BENTONVILLE — Benton County officials showed little enthusiasm for the idea of a county animal shelter when the prospect was raised at the April 25 Quorum Court meeting.
Linda Picken, director of Fabulous Felines serving Northwest Arkansas, approached the justices of the peace to talk about the plight of stray and abandoned cats in the area. Picken said the group has 20 active “fosterers” who provide temporary homes for adoptable cats and kittens.
She said in a telephone interview Friday that she has 15 to 20 kittens and several adult cats in her own home.
“We receive daily calls about cats and kittens in Benton County that need help, owner surrenders, and ferals or strays who are giving birth to litters all over the county in tremendous numbers,” Picken told the Quorum Court.
“Some people neglect to get their pets spayed or neutered, and suddenly you have a hoarder house that needs to be cleaned out for health and safety. If they live in Benton County without access to a shelter, who has room to take them? What do they do? There are colonies of cats and kittens behind many fastfood restaurants and neighborhoods. Left unchecked, this is an explosion of cats that needs your attention. It won’t go away.”
Picken spoke during the Quorum Court’s public comment period, and the justices of the peace took no action.
County Judge Bob Clinard said later that operating an animal shelter brings a myriad of problems, and he doesn’t have the answers to those problems.
“You look at the Washington County shelter. They’ve had issues with money and staffing. It was suggested we might have prisoners taking care of the animals. I don’t know that we can do that, in the first place. In the second place, they’re not trained to do it. It’s a money pit. There’s just no way around it. I feel for those who have animals. They are out there and there’s a real problem. But there’s just no end to the cost.”
Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the county’s Finance Committee, echoed Clinard’s concerns about the cost of operating a shelter, again pointing to Washington County.
Washington County built its shelter, which opened in 2012, for $2.2 million. The county has added three staff positions and increased the shelter’s budget, which was $650,000 in 2014. For 2015, the Washington County Quorum Court cut the shelter’s budget to $606,000, a 7 percent decrease.
Allen said he can’t see Benton County taking on such an obligation. Benton County now pays the Humane Society for Animals in Rogers to house dogs picked up by animal control officers of the sheriff’s office. In 2014, the county spent $43,115 to house 521 stray dogs, according to accounting records.
“Starting with $2 million in capital and then an annual budget of $600,000? The short answer is ‘No.’” he said. “I do see a need for it. I would have to say we’re all in this together and this could be a situation where we look at pooling our resources. I don’t think a stray cat or a stray dog knows where the city limits or the county lines are.”
The problem has been noted by city and county officials in the past. Mayor Kevin Johnston of Gentry was tasked with investigating the problem in 2012 after a meeting of the Benton County Intergovernmental Cooperation Council, made up of the mayors, the county judge and county clerk. Johnston said he contacted other cities that have animal shelters to discuss the question of a countywide service or shelter, but no consensus was reached on what, if anything, to do.
“We compared animal control ordinances and looked at what other cities are doing. What we found is that we’re all pretty much doing the same things. We all have the same challenge of funding. It’s such a large expense,” Johnston said.
Johnston said his city has used help from volunteer groups like the “Tail Waggers” to improve his city’s shelter. He said Gentry takes in dogs, averaging from 10 to 13 at a time, but has no arrangement for handling cats. Johnston said his city is looking into a “trap, neuter and return” program for cats but is still in the information-gathering stage.