ALL BUT ONE WHITE COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER STAFF QUITS
Controversies and concerns being raised about the White County Animal Shelter came to a head recently as it seems that all but one of the staff managing the shelter have quit.
This came after a meeting with the White County Board of Commissioners on October 21st became a platform for citizens to voice their concerns.
One citizen at the meeting named John Maas mentioned a $70,000 restricted donation that had been designated for the shelter going unused, sitting in the general fund.
He described the specific needs of the shelter, saying that for the last several years the animals didn’t have heat or walls. And that five of the kennels didn’t even have a roof. He also explained that he had privately raised a large sum of money to comply with the Animal Welfare Act of 2023, requesting the Board of Commissioners to allocate an additional $5,000 from the donation to install heating and improve the facility, saying that the shelter didn’t have time to wait for the county’s animal control officer to implement a new heat plan.
County Commissioner Dakota White said that, of the donated $70,000, he believes around $14,000 or so had been spent by the county to hire a new part-time employee. The amount would be verified by Finance Director Chad Marcum as $15,142.
“The contentious part is the interest, all interest goes straight into the general fund,” he said. “People are hung up on the interest-bearing account.”
White said he had heard that all but one of the shelter staff had quit, saying he ‘doesn’t know what they make but knows it’s nothing to write home about’, and that the animal shelter director only makes 14 or 15 an hour.
“It’s a work in progress,” he said. “There’s going to be a whole lot more discussion as things proceed. The shelter has needed some much-needed improvements for quite some time. One that’s been brought up is insulation for the animal’s heat and roof repairs. We’ve also spoken about getting cameras out front to catch people who’ve been dropping animals off outside of regular hours.”
At the previously mentioned County commissioner meeting, commissioner TK Austin said that making any progress toward the shelter wouldn’t be something that could be handled quickly.
“There is a process and there’s a way that things need to happen,” he said. “Just going and doing it is not the way you do it. When we’re talking about taxpayer dollars and something that’s a government-run facility, we have to make sure that things go through the proper channels.”
County Commissioner Austin would be backed by his fellow commissioner Becky Golden who said that even though a plan had been sent to the county executive office, the commissioners haven’t seen it yet and they wouldn’t be able to vote on something they don’t have enough information about, saying that it would have to wait another month.