City Council
MEETING DATE: 3/9/2016
TITLE:
Title
Update on Animal Control Services with Riverside County
End
FROM:
George Crum, Chief of Police
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
This item is presented for discussion and direction only.
Body
BACKGROUND:
The City currently is contracting with Riverside County Animal Control for 20 hours of field service work with one animal control officer working Monday-Friday from 10:00am -2:30pm to include a 30 minute lunch break. Any hours before or after these contracted hours, to include holidays and weekends is billed at an overtime rate with a minimum of two hours callout pay at $82 an hour for a minimum callout rate of $164 per incident.
The Watch Commanders have always had the ability to make the decision to call out an animal control officer to tend an injured animal, vicious animal calls, dog bite investigations and the retrieval of a dead animal on a public roadway or other locations in the City. Depending on the circumstances, the time day and whether it is a weekday or weekend and the next scheduled time animal control will be returning to work has always been a consideration. There have been some recent concerns by community members who desire a more expeditious timeframe for retrieval of dead animals in and around our City.
Police Administration has researched if there are any contract service providers that we could contract with for dead animal retrieval at a reduced cost from our current provider. No such service providers were located and no viable options other than continuing with Riverside County Animal Control Services were identified. Deceased animals are picked up by our animal control officer and then placed in a freezer at the Animal Campus. The County contracts with a vendor who retrieves these carcasses and disposes of them properly.
There have been several barking dog complaints throughout the City that have either been resolved or are being investigated further. Some of these barking dog investigations are pending Barking Dog Hearings in the immediate future.
The current Field and Shelter Services contract will terminate at the end of the 15/16 fiscal year unless the City renews another one year contract, enters a multiyear contract with Riverside County or begins providing field services on our own utilizing Shelter Services at Animal Campus. Currently there is only one municipality in the Coachella Valley that provides city field and shelter services to their community members and that is the City of Palm Springs. We have approached the City of Palm Springs on a couple of occasions, however, their shelter has reached maximum capacity and based on our calls for service and the amount of animals that are impounded in Cathedral City annually the City of Palm Springs, who operates the only “no kill shelter” in the Coachella Valley cannot accommodate a contract for field or shelter services with our City.
DISCUSSION:
The Police Department budgeted for FY 15/16 $103,024 for Field Services and $181,880 for Shelter Services. The FY 16/17 budget allocated $103,024 for Field Services and $186,880 for Shelter Services.
For FY 14/15 the City spent $11,242 in overtime costs beyond our 20 hours of field services contracted for. In the first seven months of FY 15/16 (July 1 - January 31) we have spent $10,857 year to date in overtime costs.
In FY 14/15 we had 469 animal control calls that came through the police department data base. 48 of those calls were to retrieve dead animals. Not all of these calls necessitated an overtime callout.
In FY 15/16 (July 1 - February 15) we had 243 animal control calls through the police department data base. 24 of those calls were to retrieve dead animals. Not all of these calls necessitated an overtime callout.
If the direction is to always have a callout for removal of a dead animal this cost based on the previous history would be approximately $8,000 for FY15/16. The Police Department spent $7,872 for retrieval of dead animals in FY 14/15.
OTHER ALTERNATIVES:
1. Renew with Riverside County Animal Control Services for Field and Shelter Services for a one year contract utilizing them on a 20 hour a week schedule as currently exists or a 40 hour per week schedule.
2. Renew with Riverside County Animal Control Services for Field and Shelter Services for a multiyear contract on a full time or part time basis.
3. Direct Cathedral City Police to provide a cost analysis for providing Field Services with start-up costs of an Animal Control Officer, equipment and vehicle, and utilize Riverside County Shelter Services to house animals.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The budget for FY16-17 includes $289,904 for the animal control contract with Riverside County.
ATTACHMENTS:
None