BUTTE — Animal control is a big issue in Butte and that’s why the city has decided to make it its own department, separating it from Community Enrichment, because animal control has complexities that other departments just don’t have.
“What we do here is really specialized because we’re here seven days a week, 365 days a year. We’re not necessarily open, but we have to take care of the animals every day, and animal control is on call so we’re really kind of an emergency service too,” said Animal Control Manager Lynette Hogart.
The city has taken animal control off the responsibility list of Butte’s Community Enrichment, which also handles parking enforcement, weed control, and community decay laws.
“This is an opportunity that we can take both of these departments, make them both standalone, make them more efficient on both sides of this,” said Butte Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher.
Gallagher notes in 2006, the voters approved making animal control a separate department, but along the way both combined again.
“We’ve come a long way since the early 2000s when we had lots of dog problems, lots of different issues, and that was a major issue as to why the voters voted to make this a standalone department,” said Gallagher.
Hogart, who will manage the new animal control department, said the animal shelter is filled to capacity and can’t take any more surrendered animals.
“I think that vet care has gone up so high that people are finding it hard to get vet care for their animals; the cost of food has gone up so much I think people are struggling,” said Hogart.
She believes the separation will streamline operations.
“Just having it be its one department kind of frees us up to get things done a little bit quicker without having to go through some of the red tape we always had to go through before,” said Hogart.
Hogart’s newest position will go from an annual salary of about $53,000 to more than $65,000.
