The Windsor/Essex County Humane Society has been protecting and caring for animals since 1926. We have provided animal control services on a contractual basis for the City of Windsor since the 1970s, although those services are not the core of our organization’s mandate.
Windsor has unique animal control needs, with intake higher than many other municipalities with much higher populations: • Ottawa (pop. 883K) – 5,500 animals • Windsor (pop. 211K) – 4,500 animals • London (pop. 366K) – 2,100 animals • St. Catharines (pop. 132K) – 1,800 animals *all numbers approximate for 2015
The Windsor/Essex County Humane Society not only provides services, but also a shelter. The building was recently expanded and upgraded with no cost to the City aside from the waiver of permit fees (approx. $25K). In contrast, the Municipality of Chatham-Kent is currently undertaking a $2 million fundraising campaign to upgrade their pound building.
Why the increase now? In 2011, we agreed to a contract that would not cover all the costs of the services, and in 2014 agreed to waive scheduled COLA increases. However, we cannot continue to ask our donors to subsidize municipal services and therefore can no longer agree to a fee that doesn’t cover the contract’s expenses.
Are these fees high compared to other municipalities? Contract costs per capita: London –$5.75 Brantford – $5.49 Windsor (proposed) - $4.99
The City of Brantford investigated their alternatives last year after a 24% increase by their Humane Society. They found that to provide services by the municipality the estimated cost would be 107% higher than the Brant County SPCA’s rate! This was excluding any needed related capital investments.
The Windsor/Essex County Humane Society performs municipal animal control as a public service, in addition to the many other charitable programs we offer. As indicated in our RFP response, we are willing to continue performing those services, but no longer willing to do so at the expense of our other programs.
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