CARTHAGE, Mo. — A disagreement between the city of Carthage and the Carthage Humane Society means the latter might not be the city’s animal shelter starting next month for the first time in 74 years if an additional $2,000 cannot be made up before July 17.
The Carthage City Council, citing tough economic times and rising wages and other costs, froze the contracts with the four agencies that provide services for the city at the amounts those agencies were paid in the 2021-22 city budget.
The 2022-23 city budget was given final approval at the council’s regular Tuesday meeting.
For the Carthage Humane Society, that amount was $36,000 for the year, in $3,000 monthly payments, for up to 360 animals over the year.
Rising costs
Renay Minshew, president of the Carthage Humane Society board and unpaid acting director of the Humane Society’s shelter near the Cedar Road interchange with Interstate 49 south of Carthage, said the contract was renegotiated between the organization and the city last year so the city was no longer responsible for medical costs for the animals it brought in. In return, the city agreed to a cap of 360 animals and agreed to pay $100 per animal if it exceeded that number.
This year, the Humane Society initially asked the city to increase its payments to $48,000 for the year, or $4,000 a month.
“We pay our employees minimum wage because we’re a not-for-profit, and we don’t have funding to pay even minimum wage,” Minshew said. “But we wouldn’t even be able to have employees if we didn’t at least pay them that minimum wage. So that went up almost $1 an hour the first of January. Then in March, the cost of our medical supplies we get from a wholesaler went up about 30%, just straight across the board. Our trash pickup has increased this year, our electric rates have increased, everything has gone up.”
The Humane Society made that request to the City Council’s Budget Ways and Means Committee at an annual budget meeting held in April.
The budget committee told the group it could not afford to go up by $12,000, but it could look at a $2,000 increase.
But after a meeting of the budget committee in May, the committee decided to freeze all contracts at the current budget year levels, something the Humane Society’s board of directors decided it could not accept.
“They said we will send the contract to the City Council with a $2,000-a-year increase, which was $166.66 a month more, which is not much,” Minshew said. “In the big scheme of things, that doesn’t even take care of the intake expenses on one animal.”
City cuts
City Administrator Greg Dagnan said the city made cuts across the board, not just to contractors but also to city departments.
He said early in the city’s budget process, the city was looking at spending more than $3 million more than projected revenues in the 2022-23 budget. After two rounds of cuts, the final budget approved Tuesday predicts a deficit of a little more than $700,000.
The four outside agencies the city has contracts with for services are the Carthage Chamber of Commerce, Vision Carthage, the Carthage Over-60 Center and the Carthage Humane Society.
Dagnan said most of those agencies asked for more than was planned for them in the 2022-23 budget and that all except the Humane Society ended up signing the contract for the amounts they received in the 2021-22 budget.
Carthage Mayor Dan Rife said the city had to tell its department heads to keep spending as close to the previous year’s levels as possible and that it wasn’t fair to give increases to the agencies while cutting department budgets.
Budget impasse
Minshew said the Humane Society’s board decided it could not accept the same amount as it received from the city last year, so it declined to sign the city’s contract.
“The board discussed it, and they decided as a board that we cannot continue to lose this much money,” Minshew said. “We did go back and make a counteroffer with a reduced number of animals, but they said that’s the same as an increase, so they did not even consider it. It’s my understanding that they’re exploring other options. I let them know the 17th of June that we were not able to sign the contract as written, so as of the 17th of July we won’t be under contract with the city of Carthage any longer, which is not what we want.”
Carthage police Chief Bill Hawkins, whose department includes the animal control officer, said he’s started looking for options in case an agreement can’t be made.
Dagnan, Minshew and Rife all said there are no hard feelings, that the city and the Humane Society are both doing what they believe is best and that they’re still looking for ways to work together.
