GREENFIELD — Hancock County is again aiming to reduce the amount of money it spends for the operations of Greenfield-Hancock County Animal Management, an issue the city and county have struggled to resolve for the past several years.
The Hancock County Council informed the county commissioners at a joint meeting in March they are hoping to reduce the county’s investment in 2022 by asking the other incorporated towns in the county to pay a portion as well.
Commissioner John Jessup said the county plans to send out a letter to the municipalities to inform them that the county will be planning to ask them to chip in for expenses within their boundaries. The department responds to calls about animal welfare around the county, as well as sheltering and adopting out cats and dogs.
Greenfield Mayor Chuck Fewell said the city’s funding agreement is exclusively with the county government. While he said the county is within its rights to ask the towns to help pay for the animal management budget, Greenfield will not be involved in those negotiations.
“We’re not going to do that to the small incorporated towns, because we have an agreement with the county,” Fewell said.
During the meeting, county officials said it might be difficult to determine what portion of animal management expenses are accumulated inside incorporated towns versus outside. That will make it harder to come up with a formula for what each stakeholder should pay. Jessup said he does not think the county should pay any more than 40% of total expenses.
Officials suggested several ways a distribution of funding could be calculated, such as according to each municipality’s portion of county-adjusted gross income tax (Greenfield, for example, receives 36% of CAGIT revenue) or by performing a count of land parcels in each area.
The officials did not reach a conclusion on how exactly funding should be allocated, but agreed to open negotiations with the municipalities.
Teresa Hester, town manager of Shirley, said the commissioners talked to her about a year ago about the town paying a portion of animal management expenses in 2021. She said she told them Shirley wouldn’t be able to because the money was not included in the town’s finalized 2021 budget.
Hester added that she had not yet heard anything from the county about paying 2022 expenses, and said she did not want to comment on the possibility without hearing the specifics from the county government.
Tonya Galbraith, town manager of McCordsville, also said she did not want to comment on potential funding changes before hearing from the commissioners. Other officials with Hancock County towns did not respond to requests for comment.
Disputes over animal management funding began in 2019, when the county commissioners voted to cut their share of support from $383,857 to $195,000. They said the smaller amount more accurately represented its share of expenses. Greenfield went into the 2020 budget year without an agreement on how much the commissioners would pay, but they ultimately contributed 50% of the budget, about $375,000.
In 2021, the county eventually reached an agreement with Greenfield to pay $350,000, though it was again more than the commissioners and council had hoped to spend. It was still less money than the city hoped to receive. In the past, Greenfield had paid 40% of the department’s budget and the county 60%.
The animal management budget for 2021, as approved by the city, is $750,373.
Greenfield has committed to investing millions of additional dollars in the department, recently approving a bid for the construction of a new building that will give it additional space after its previous offices were demolished to make room for the city’s new wastewater treatment plant. The animal management department has moved into temporary headquarters at 2195 W. U.S. 40.
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The Greenfield-Hancock County Animal Management Department is responsible for enforcing all city, county and state laws governing the treatment of animals. The department serves all of Hancock County and performs the following duties:
–Shelters lost and stray dogs and cats.
–Coordinates pet adoptions.
–Investigates cases of animal cruelty and neglect.
–Enforces city/county ordinances and state laws.
–Removes dead or injured animals within the city limits.
–Educates public of responsibilities of pet ownership.
Source: City of Greenfield website
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