Animal Society demands more financial support from Charleston County

The Charleston Animal Society (CAS), South Carolina’s first animal protection organization, sent a letter to Charleston County leaders June 20 giving it a 30-day warning and detailed look of what it says is years of insufficient financial support to deal with unwanted animals.

“The county contracts with us as a vendor for the humane disposition of animals,” CAS President Joe Elmore told the Charleston City Paper. “There is a cost to that. And for the last 20 years or so, our donors have been subsidizing that cost by about $2 million each year. … We cannot continue to carry the government’s responsibility on this issue.”

The problem, he says, is that the county won’t address the matter. It won’t return calls, negotiate a new contract or discuss options. And as such, he said the animal society is in limbo after having subsidized the county by as much as $40 million since 2005.

At least three Charleston County leaders declined inquiries by the City Paper to discuss details of the CAS concerns, including County Administrator Bill Tuten, County Council Chairman Herb Sass and council member Larry Kobrovsky. Several others did not respond to requests for comment.

Charleston’s shelter is a public-private partnership

Elmore said the majority of animal shelters in the Carolinas are government shelters — Columbia, Greenville, Myrtle Beach and Charlotte are examples. These shelters are funded predominantly by local governments and supported by smaller, nonprofit shelters. Exceptions include public-private partnerships, as in the case of CAS and Charleston County.

That partnership hinges on a contract negotiated every few years for the amount of funding the county will provide. The current contract was signed in 2019, but Elmore said projected costs are more than double the amount of funding the county has been willing to give.

Elmore said the projected annual cost for operating the shelter is about $4.5 million, and that doesn’t include inflation or staff pay increases. These costs are associated with preventive measures (spay and neuter programs), animal housing (CAS takes in roughly 9,000 animals per year) and external care (CAS cares for another 11,000 animals outside of the shelter, according to Elmore).

The current contract between Charleston County and CAS allocates $2.1 million annually from the county to the shelter.

“Since 2005, our donors have picked up the slack to the tune of about $40 million,” Elmore said. “We can’t sustain this anymore and mitigate the risk of public health and safety. … On a consistent basis, we have proposed these costs for services, and quite frankly, we’ve just taken whatever they’ve been willing to give. But we do a year’s worth of work, and they pay about six months for that. We’re pulling from reserves and from donors to underwrite their obligation.”

30 days to find an amicable solution

The June 20 letter sent from CAS lawyers to Tuten and Sass gave county leaders a 30-day notice for termination of the contract agreement. Sass told the City Paper he was in receipt of the letter, but declined to comment further.

Kabrovsky said he hoped the county and shelter could find a fair resolution, but declined to comment further.

Per the contract, such a termination would mean that CAS will be “compensated for all necessary and reasonable direct costs of performing the services actually accomplished,” leaving the county on the hook for the full estimated cost of shelter operations.

“CAS has attempted time and time again to establish a contract amount for services rendered that is fundamentally fair and by which CAS may continue to operate and service the needs of the County and its pleas have consistently fallen on deaf ears,” the letter reads. “CAS is willing to negotiate an agreement with the County, but it has become unsustainable for CAS to continue subsidizing these services when there is no such requirement under the agreement and still somehow meet the ever-growing needs of the county.”

Since 2005, estimated costs have consistently doubled the contracted funding from Charleston County, even as both numbers climbed, according to a chart attached to the letter sent to county leaders. In 2005, estimated costs peaked under $1.5 million, but only $500,000 was funded. In 2014, estimated costs rose to just over $3 million, but funding only increased to $1 million.

Elmore said he hoped CAS and county leaders could come to a resolution, but was less than optimistic.

“It’s not new,” he said. “We’ve had these conversations for years. We’ve been somewhat consistently dismissed. The animal society paid for 60% of this building … and on day one, it was overcrowded. Companion animal populations increase with the human population, and everybody knows what has happened to the human population in this area since 2008. … I’m hopeful that we can work this out, that they understand.”