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Animal Welfare League Adoption Center<\/p>\n
Charlotte County Government<\/p>\n
The Animal Welfare League of Charlotte County and the county have reached a compromise over funding, and commissioners will vote on\u00a0a\u00a0new contract at their July 28 meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the June 17 workshop between county staff and AWL representatives, both sides agreed to an\u00a0$882,000 contract plus a separate spay and neuter program totaling $40,000, putting the total amount of funding at $922,000,\u00a0County Administrator Hector Flores said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Originally, AWL asked for $1.3 million in funding, while the county offered to fund the no-kill shelter at $600,000.\u00a0The county currently pays the no-kill shelter $337,762.68 annually under a contract that includes a 3% yearly increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a number of weeks, it appeared as if both sides would not budge\u00a0on the new\u00a0contract, while the\u00a0clock was ticking as the funding agreement with the county was due to expire\u00a0Nov.\u00a01.\u00a0After both sides agreed to a compromise, the\u00a0contract\u00a0expiration\u00a0was moved to the end of the year, but a final contract is expected to be approved July 28.\u00a0Flores said both sides agreed to a three-year contract with two, one-year renewal options\u00a0and that there is no escalation factor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AWL\u2019s\u00a0operating costs have\u00a0risen substantially, particularly\u00a0employee salaries and administrative expenses, said\u00a0Gordon Burger, the county’s director of budget and administrative services, who reviewed\u00a0the organization’s financial statements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Charlotte County Administrator Hector Flores<\/p>\n
Charlotte County Government<\/p>\n
Noting that no-kill shelters typically experience longer animal stays,\u00a0Burger said animals\u00a0remain\u00a0at AWL an average of\u00a045 days, compared with the county’s required 10-day holding period. Animal Control accounts for 22.2% of the animals housed at the\u00a0shelter,\u00a0the latest figures show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flores said the new contract terms are \u201cbuilt around the scope of services which is where our team wanted to start with from the beginning, rather than a dollar figure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The scope of services includes\u00a0fee collection, sheltering, veterinary, crematory, euthanasia, disaster\u00a0support\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0sale of pet tags with adoptions.\u00a0The new three-year contract would give \u201cboth sides some certainty over the next few years,\u201d but that the \u201cbig discussion\u201d is\u00a0the\u00a0property tax reform referendum, Flores\u00a0said.\u00a0Should voters approve the measure, municipalities and counties would lose\u00a0a large portion\u00a0of ad valorem revenue that is used for a variety of funding\u00a0local\u00a0services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Commissioner Ken Doherty<\/p>\n
Charlotte County Government<\/p>\n
Commissioner Ken Doherty said the county will be able to fund the AWL\u00a0now, \u201cbut two years from now it might be a whole different story.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Funding\u00a0for sheltering\u00a0animals brought in by the\u00a0county\u2019s\u00a0Animal Control would be\u00a0100% for up to seven days, 70% for eight to\u00a010 days,\u00a0and funding would decrease by 10%\u00a0every\u00a0five-day interval\u00a0after that.\u00a0After\u00a0an animal is sheltered beyond\u00a040 days,\u00a0the county would have no financial\u00a0obligation\u00a0and AWL would provide funding at 100%.\u00a0An audit would be\u00a0required,\u00a0and the county would have access to the AWL audit data, Flores\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AWL Board President Melissa Lockhart said\u00a0she was glad the issue has been resolved, while Commissioner Stephen R. Deutsch noted that not everyone gets what they want\u00a0in a compromise,\u00a0but that he was optimistic that both sides were able to \u201csit together in good faith.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The July 28 meeting will\u00a0begin at 9 a.m.\u00a0at\u00a018500 Murdock Circle in Port Charlotte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animal Welfare League Adoption Center Charlotte County Government The Animal Welfare League of Charlotte County and the county…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[39366,209,211,210,853,132695,128667,132696],"class_list":["post-319489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-animal-welfare-league","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte-county","tag-funding-compromise","tag-no-kill-shelter","tag-spay-and-neuter-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}