to their owners as other local shelters.
The Tooele City shelter has returned roughly 24 percent of the animals it has received this year to their owners, and found homes for 17 percent in-house. The Grantsville City shelter returned 35 percent to their owners, and adopted out 8 percent.
The biggest difference, according to municipal records, is the contribution of volunteer rescue organizations to both the Grantsville and Tooele city shelters.
More than half of the animals that arrive at the Grantsville shelter are sent to independent rescue organizations, which care for the animals until they are able to find suitable permanent homes. Rescue organizations also claimed 30 percent of the animals that arrived at the Tooele City shelter this year.
Rescue organizations help save the Tooele City shelter money and keep it from becoming too overcrowded, which puts animals at increased risk of death and disease. They also prevent the shelter from having to resort to euthanasia as a solution, Higgins said.
“We don’t make money on the rescues, but we allow them to pull the animals,” she said. “The euthanasia solutions — you don’t have to use that.
“Some animals, we’ve kept for up to three months,” she added. “It depends on if we can keep them. We’re not going to euthanize just because it’s the animal’s time.”
The Tooele County shelter, on the other hand, does not work with rescues on a regular basis, with just two animals sent to foster homes in 2013. Roundy said this is because most rescues are unwilling or unable to pay the $116 adoption fee he charges anyone who wishes to take an animal from his shelter.
“I’m not selling dogs,” Roundy told the Transcript Bulletin in an interview last summer. “I’m just getting reimbursed for discount boarding, vaccines, and a checkup. I require vaccinations when I adopt and deworm. If they’re not willing to do that, they’re not a willing pet owner.”
Roundy said the adoption fee is necessary to cover the medical rehabilitation of the shelter animals, because the county does not reimburse him for vaccinations and other preventative measures. The other municipal shelters in the valley receive government reimbursement for such medical procedures, he said.
Their inability to cover the $116 adoption fee led some rescue organizations to approach the county last summer and to request that the county increase its funding of the animal shelter.
“The little bit of money that we do get is already going to the other animals we get,” said Laura Bullock-Hill, an animal advocate who works with a local rescue. “We don’t have to come up with fees just to get them out of the shelter. We come up with what we need if they are sick, or if they are hurt. There isn’t always extra money. We’re usually in the negative.
“To come up with $116 per animal is like we might as well come up with a million dollars,” she added.
Bullock-Hill said she had suggested that the county simply agree to pay Roundy the same amount to house an animal prior to adoption or placement with a rescue that it would pay him if he put the animal down. The current situation, she said, was essentially paying Roundy to kill animals, rather than incentivizing him to find homes for homeless pets.
“Yeah, the county is still out the money, but it’s a question of does the money go to get the animal rescued, or does it go to put the animal down,” she said.
An initial meeting led Tooele County Commissioner Shawn Milne to offer to sit down with concerned rescue groups to discuss possible funding solutions. While promised meetings did occur, it is not clear what arrangement may have come of the talks. Multiple attempts to contact Milne regarding the shelter were unsuccessful.
In the meanwhile, Bullock-Hill said it was not her intention to point fingers at Roundy. Rather, she said, she hoped to work with the contractual shelter director to give him more opportunity to find homes for more animals.
“We don’t want to be mad and make everybody mad at Dr. Roundy,” she said. “We want to work together for the animals’ sake. We know he can’t do it for free.”