KCMO Shelter Looking to Privatize

Well, I've been hearing a lot of buzz about this -- but without knowing if it was public info or not I've decided to hold off on saying anything -- but if it's in the Star, it's pretty public at this point.

Kansas City, MO is making moves to privatize the city's shelter facility.  About a year ago, the city sent out a request for bids on taking over the shelter facility. They received 2 bids back.

Today, Councilwoman Cindy Circo plans to introduce a bill that would turn the shelter over to Dr. R. Wayne Steckelberg -- a 50 year veterinarian who most recently has been working at a local rescue shelter.

I've never met Dr. Steckelberg -- but the people who know him seem to think pretty highly of him. And if you watch the video of him talking about the shelter, it's not hard to realize that his heart is in the right place. Even without knowing him, I am thrilled about the posible (Likely) transition. There are really appear to be no drawbacks.

According to the article, Steckelberg will get about $600,000 from the city for staff, utilities, etc to run the shelter. This will save the city about $200,000 for the costs of doing it themselves. Meanwhile, the move will free up quite a bit of staff that will then add to the number of animal control officers out on the streets -- which will be a huge plus for the under-staffed department.  This savings comes at a time when KCMO is facing a projected $85 million budget shortfall for 2009 -- so the savings will be well needed.

Meanwhile, the shelter, which is a remote location, has had almost no access for adoptions. The shelter is open for adoptions Monday - Saturday, Noon-4pm, and to 7 on Thursdays.  To the best I can tell, the average person in KC would have about 5 hours a week that the shelter would be open when they could actually get to it.  Steckelberg has already pledged to improve the shelter hours.

Steckelberg has also pledged to work with local rescue group Wayside Waifs to help get more dogs and cats out of the city facility and into a better adoption facility.  At the same time, he has some ideas for improving the city shelter to make it more adopter-friendly -- including getting rid of some of the offices to create more room for animals so they can be housed longer (most are there the minimum of 5 days now) to give them a greater chance of being adopted or their homes found.

The city shelter has not attracted many volunteers to work there over the years -- primarily because volunteers got tired of the management's lack of response to ideas that would save animal lives. I would expect that Steckelberg would be able to attract a healthy crop of volunteers that could significantly help the facility.

In 2007, the KCMO shelter euthanized 6,769 animals -- about 62% of the animals that came into the shelter. In 2008, the shelter euthanized 4,912 animals. 

In fairness to a couple of people I know that have worked at the shelter, there are a couple of people there that honestly care about animals -- however, have never had the support of the managment to make the changes necessary to improve the overall situation down there. I am very excited about this change in shelter management and hope the rest of the animal welfare community steps up to help them in every way possible.

I have a couple of small suggestions, that if they aren't on the plan, I would love to see them added to the proposal:

1) Make sure contract states that all shelter records will be public record subject to the state's Sunshine Laws. I don't think it will be a problem with this particular managment, but I do think it is good policy to make these records public, even if they are a non-profit group.

2) They may want to do year 1 as a trial year -- but I really hope they look at making this a long term contract (with some clauses if things somehow go terribly wrong). The shelter facility needs a LOT of work to make it friendly for adopters, and I think this group could raise a lot of money to make the improvements if they know they are going to be there for the long-haul. But making the necessary shelter improvements may be difficult if we string them along with a series of 1-year contracts.

Meanwhile, I'd like to make a note on this about Councilwoman Cindy Circo. I spoke with Cindy a lot during her campaign about animal welfare issues - -and she has made it one of her missions to improve this situations - -not only because she is an animal lover, but also because the shelter resides in her district. I've been really pleased with her continued presence in this area and want to give a shout-out to her for working to make this a better situation.  Kansas City is in the middle of the Animal Health Corridor -- which has garnered us mention among some of the world's most innovative cities.  What a great way to show off the benefit of being in the Animal Health Corridor by becoming one of the most animal-friendly cities in the country.  

I believe this will be a good step toward making that a reality. 

Comments

[KC KS Kills Dogs]

Wooh Hoo!! This is great. I know of several people from the KCMO area that will LOVE to volunteer and support this new shelter arrangement.

Not only is this good for KCMO, but the surrounding cities. If the shelter under new management is a success, other cities will have a very valuable model, to emulate.

[Selma]

Sounds great, good luck guys!

[Ricky]

Steckelberg has a wonderful reputation and I agree, this facility has nowhere to go but up. However, I do see one drawback in this plan. With KC moving toward no-kill, why partner with a kill facilty like Wayside Waifs? WW still uses temperament testing to determine whether an animal will live or die upon intake into their facility (read http://www.bestfriends.org/nomorehomelesspets/pdf/TempTestingFrancis.pdf ) Imagine being scared and stressed and coming into an unfamiliar environment. You meet a stranger who asks you to do things that you may or may not understand. An inappropriate response causes you to fail. There is no 2nd chance. Your life is over.

We have some good no-kill, progressive shelters in the metropolitan area. Why not partner with them? What exactly does partner with WW mean? Will WW be taking some animals over to WW? They may have a better chance at survival staying with the new KC shelter...

[Brent]

I hear ya Ricky. I agree that I'd much rather see them partner with someone like Animal Haven vs Wayside...but I definitely think this is a step in the right direction. Not perfect...but moving the right direction anyway.

[Brad Jensen]

While Dr. Steckelberg may have a great reputation and be someone who's truly dedicated to doing things right by animals, I would feel a little more at ease about this venture into privatization knowing that you folks are somehow guaranteed public oversight. And if your tax-dollars continue to fund these mandatory services, that there be some form of accountability to you directly. So rather than say... I would love to see bullet point #1 included in the contract agreement, I'd be more inclined to say... this is something we should expect.

Best wishes and good luck with this new partnership!! I mean that sincerely.

Brad Jensen
Cypress, CA
.

[Brent]

Brad,

We're working on it. The first public hearing on the matter will be next week. We'll make the desire very well known. I think most of the time writing the public oversight in is an oversight on the part of the drafters of the contract. It only makes sense that the info would be made public (we're paying for it afterall). If they balked at providing that, it will send a very bad sign that they are trying to hide something. I think we'd still be able to get this through the state attorney general (city contracts cannot override state sunshine laws), but it will be cleaner and more comforting if we can just get it written in up front.

[Brad Jensen]

Good to hear Brent. I think oversight and accountability will help ensure the changes made by Dr. Steckelberg continue and are adhered to in the future regardless of who's running the shelter.