After a team of volunteers converged on a Macon County Board of Health meeting to express concerns about the state of animal control, the department is requesting commissioners fund another full-time employee for the animal shelter.
“Right now, I’ve been asked to ask for this one full-time shelter attendant,” Public Health Director Kath McGaha told commissioners Dec. 10.
McGaha and Board of Health Chairman Jerry Hermanson came before the Macon County Commission during its Dec. 10 meeting to address concerns brought to them by the army of volunteers that keeps animal control up and running.
“We very effectively use these large groups of volunteers to do a lot of work at the shelter, it keeps our staffing very low and of course our costs very low,” said Hermanson. “But they pointed out a number of things of concern to the members of the Board of Health and so we asked the staff to do a complete dive into the operation, look at all the items that were brought up and look at in general where we are, where we’re going, what changes we’ve seen in the animal control effort that we’ve had in the last five or six years or so.”
According to Hermanson, several of the concerns from volunteers having to do with the physical property have already been taken care of.
“Our staff there is very aggressive at dealing with stuff, getting small grants to repair certain things and we were pleased to see that,” said Hermanson.
But in the review of the department, looking at both near- and long-term concerns, the department compared itself with other counties that have similar-sized animal control efforts.
“We hope this plan that we came up with will take us well into the future; there’s no capital expenditures in the near term, but there are in the long term,” said Hermanson.
According to Hermanson, animal control has been passed around between different departments within the county government over the years.
McGaha and animal control staff sat down with volunteers and found that their main concerns are with staffing, building infrastructure, community spay and neuter programs, the animal control ordinance and training for employees and volunteers.
McGaha said that the health department had worked with maintenance to address infrastructure concerns and that the department could handle training needs. However, both the animal control ordinance and the staffing shortfall would have to be addressed.
“We are planning on looking at one specific thing with the animal control ordinance which is the holding period for stray animals when we get animals in and that’s going to be kind of down the road,” said McGaha. “The only thing that I’ve been asked, as of the most current situation, is to come to you to talk about our staffing situation.”
Staffing was the most urgent need expressed by animal shelter volunteers.
McGaha said the health department is requesting one full-time employee to be a shelter attendant. That employee would be responsible for feeding, cleaning and generally taking care of the facilities as well as the animals.
Currently the health department has two part-time environmental health technician positions that it has not been able to fill. McGaha suggested shifting one of those positions over to animal control.
“They are the same grade, same amount of money; there’s no difference in the pay level, so that is something that we could do relatively easy,” said McGaha.
According to McGaha, the environmental health technician positions are often used more as a recruitment tool than anything else, like a paid internship for individuals coming out of Western Carolina University in their environmental health program.
“But we’ve never really had a place where we’ve been using both of them efficiently,” said McGaha.
With the health department shifting one position from environmental health, the county would only be adding one part-time employee to fulfill the request for one full-time employee at the animal shelter.
The county budgets for one and a half shelter attendant positions, as well as three animal control officer positions, two of which are filled and one that hasn’t been filled for a while.
“The rest of the work is done by volunteers; we have a tremendous number of volunteers that come and help,” McGaha said.
Dr. Jim Villiard, population health section administrator for the health department says that, on average, animal control is operating with 25-30 volunteers.
“One thing I’d like to highlight is our animal intakes have increased dramatically,” said Villiard.
In 2020, the shelter took in 600 animals, and last year, it took in 1,400 animals.
“That puts a huge increase in workload with the same staff levels that we had in 2020,” Villiard told commissioners. “Of course, that’s a factor in worker burnout and stress on employees, so we’re asking our staff to do more with the same levels. I ask you just take that into consideration.”
Commissioner John Shearl asked what power animal control officers have in the county and described an event he experienced with a dangerous dog on Lake Emory Road.
“The ordinance allows our animal control officers to issue citations, a $25 citation and then a $50 citation,” said Villiard. “That is the authority that they have unless the violation is directly addressing the North Carolina General Statute. So, they are kind of limited in what they can do.”
The board of health submitted a recommendation for the ordinance to be looked at a couple years ago and part of the recommendation was to shorten the hold time for animals at the shelter.
“If the board would like to relook at that, that would be helpful,” said Villiard. “They can only do what they are allowed to do… If the animal is back on their property when the animal control officer goes out there, there’s nothing they can do. They can only get them if they’re off property.”
Shearl also asked if the county could lease its facility and outsource animal control operations to a private organization. McGaha and Villiard said that most companies and counties that work in animal control are at or over capacity. Incidents like COVID, and flooding from Hurricae Helene have caused already stressed animal control systems and animal shelters to depend more on volunteers who can shelter animals in their own homes.
“There is a minimal expectation as far as the requirement to address dangerous dogs and rabies control programs, so there is a minimal amount that we would have to maintain per statute,” said McGaha. “We’re very proud of the staff; they do a lot with the limitations that they have. And it is a struggle with animal control officers and what they’re allowed to do in the community, that is a constant struggle. So again, it would require looking at the ordinance and making sure that they have the authority to — and the state limits what we are even able to do — there’s things that we can improve upon, enforcement’s one of them.”
The commission did not approve an additional position for animal control; Commission Chairman Josh Young recommended that the board look into adding a position for animal control during the upcoming budget process. Commissioners did not say when or if they would address the animal control ordinance.
“I think we open a whole can of worms and create a long-term fix for this,” Young said. “I feel like you guys need some serious measures out there.”