County Commission Denies Animal Shelter’s Request; Approves Probate Court’s

The Stephens County commission heard two requests at their meeting Tuesday and approved one and denied the other.

The first request came from the Toccoa-Stephens County Humane Shelter, asking for $20,000 for a new transport vehicle.

Humane Shelter Director Jeff Roberts went before the board to explain why this vehicle is needed.

“A third of the animals that come into the shelter end up being transported either by shelter vehicle or a receiving shelter because we just do not have the base of adopters to be able to adopt the animals out,” said Roberts. “Our remote adoption event, we have a seven-day a week adoption program at the PetSmart in Gainesville, the transport vehicle supports that. Also special events, we’re able to transport animals and supplies to those kind of events. It’s also used in large seizure situations for animal control to support their efforts because our vehicle will not support picking up large numbers of animals. Our current vehicle has well over 220,000 miles on it. It’s actually been towed for the third time in the last two weeks and it’s in the shop now.”

Roberts said the opportunity to have grant funding and help from the city and county to support the funds for this vehicle is a one-time opportunity.

However, in a 3-2 decision, the request was denied. Commissioners Dennis Bell, Michelle Ivester and Debbie Whitlock voted against this request.

Ivester said that because she voted to cut the Meals on Wheels program, she didn’t feel that she could give the humane shelter more money.

“In the budget, I voted to decrease Meals on Wheels $25,000 and as a human being, I can’t vote to give a humane shelter $20,000 over feeding the hungry,” said Ivester.

Whitlock added that she believes the humane shelter costs more than what the county can afford.

“My feelings about the humane shelter, I like the idea of the humane shelter and what their mission is, however, I don’t necessarily agree with it if you’re just talking finances,” said Whitlock. “We don’t have a very large tax base here and the humane shelter is just more expensive and in my opinion, always was more expensive than this county could afford.”

Another request came from probate court asking for a part-time position to become a full-time position that would cost $18,000, according to County Administrator Phyllis Ayers.

Probate Judge Glenda Ernest told the commission that due to the importance of the records that her department keeps, she needs the help.

“It has come to the point, I need a full-time, making it two full-times, one part-time,” said Ernest. “Our records are very important. They need to be scanned and housed off site. Since I took office in 2001, I have all those records scanned and off site but before that, I do not. This will help my office be in a position that if something happened to that court house that we have our records preserved.”

The commission unanimously approved this request. Ayers said the money to cover this position can come from contingencies, prior fund balance or additional tax revenue from the raised millage rate.