MCLENNAN COUNTY, Texas (KXXV) — For months, 25 News has been telling you about a contract disagreement between the City of Waco Animal Shelter and the Humane Society.
Now they are officially parting ways — as of this Friday at 5 p.m. the Humane Society of Central Texas will turn over operations to the City of Waco.
- $1.2 million is the amount of money the Humane Society of Central Texas requested from the City of Waco during contract negotiations, which the city turned down, leading to a dissolution agreement
- The City of Waco will re-brand themselves with a new name and logo, but Assistant City Manager Ryan Holt, says customers won’t feel a difference at all
- As for the Humane Society of Central Texas, they will be moving to a different location, and will give more details in the coming days
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
"When the initial demand came in for $1.2 million and no performance indicators, that was a larger problem than the dollar amount,” said Assistant City Manager for the City of Waco, Ryan Holt.
$1.2 million is the amount of money the Humane Society of Central Texas requested from the City of Waco during contract negotiations.
At Tuesday's city council meeting, city leaders called that amount “a little high” and “irresponsible” to use tax payer dollars because the Humane Society did not provide enough information as how the money would be used.
"You can show for every dollar that goes out, what is the service performed for that, rather than just saying we’re going to give an entity $1.2 million with no accounting to out taxpayers,” Holt said.
When asking the Humane Society about those performance indicators, they say they prefer to leave the past in the past.
"We know the city of Waco is going to continue needing us, we’re going to continue needing them," said Project Manager for the Humane Society of Central Texas, Brooke Farrell.
"We’re ready to leave that in the rear view while we start focusing on how we can work together in this new era."
How does all of this affect Central Texans and their pets?
The City of Waco Animal Shelter will be re-branding themselves with a new name and logo, but Holt says customers won’t feel a difference at all.
"The City of Waco is going to step up and replace all of those positive outcome programs, whether it’s fostering or rescues or volunteer program, all those things we’re going to replicate those," Holt said.
As for the dogs and cats at the shelter, which continues to remain at max capacity, they’ll remain in the facility under the care of the City of Waco.
As for the Humane Society of Central Texas, they will be moving to a different location, and will give more details in the coming days.
"We will be moving into a back office space, not as public facing as we have been,” Farrell said.
They have plans to continue serving the community with their Human-Animal Support Services, and have plans to eventually have a more permanent location in the future.
"We will need a few weeks to start finalizing some of our program updates so we can immediately hit the ground," Farrell said.
"But we are still going to be at the Downtown Waco farmers market every Saturday morning."
For anyone who might need to reach out to the Humane Society of Central Texas, click here.
The City of Waco is hiring 15 new positions to replace the work the humane society was doing at the shelter — Holt says the budgeted amount for salaries is $837,000.
To learn more about those positions, click here.
