Valparaiso barking over county animal control fee
Amy Lavalley
Post-Tribune
June 05, 2015 - 4:02PM
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-porter-animal-control-st-0607-20150605-story.html
Valparaiso officials are growling about Porter County tripling the city's fee for animal control, and contend they haven't paid the fee for the past several years because they never received a new contract.
"We're well aware that we haven't paid but under state statute, I have to have a contract or an invoice to pay any bill in here," said Valparaiso Clerk-Treasurer Sharon Swihart.
As the Porter County Board of Commissioners established a fund to take in fees for animal control services, with the money split between animal control and the animal shelter, county attorney Betty Knight said Tuesday contracts with the county's municipalities had not been renegotiated since 2011, and all but one community had been paying the fee each year.
Portage is not included in the mix because it has its own animal control officers and takes its animal to the Humane Society shelter in Hobart.
State statute dictates that communities provide animal control services, Knight said, and most of the county's municipalities chose to pay the county instead of providing the service themselves.
Valparaiso's fee will go up from $20,150 to $63,200, based on calls for service, Jeff Biggs, commander of the Porter County Sheriff's Department, which oversees animal control, said earlier in the week.
Swihart said she called county officials in 2012 about the expired contract for animal control but got no response. While the city budgeted for the service each year, she couldn't pay out the funds without documents from the county.
"We pay our bills and we pay them timely, but we have to have a bill," she said, adding she found out about the fee increase after reading it in the newspaper, though she got a copy of the new contract Wednesday.
The city also hasn't budgeted to pay more than $60,000 under the terms of the new contract, which takes effect Aug. 1, because this year's budget is already complete.
Swihart will be meeting with county officials to figure things out.
"The commissioners and sheriff's department are going to talk with the interested parties over the next few weeks and work through the issues," said Commissioner Laura Blaney, D-South.
Swihart is confident the matter will be resolved, especially since it's cheaper for the city to contract with the county for the services than to have to provide them independently.
"We certainly want to do our part," she said.
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