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County to discuss animal shelter agreement: Frisco, McKinney among cities without their own facility
By Kelley Chambers, kchambers@starlocalnews.com
Changes to the way Frisco handles stray dogs and cats and their adoptions may be coming in a few years if some Collin County officials get their way.
Collin County Judge Keith Self said the Commissioners Court might consider ending an agreement with municipalities using the county's animal shelter in an effort to offset overcrowding.
Under the current agreement, nine cities – Anna, Celina, Fairview, Farmersville, Frisco, McKinney, Melissa, Princeton and Prosper – are using the Collin County Animal Shelter in return for an annual fee based on their population. The contracts are renewed each year and continue until either party chooses to terminate the agreement.
“We want to have a discussion in early December,” he said. “We need to have a discussion because if we do make a decision to make a change – and I’m not even sure if the numbers support a change – but, if they do, we need to come to an agreement with the cities several years out so they can make plans.”
The fact that Collin County’s population has steadily increased over the past 10 years is no secret, and partly because of that, Self said individual cities may have to consider building their own facilities in order for the county to better serve unincorporated areas.
This is especially true in larger municipalities like Frisco and McKinney, Self said, which are home to more than 234,000 residents combined. Allen and Plano operate their own shelters.
“The rescue groups are doing a great job of getting animals adopted, but at some point we’re going to overwhelm the building,” Self said.
Rather than making the cities build their own animal shelters, the county should expand the one it has and add more staff to its payroll to accommodate for growth, said Frisco City Council Member Bob Allen.
Even though population is a logical basis for formulating the percentage paid by the cities, Allen said payments should also be based on how much the city uses the shelter. Frisco, for example, pays 30 percent of the cost but only uses about 17 percent of the services, Allen said.
“I don’t disagree by saying it’s not a great model, but I don’t think it’s enough,” he said. “Self doesn’t want to add onto the facility. That’s only part of the issue. There are a number of things I as a person think need to change there to improve service.”
Six months ago, Frisco passed a resolution asking the county to add more staff to the shelter, something Allen said he believed the city of Frisco would be willing to pay more money for.
“Why should taxpayers replicate facilities?” Allen said. “Instead of telling the cities they need to move out, I think they need to pull them in. Growth is a factor. It’s all about trying to be as cost effective as we can. But we’re all the same taxpayers.”
Misty Brown, Collin County's development services division manager, said the shelter works with hundreds of rescue groups that take approximately 50 percent of the available animals from the shelter.
Currently, the shelter is breaking even in terms of maintenance and operations and is also using a portion of its revenues to help pay off the building itself, Brown said.
“We spend roughly $500,000 annually on M&O, which includes personnel costs, materials, supplies, utilities, etc.,” Brown wrote in an email last week. “We take in roughly $500,000 (including the portion that the county pays) for M&O, and an additional $345,000 from each entity (including the county) for repayment of the loan that the county extended for the building of the shelter ($3.4 million in construction costs, charged for 10 years at $345,000 per year).”
Once the animal building is paid off in 2016, Self said the county could start thinking about making up for fees traditionally paid for by the cities.
“We’re not sure where the break even point is,” Self said. “We should not be making revenue for the county from its cities. We don’t want to make money off of the city. We’re not sure if we’ll make any decisions to change, we just need to sit down and talk about it. Ten years is a long time in terms of growth in Collin County.”
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