Representatives of Home At Last (HAL) animal shelter in The Dalles will be meeting with county staff and commissioners to discuss funding options as the shelter addresses inflationary costs and a decline in dog adoptions and donations.
Paul Viemeister, board president for HAL, addressed the Wasco County Board of Commissioners during the public comment portion of their July 20 meeting with HAL Development Director Erin Foote Mogan.
Viemeister said the board was seeking greater collaboration from the county and the City of The Dalles to support the animal management services HAL provides, which include accepting strays, partnering with law, rescuing animals, conducting adoptions and leading on the spaying and neutering of animals to keep the pet population under control.
“We are proud to provide these services to the residents of Wasco County and we’ve worked our tails off to try to make the shelter run, with very little support from the county or the city,” Viemeister said. Only 5% of the HAL funding comes from public sources, he added, including licensing fees and a small amount of funding from the City of The Dalles.
More than half the animals housed at HAL are brought to the shelter by law enforcement and the general public, he said, but less than 5% of the funding HAL receives is from public funding.
It costs $29 a day to house a dog, but public funding amounts to only $1.49, Viemeister told the commissioners. “This is unsustainable for Home at Last. It is unsustainable even in a good year,” he said, and the COVID pandemic and recent inflation has deepened the funding crisis.
“Our costs had increased by more than 25% in the last 18 months, and adoption rates have declined dramatically. The pandemic puppy thing ended in 2020, and we have to turn away walk-ins for a long time to ensure safety of staff and the public at the shelter,” he said.
“The shelter provides major community services. We’re asking you to join us in figuring out how we can provide more sustainable revenue to home at last to account for this community benefit,” he said.
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Mogan, who has worked with the revenues and expenses of the shelter since June 2021, told the board that HAL has seen an increase in donations and community partnerships, added new fundraising events and received $15,000 in grants so far this year. “We really are doing everything we can to fund this shelter with very little money from public sources,” Mogan said.
Citing a survey this spring of 246 residents, Mogan suggested HAL had community support for funding HAL as a special taxing district, and asked the county for support in seeking a county-wide operating levy of 10 cents per thousand.
“Would you be willing to work with us, to collaborate together to solve this problem?” Mogan asked the commissioners. “We really hope we can find a long-term solution.”
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Following the public comment period, Commissioner Steve Kramer said he believed a conversation on the shelter was warranted. “I think what we heard today had a little bit of misinformation, and if we’re going to move forward in a truthful manner with our public, we need to clear that stuff up,” he said. He noted that a survey of 256 people represented only 1% of the counties population, and questioned the 50% rate of usage by law enforcement. “I think that number would go down significantly” if fact checked. Kramer added that in terms of support, Wasco County provided the building HAL uses as a shelter.
“I understand the predicament, but there’s a lot to have chats about,” he said. He noted that creating a special district, with its own operating levy, would impact every district in the county because the amount of tax dollars available is capped, so adding a new district would reduce the funding of existing districts.
Wasco County Administrative Officer Tyler Stone clarified his conversation with Mogan as well, stating, “The conversation we had was, if Home At Last fails, then we would maintain that shelter as a law-enforcement-only hold shelter.
“I don’t recall ever saying that you should close the shelter down,” he said.
Responding to a question from Commissioner Kathy Schwartz regarding the history of animal control services in the county, Sheriff Lane Magill said animal control services and equipment were transferred to the City of The Dalles about a decade ago, following injury of the animal control deputy.
“We started researching the data on those calls for service for animals at that time, and 77% of the calls for service came from the City of The Dalles,” Magill said. “We did a transition from county over to the city because they benefited much more from animal control services.”
Stone added that around that time, the shelter building was transitioned over to HAL, with $50,000 provided by the city and county to get the new operations running. Dog licensing authority and income was transitioned to HAL as well, as was the shelter property, to support HAL fundraising efforts.
Schwartz, who chairs the board of commissioners, then asked that a meeting be scheduled with herself, Stone, Morgan and Viemeister.
Mogan readily agreed, saying, “We’d be very grateful. It sounds like we do have lots of miscommunications or misinformation on both sides of the conversation. Let’s get some facts together and then discuss how we can collaborate further.”
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