Comments on: Work Continues on Animal Control Policy

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:56:40 +0000

I’ll get with the clerk to confirm. Glad it was finally resolved. BYW, are you still enjoying your County provided health care?

By: Barbara Levin Bergman

Barbara Levin Bergman — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:48:32 +0000

Check with the clerk, Mr. Goldsmith and get the facts. I repaid that account long ago.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:19:44 +0000

Let’s go to a previous Chronicle report:

Responding to an a follow-up request from The Chronicle on Thursday, the county’s finance office provided the latest status of repayments. Two current commissioners (Barbara Bergman and Conan Smith) and two former commissioners (Jessica Ping and Ken Schwartz) have not yet paid the amounts that the audit report determined they owe:
UNPAID
Barbara Bergman 1,875.33
Jessica Ping 5,002.68
Ken Schwartz 1,054.60
Conan Smith 591.39

[link]

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:07:03 +0000

And forgive me, please, for failing to mention Ms. Bergman’s Conty Commissioner expense account money she’s failed to repay, since we are talking about cost savings here and wanting to make sure every taxpayer penny is well spent.

By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:09:54 +0000

Thanks, Ed. Don’t ever join a committee–we’d definitely miss out on your valuable input that way.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:37:05 +0000

I tracked down the Kent County number; service in that county is provided directly by their Health Department. The annual budget number line item for "Animal Shelter" in their 2012 budget (at [link]; pdf, long) is $1,930,560 for a service that handled 6,841 animals in 2010, a cost of approximately $280 per animal. The comparable figure for Washtenaw County is $1,616,146 (projected 2012) to handle 6000 animals (also projected 2012) per the provided document at [link], is a cost to the county of about $270 per animal. Now these are not completely apples to apples comparisons because I wasn't able to tease out the capital costs of the facility, but it suggests strongly that the costs that the county is currently paying are reasonable, and that there's no particular savings from having a near worst in the state save rate vs a near best in the state save rate. Consider that the Washtenaw shelter adopted out about 7 times as many animals as the Kent shelter for about the same cost per animal in 2010.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:31:34 +0000

Or my favorite-since lame duck Bergman wants to save every nickle–how about Conan Smith paying back the funds he owes from his ‘expense account’?”Public funds need careful allocation.”? Spare me!

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:29:22 +0000

Kind of like the savings from cutting County Commissioner funded health care–small things add up. Or…not.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:28:54 +0000

I'd caution anyone expecting savings in the first year to be wary of the costs of switching from the current system to any radically new one. The instance in recent memory is the added costs of consolidation of dispatch operations in the first year between Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, instead of a projected savings, due to delays. I'm looking at this report: [link] which computes a "save rate" for animals in shelters. HSHV has an 80%+ save rate, euthanizing 1,111 animals in 2010. The most different outcome for a shelter of comparable size is the Kent County Animal Shelter, with about an 18% save rate, euthanizing 4,722 animals with a comparable intake number (Kent takes in about 900 more animals annually). I wasn't able to pull out from the Kent County budget summary how much it costs them to run their shelter, but if you can imagine a different way to run a system at some kind of lower cost, you'd have to use them as one comparable setup.

By: Tom Whitaker

Tom Whitaker — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:13:26 +0000

I only wish this same “careful allocation” of public funds was applied to unaccountable “economic development” sinkholes like SPARK. Not only do the Commissioners never hold SPARK’s feet to the fire like they are doing to the Humane Society, but they actually found an ancient law that enabled them to assess a new millage just for SPARK without a public vote. With the ever-blurring line between public and private economic development organizations, and the number of politicians wearing both hats (like County Commission Chair Conan Smith), I suppose a little accountability in the E.D. industry is just too much to ask.