L’Observateur / April 21, 2000

DEAR EDITOR: I am baffled and upset by the actions of the St. John the Baptist ParishCouncil. At the April 11 Parish Council meeting, they voted to cancel,effective the end of April 2000, the contract of the St. John HumaneSociety. The Parish elected to cancel the contract to “regain control” of theanimal shelter. The following will describe why this is a poor decision by theParish Council. The Humane Society has been assisting the parish shelter foreight years.

The Humane Society contract is for a total of $33,000 per year salary. TheHumane Society is run by Heidi Hogan and many volunteers. During the pasteight or nine years, they have devoted their lives to improving the parish animal shelter, increasing adoption rates (that is, reducing the percentage of dogs required to be euthanized), capturing vicious dogs, collecting donations of dog and cat food and other supplies for the cats and dogs at the shelter, using Humane Society money to build additional kennels at the shelter. Heidiand the volunteers have done this while receiving no salary from either the parish or Humane Society. Heidi devotes 40 to 80 hours a week to theshelter and animals. The $33,000 a year is paid to typically three employeeswho, along with Heidi and other volunteers, perform all the operations of the shelter (that is, pick up animals, feed and clean the dogs, clean the kennels, arrange for euthanasia, arrange for veterinary help, perform adoptions, etc.). Besides the hours these employees are paid at $6 per hour, theyvolunteer much more time to the animals and the shelter. Because these arecontract employees, they receive no benefits, such as medical, paid vacation, sick leave or overtime from the parish. There have been timesduring pick-ups of vicious dogs that these employees have been bitten, robbed, had a gun pointed at their heads, etc., and despite all these issues,they perform their jobs without complaint. They do all of this because oftheir love for the community and the animals.

For anyone who has watched and helped the shelter grow and improve during the past eight years, they will recognize the amount of work and love that has gone into improving the shelter and life for the animals. I trulyappreciate all of the hard work that the Humane Society has done to help improve the lives of the community and the animals in St. John Parish.When the Humane Society leaves the shelter on May 1, the Parish will be responsible for all of the work performed by the Humane Society. They willmost likely hire a shelter director to fill Heidi’s role. This will be a full-timeparish position with an estimated annual salary of $25-30,000 plus benefits.

Benefits can cost the Parish an additional 25 to 50 percent of the salary.

Therefore, just to fill Heidi’s position (currently at no cost to the parish) will cost the Parish an additional $31-45,000 per year. In addition, the Parish willbe required to pay the workers for every hour of work, their overtime and benefits. The estimated cost will be $50,000 a year instead of the current$33,000 per year. Besides the additional salary costs, the Humane Societycollects and donates supplies to the shelter. These include dog and cat food,blankets and medical supplies. The Parish will now be obligated to providethese supplies. Based on just the above extra costs, the Parish’s cost tooperate the shelter will now be $81-95,000 per year, versus the current cost for these services of $33,000 per year. This is an extra $48-62,000per year additional cost to the Parish to provide the same services as the Humane Society.

Isn’t this money that the Parish can use elsewhere to improve life in St. Johnthe Baptist Parish? Couldn’t this money be used to build a much-needed new animal shelter? Isn’t the Parish budget tight? It bothers me that people who are dedicated to improving life in the parish and are willing to help the Parish are now not allowed to, and the Parish is willing to spend more money to accomplish the same tasks. Is this really how we want our parish to utilizeour resources? Once again, thnks to the Humane Society for all they have done.

Timothy J. HoganLaPlace

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