MASON, Mich. — Ingham County Animal Control and Shelter in Mason is asking local taxpayers to approve a millage of 0.20 mills over eight years on the upcoming Aug. 2 ballot, to help them hire more staff members.
"Basically, it's going to allow for the creation of an additional veterinarian, veterinary assistant and another animal control officer that will be utilized as an investigator position," Director Heidi Williams said.
"We had, I think, almost 4,000 calls in 2021," Julie Hill, community outreach manager, said. "We have a lot of calls come in, and having another animal control officer will help with that and help with their proactivity."
"With this position, what we want is somebody that's digging into kind of the underground part of dog fighting, cock fighting, puppy mills where conditions are unsanitary or animals are being neglected...we don't want to wait for these calls to come in, we want to get ahead of this stuff," Williams said.
The shelter is also trying to lessen the workload of its current veterinary staff, while increasing services for the community.
"State law requires us to hold the animal for seven days before we adopt them out, but before they can be adopted, they have to be spayed or neutered, and right now we have one vet and one assistant doing all of that," Williams said. "That team performs about 1,500 surgeries a year and another couple thousand medical exams and different procedures."
With the additional vet, Williams said they'll also be able to increase vaccine clinics for dogs and cats from monthly to weekly at the shelter.
The cost to employ the three additional employees is about $363,000 per year. If passed, in its first year, the millage would bring in more than $1.6 million. The additional funds will go toward a trap-neuter-return program.
"Community cats and feral cats, wild cats, is a huge issue in our community," Williams said. "Every year, come spring and all the way through summer, every single rescue in the county—in the state for that matter—is just inundated with kittens, unwanted cats and kittens."
Williams said the only solution is to spay and neuter the cats.
"It's going to be a targeted TNR program, so we're going to work with the community members on identifying hot-spots or locations where there are excessive amounts of un-owned cats, and we're going to tackle those colonies first," Williams said. "The program will be free to the community."
If passed, the millage would cost the taxpayer of a $150,000 home an additional $15 in taxes per year for eight years.
"It's actually a reduction from the prior animal control millage," Williams said. "So, it's actually saving money, while increasing our services."
The last millage passed at 0.24 mills, which was then rolled back to 0.239. Those funds went toward building the new Ingham County Animal Control and Shelter, and expired this year.
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