Toccoa, Stephens Co. Pairing Up On Animal Control Officer

Toccoa and Stephens County are moving towards making a change to the way animal control is handled in the county.

Both the city and county commissioners have talked about the issue in the past week.

On Friday, Stephens County Commissioners voted unanimously to create a position of an animal control officer under the County Marshal’s department.

Then on Monday, city commissioners unanimously voted to move forward with the plan pending final approval by the city commission of an intergovernmental agreement between the two sides to formalize the new arrangement once it is drawn up.

Stephens County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said that position could handle animal control and other duties.

“This request would be to hire someone to report to our current marshal as Animal Control Officer and help (the marshal) with his current duties,” said Ayers.

She says the county and city would divide the cost based on the Local Option Sales Tax split.

That means the county would cover about 65 percent and the city 35 percent.

Ayers says the county’s portion of the funding would be taken from the current funding for the humane shelter, since the humane shelter would no longer be handling animal control.

Meanwhile, Morse said he expects that the city would do the same.

This move comes after concerns were raised in recent months over whether the current animal control officer, working under the direction of the humane shelter, had the authority to issue citations for animal control issues.

For the time being, Toccoa-Stephens County Humane Shelter Director Jeff Roberts says that the person who has been serving as the animal control officer is responding to animal control calls where no investigation is required.

However, anything that requires investigation is being handled by the County Marshal at this point in time.