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Agenda Item 8BAGENDA ITEM # 813 MARCH 26, 2012 STAFF REPORT City of Atlantic Beach Commission Meeting AGENDA ITEM: Animal Control DATE: March 15, 2012 SUBMITTED BY: Michael D. ClasserChief of Police BACKGROUND: This is to follow up on the staff report presented at the February 15, 2012 commission meeting and the ensuing commission discussion. The discussion centered around the question of should the city fill the current Animal Control Officer (ACO) vacancy. Additional items discussed included the appropriate level of Animal Control services for the city, what assistance, if any, would the City of Jacksonville (COJ) provide, could any efficiencies be gained by mutual aid agreements with the other beach cities and would hiring a part time employee adequately resolve the reduction in force concerns. It was documented in the first report that reducing the authorized Animal Control staff to only one position would significantly cut previous service levels. There would be many times when an ACO was not on duty, resulting in no response to the complaint except in an incident involving an imminent danger to public safety. There would be far less proactive patrols to a level of approximately 25% of the previous capabilities. It would be expected that leash law compliance would dramatically decline while animal control complaints would certainly increase. Other services such as animal trapping would be very restricted or potentially eliminated entirely. The operation of the kennel also becomes extremely problematic in caring for the animals 7 days a week. It was already determined in the last report that outsourcing the kennel is not possible. COJ was contacted about what assistance they could provide. They said that they would make one weekly trip out here to pick up animals from our kennel, but only those animals that we can legally sign over to them. In other words, those animals that have been held and meet the minimum requirements listed in our City Ordinance. The Ordinance requires a minimum of 3 days and not more than 7 days, except in a case of a bite when proof of rabies is not provided, which increases the time to 10 days. COJ has provided this service to Jacksonville Beach in the past and they experienced some problems with coordinating the pickup with an on -duty ACO, available space in the truck or re- scheduling if there were any conflicts. COJ will not take AB animals which have not met the local holding requirement. In addition, a once per week pick up would result in unnecessarily holding some animals longer than required because they didn't meet the minimum for pick up and by the next pick up will have exceeded the maximum. It would also result in overcrowding as the AGENDA ITEM # 813 MARCH 26, 2012 kennel is a small facility only capable of housing a maximum of 6 dogs and 6 cats. Further, it is COJ's position that they will not perform any animal control functions without an interlocal agreement addressing several issues including ordinances, fees, compensation, duties et. al. As part of this follow up, the other beach city officials were contacted about mutual aid or cooperative agreements relating to animal control services. Neptune Beach was not in a position to provide additional help to Atlantic Beach due to the fact that service requirements in AB would far exceed those in their city. It should be noted that Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach already provide mutual aid to each other in emergencies. Jacksonville Beach has only one ACO, but is supplemented extensively by their large corps of volunteers. The volunteers help with leash law enforcement and others with kennel services. Even at that level of support they report that they were barely able to scratch the surface on leash law violations and that dogs were often on the beach even though they were prohibited during the daytime. They were unable to provide any cooperative assistance to AB as they do not even have sufficient resources to respond to matters in their own jurisdiction. The question was also asked about the possibility of hiring only a part time ACO to cover on the days the regular ACO is off. In theory, this could remedy most of the issues addressed above. In practice, however, it may be much more difficult to find a qualified ACO that is only seeking part time employment. In past position advertisements the number of trained ACOs that applied has been very low. Hiring a part time untrained ACO would carry with it some potential problems with training the new employee where they would be qualified and capable of performing in a solo status. In conclusion, the only assistance COJ will provide is a weekly pick up of animals that we can legally surrender to them. AB has to make two trips downtown per week to surrender animals. If COJ reduces that to only one trip for AB, it would save about 2 hours per week. Neither of the other beach cities is currently capable of providing additional animal control services to Atlantic Beach. Therefore, the service cuts and problems with kennel services summarized above remain unresolved if the vacant ACO position is not filled. Filling the vacancy with a part time employee could address many issues, but does come with some challenges as well. Based upon past experience, staff would anticipate the likelihood of finding a qualified employee for the position to be somewhat remote. BUDGET: The expense for 2 full time Animal Control Officers is already included in the FY 2012 budget. RECOMMENDATIONS: Authorize the filling of the vacant ACO position. ATTACHMENTS: None REVIEWED BY CITY MAN R: