The Guilford County Animal Shelter may be about to get an infusion of new employees that Guilford County Animal Services Director Jorge Ortega has been pleading for for a long time.
At the Thursday, Sept. 19 Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting, the board will vote on whether to add six new positions at the shelter.
Guilford County Animal Services is requesting the new positions “to support operations and improve the security/safety of staff and patrons.”
One of the requested positions is an additional shelter veterinarian estimated to cost the county $81,436 annually. That move would be “to provide additional medical treatment capacity and 7 days/week medical coverage.”
According to the information provided to the commissioners for the Sept. 19 meeting, this additional position is expected to reduce the amount that the shelter spends for outside medical services – especially what it spends on the evaluation and treatment of animals that are brought to the shelter.
Another position would be a customer service manager at an estimated cost of $58,563 annually. That employee would provide “additional management coverage for customer service functions including adoption and checkout as well as opening and closing the cashier stations, assisting other staff, and generally ensuring a high-quality customer experience.”
Currently, according to Ortega, other employees must now work a lot of overtime in order to ensure coverage when the shelter is open to the public.
The agenda item also calls for one senior office specialist at a cost of $47,926 a year to provide administrative office support for shelter staff. That person would assist with tracking, receiving and managing invoices such as those for adoption fees or for Animal Control citations.
Another position on the table is a “Foster/Placement Coordinator,” which would run the county $44,704 annually to improve placement and management of animals in foster care. According to information provided to the commissioners by county staff, currently, foster availability exceeds the capacity of shelter staff to place and manage animals.
Shelter staff is also requesting that the Board of Commissioners approve a contracted security guard at the shelter at a cost of $46,679 a year.
Lastly, Ortega is requesting one animal cleaning technician position to provide additional animal care and cleaning. The cost of this additional cleaning position would be covered by reclassifying an existing shelter operations manager position to an animal cleaning technician position – which would amount to a net addition of two animal cleaning technicians with no additional taxpayer money required.
The cost of adding these positions would largely be offset by savings the county would see by reducing the cost of contract services such as those it has with Malachi House, a non-profit the county currently pays about $300,000 a year.
In the end, the county anticipates the move would cost just over $90,000 annually to taxpayers.
The shelter NEEDS these positions badly. I went to the shelter today to ask about adopting a cat and it was crazy because there weren’t enough staff to help the people who were there needing service. As soon as I opened the door the waiting room was jammed with people and no one was moving or knew where to go. There was no directional signage telling you what to do. I didn’t know what line I should be in, if I needed to fill out any forms or if I could go somewhere and just start looking at animals. After about ten minutes a volunteer did come in the door and ask if anyone was there to just look at animals and I said that I was. She then helped me and it was a great experience (and I did adopt a cat which I get to pick up tomorrow after she is spayed).
The two people who were checking out customers didn’t have enough time to answer questions for the people who had them or to direct those who didn’t know what to do. The people who were getting animals that were going home for adoption or wones that were being picked up by owners didn’t have enough time to answer questions for those of us just walking in the door and didn’t know what to do. I only saw one volunteer, the wonderful lady who helped me. She was informative and enthusiastic and was helping at least three people at one time. The two people checking out customers were wonderful. They were polite, efficient, took time to answer questions and make people feel they’d had a personal experience while adopting their pet. The staff helpers were kept busy and handled the animals professionally, calmly and kept them under control.
I think having additional staff will help improve the situation I encountered today. It wasn’t a special event, I came on a regular Wednesday evening and if I hadn’t had a specific cat in mind I would have turned around and walked out. There need to be big improvements in access to the shelter and flow into the areas to see the animals, in directional signage as to how to visit the animals available for adoption, when and where to fill out forms, how to pull the cards for available animals, what you should bring when you pick up your animal or will have to do to drop it off. I also think that animals put into foster care that will not be available for adoption because they are going to be put into rescue programs should be immediately taken off the adoption site on the internet because they won’t be available to real people for adoption (this happened to me today, but it turned into a good thing as I found the perfect cat).
I hope the Commissioners give the Shelter the money they need to properly staff it in order for it to run efficiently.