Photo by Howard Owens.
County legislators gave a thumbs up and fingers crossed Tuesday for a grant application to make mandated and costly upgrades to Genesee County Animal Shelter per recently passed state legislation requiring at least two sets of ventilation systems, isolation areas, treatment rooms, washing facilities and other amenities at the Route 5 facility.
Undersheriff Bradley Mazur made the request during the Public Service Committee meeting, as Deputy Highway Superintendent Paul Osborn helped to explain the need for funding. Gov. Hochul recently signed the Companion Animal Care Standards Act, prompting New York State shelters to ramp up their to-do lists to meet new compliance orders.
Osborn reviewed some of the physical aspects of those tasks, including the need for a new HVAC system that keeps the air temperature between 60 and 80 degrees, separate ventilation systems -- three, Osborn said -- for the adoption and stray side of the shelter, larger kennels for both dogs and cats, isolation rooms for sick dogs and cats, treatment rooms for dogs and cats, separate washing facilities for both dogs and cats, additional wash sinks for volunteers, and daylighting for diurnal lighting.
The upside, county Manager Matt Landers said, is that the building footprint itself won't have to be enlarged, as the work can be done -- with necessary reconfiguring of rooms, an added wall, and such -- within the current site.
The deadline for applying for a maximum award of $500,000 is Jan. 29, and work must be done by December 2025. Osborn said estimated expenses for those mandates would easily meet or surpass half a million dollars, which prompted Legislator Marianne Clattenburg to ask who pays if they go over cost.
“We do,” Landers said.
The Batavian asked him what would happen if the county couldn’t pay the tab and didn’t make the required upgrades. Could the shelter get shut down?
“I am confident we will find a solution that is cost-effective and meets the new requirements from NYS Ag & Markets,” Landers said. “The State has stated it is not their goal to close down shelters.”
“The county is confident that between the next couple of NYS budget years that it will secure necessary grant funds to largely offset the required improvements,” he said.
The Batavian wanted to clarify Clattenburg’s comment made during the meeting about whether the shelter should even be where it is. Would she like to see it shut down?
She didn’t mean that, she said.
Photo by Joanne Beck
“No, not closing it. But, you know, reimagining it. Maybe shared services with other counties, maybe a different location and a better building, you know, something along those lines, because it's going to be very expensive to retrofit where it is now,” she said. “And so, I was just thinking along those lines. We're always looking for shared services models, and maybe, if the state wants better ventilation and better cages, better everything, then maybe it's time to look at regionalizing, that was my thought.”
The Batavian also asked Landers his thoughts about a future shared animal shelter facility, per Clattenburg’s comment, to save on costs.
“Legislator Clattenburg is a huge proponent for sharing services when it makes sense. We will always examine when a shared service model may work and save municipal resources,” he said. “At this point, our focus is on securing state funds for the required upgrades, but we will always keep an open mind for opportunities to share services with other municipal partners.”
Legislators had no problem with the grant application and passed it onto the Ways & Means Committee and the Legislature to authorize the submission of the proposal for a maximum of $500,000 award, with a 10 percent county match for required upgrades at the shelter. Other provisions in the new law include changes to animal bedding, transportation, behavioral record keeping and mandatory training.
