The City of Yorkton will once again engage the Yorkton SPCA to provide pound keeper services, but with some significant changes to the agreement.
The local SPCA has provided the services, for a number of years, with the most recent Agreement commencing in January, 2004, explained Kathy Ritchie , Director of Legislation and Procedures, to Council at its regular meeting Monday.
鈥淭he agreement has been extended on an annual basis by a Letter of Understanding. For the past 15 years, the remuneration paid to the SPCA has remained unchanged. The SPCA have requested a substantial increase in the remuneration due to rising costs, inflation and activity at the shelter as a result of the City鈥檚 population growth,鈥� she explained.
鈥淎n extensive review and a comparison of other City鈥檚 and their SPCA Agreements had been done and was discussed with Council at a 2015 Strategic Planning Meeting. Council established a remuneration that they would be agreeable to and provided direction on some other changes that they would like to see in the agreement renewal. The City Manager and the City Clerk initiated meetings with the SPCA to discuss the proposals. During those discussions the SPCA presented an additional item for consideration that being that the building requires some major updates in order to meet code and safety requirements.
鈥淭he SPCA were agreeable to most of the changes provided by Council except for the full request of the shelter being open more hours to the public. The SPCA have agreed to a trial opening during the lunch hours to determine if there is enough traffic to warrant those additional hours and to ensure it doesn鈥檛 impact the cleaning schedule as cleaning cannot be performed while open to the public, however they have stated that they do not have the staff capacity to open an additional evening. They will remain to be open Thursday evening from 6:00 鈥� 8:00 p.m.鈥�
The discussions resulted in a number of changes from the past agreement including;
鈥� An increase of $20,000.00 to the first year of the remuneration and annual increases thereafter based on the CPI index rate adjustment;
鈥� To change the formula for fees collected by the Society as pound keeper to 75 per cent SPCA 鈥� 25 per cent City from 10 per cent SPCA 鈥� 90 per cent City;
鈥� Permitting the SPCA to resource other revenue sources from catchment area municipalities, appropriate grant authorities, fundraisers, etc. without affecting the annual remuneration amount paid by the City;
鈥� Permitting the SPCA to receive donations and bequeaths without affecting the annual remuneration amount paid by the City;
In addition, 鈥淎 clause has also been added to the contract stating that costs of major wear and tear repairs of the building are not a part of the agreement remuneration, but rather will be reviewed and funded separately from other resources (ie. grants, facilities maintenance budget, fundraising, or other avenues determined at the occurrence of the request),鈥� said Ritchie.
Council was unanimous in accepting the agreement.
