Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutAGENDA REPORT 2017 0621 CCSA REG ITEM 10N ITEM 10.N. CITY OF MOORPARK,CALIFORNIA City Council Meeting ACTION: MOORPARK CITY COUNCIL A,_ ;._/1/ AGENDA REPORT ( - TO: Honorable City Council FROM: Jessica Sandifer, Program Manage, DATE: June 9, 2017 (CC Meeting of June 21, 2017) SUBJECT: Consider Service Level Request Form for Animal Services Agreement Between City of Moorpark and the County of Ventura BACKGROUND In 1984, the City entered into an Agreement with Ventura County Animal Services (VCAS) for services including animal shelter, licensing, field staff, and animal nuisance hearings, as well as statutory and regulatory issues such as rabies control, and other mandates for local animal control. In 1989, the Agreement was amended for primarily technical changes. Under that contract, costs were allocated to the participating cities using a set of three formulas, one for shelter and administration, a second formula for licensing, and a third for field staff services. Each of the three cost formulas covered an array of tasks and services as an umbrella. This arrangement was in place until 2002, when the City started providing primary field services with in-house staff which provided a greater level of field work than previously provided by the County. VCAS established an Animal Commission consisting of one elected official from each participating jurisdiction to meet quarterly to advise the board on animal concerns. The Commission last met in May 2014, and has averaged two meetings per year since 2010. On June 5, 2012, the Board of Supervisors reorganized VCAS as a division in the Public Health Agency. On June 12, 2012, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors adopted the goal of operating its animal shelter on a "no kill" basis as an aspiration for the department. No additional funding was provided by the County, and no date was set for the shelter to become fully "no kill". In December 2014, VCAS reported to the board that VCAS achieved "no kill" status for calendar year 2014 with a live release rate of 91.2%. In April 2015, the City Council approved an updated Animal Services Agreement which contained the following changes: 187 Honorable City Council June 21, 2017 Page 2 • Programs are defined so it is known what services are delivered, and their costs outlined in a Service Level Request Form. • Rabies suppression activity is charged by the hour. • Bite investigations are charged by the hour. • Establishes new administrative fees. • Changes the type of animals that are charged to the City from dogs and cats to all animals, including bunnies and livestock. • Allows VCAS at its sole discretion and without notice to change any aspect of the programs provided, including policy matters, hours of operation, outreach and promotional programs. • Allows cities such as Moorpark to adopt their own fee schedule. • Requires that City staff process their own impounded animals. To help out with the intakes, instead of dropping an animal off at the shelter, City staff vaccinates cats and dogs at the shelter, enters data, takes photos, and scans for microchip. Under the new agreement, in addition to the other items that the City elected to pay for, the City also paid for shelter services. The shelter service costs were allocated to the cities based on the their percentage of animal intakes. So if Moorpark's animal intakes in the quarter are 3.0%, the City is charged 3.0 % of the shelter service costs for the quarter. Shelter service costs include: shelter services, veterinary costs, and a portion of administrative budget allocated to the shelter and veterinary costs. After the implementation of the new agreement and service level request form, an unanticipated effect of the 2015 shelter services formula occurred when the City of Oxnard significantly reduced their percentage of intakes. This greatly increased the other cities' share of shelter service costs. Due to this increase to the cities, the Board of Supervisors authorized an amendment to the agreement that capped the costs based on the FY 15/16 animal services budget, rather than the actual costs, which stabilized the animal services costs for the remainder of the 15/16 fiscal year. The amendment was signed on March 16, 2016. In June 2016, the City Council approved a new Service Level Request (SLR) form with the County of Ventura for Animal Services. This new SLR modified the cost methodology for shelter services with the goal of stabilizing costs paid by the cities, but also allowing the County to meet its cost recovery goals. The new cost methodology was based on a fixed-variable allocation of costs. The base charge consists of 70% of the actual costs attributable to the City based on the prior fiscal year shelter services costs. The remaining 30% is a variable charge consisting of the average cost per animal multiplied by actual animal intakes from the City in the quarter, using the County's budgeted costs for the current fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year, the County prepares a reconciliation comparing the County billings to contracting jurisdictions for - 188 I;ionorable City Council June 21, 2017 Page 3 shelter services and the lesser of the County's budgeted annual amount for shelter services or the County's actual costs for shelter services. The difference would be charged or credited to the City based on its percentage of County Animal shelter intakes for the fiscal year (currently 3.02%), and is included on the County's invoice to the contracting jurisdictions for services provided during the fourth quarter. DISCUSSION The County has elected to continue with the fixed/variable cost methodology for Fiscal Year 2017-18. City staff is also not proposing to make any changes to the Service Level Request form, maintaining the status quo for County services which includes minimal field service hours for emergency situations that City staff cannot respond to, provision of animal nuisance hearings, and license canvassing services. The current Agreement with the County, which started in Fiscal Year 2015-16 provided for a one year term, but, upon mutual agreement of the parties, can be extended for five successive one-year terms. At the time this Agreement was approved by the City it did not provide authorization for the City Manager to sign the successive Agreement renewals. The County documents the renewal of the term by staff signing new SLR forms for each fiscal year. In order to provide for a faster turnaround on the SLR forms each renewal term, staff is requesting the City Manager's authority to sign the new SLR forms when there is no change in level of services or cost methodology. Any changes on the SLR form to the services the County provides or the cost methodology, would need to come back to the City Council for individual consideration. FISCAL IMPACT The new cost allocation methodology has worked out well for the City for FY 16/17. Combined with successful license canvassing and the efforts of the City's Animal Control staff, the City has not had to pay for the County's animal services through three quarters. So far, the license fee revenues in FY 2016/17 have covered the cost of the County's Animal Services. At the end of the third quarter the City had a credit with the County for $33,000, which will be applied to County provided Animal Control services in the fourth quarter. The County has also projected Moorpark's costs to be a credit of $8,000 for FY 2017/18. One factor that could have contributed to this credit is the fact that we now offer multi-year licenses, so there will be some animals that do not renew over the next two or three years. As a result, we expect that license revenues will be down slightly due to these multi-year licenses, however we won't know the effects until the third quarter in FY 2017/18. 189 Honorable City Council June 21, 2017 Page 4 While the license revenues for FY 16/17 have covered the County provided services, the revenues are still not sufficient to cover the costs of the City's Animal Control staff, which is budgeted at $184,060 for FY 2017/18. STAFF RECOMMENDATION 1. Approve renewal of the Animal Services Agreement with the County of Ventura, for four successive one-year terms; and 2. Authorize the City Manager to sign Service Level Request forms, when they contain no changes to level of services provided by the County or cost methodology. Attachment: Animal Services Agreement— Revised Attachment A— Service Level Request Form 190 Attachment 1 ATTACHMENT A TO COUNTY-CITY ANIMAL SERVICES AGREEMENT COUNTY OF VENTURA AND CITY OF MOORPARK FY 2017-18 SERVICE LEVEL REQUEST Part One: Available Services and Applicable Billing Rates and Credits Shelter Services As may be required, the County shall provide shelter services to the City for all those animals originating within the boundaries of the City (whether picked up in the City or dropped off at the County's animal shelter) as a result of: confiscation, requests for euthanasia, owner surrender, owner return, pick-up of stray animals and transfers. For animals originating in the City, the County shall provide the following shelter services: impoundment, boarding, quarantine, veterinary services, euthanasia services, over-the- counter animal license sales, animal adoptions, disposal of dead animals and related administrative services. Impounded animals will be vaccinated and provided necessary care, food and shelter in accordance with the provisions of state law. The animal's picture will be posted on the Animal Services website as soon as practicable to assist the City's residents in reclaiming a missing pet. The County, in its sole and exclusive discretion, shall determine the public and non-public hours of operation and the staffing of the County animal shelters. The owner or person entitled to the custody of any animal originating within the boundaries of the City and impounded at a County animal shelter can redeem such animal by paying applicable fees according to the Ventura County Animal Services approved schedule of rates and fees accruing up to the time of such redemption. The City shall be charged for its proportion of the total County shelter service costs incurred during the fiscal year identified above as set forth below. The County shall bill the City on a quarterly basis for shelter services based on a combination of a base charge and a variable charge, as follows: City of Moorpark Page 1 of 8 191 1. The base charge will consist of 70 percent of the actual costs attributable to the City in the prior fiscal year for shelter services (including veterinary and administrative services). The base charge will be billed quarterly to the City at 25 percent per quarter. 2. The variable charge will consist of the product of 30 percent of the average cost per animal multiplied by actual County shelter animal intakes from the City in the quarter. The average cost per animal used to calculate the variable charge shall be determined by dividing the County's total costs for shelter services (including veterinary and administrative services) budgeted in the current fiscal year by the total number of animal intakes during the prior calendar year. 3. Following the end of the fiscal year, the County will prepare a reconciliation comparing (a) County billings to contracting jurisdictions for shelter services during that fiscal year and (b) the lesser of the County's budgeted annual amount for shelter services or the County's actual costs for shelter services during the same period (not including imputed charges incurred for shelter services for the unincorporated areas). The difference will be either credited or charged to each contracting jurisdiction based on that contracting jurisdiction's percentage of County animal shelter intakes for the fiscal year, and will be included on the County's invoice to the contracting jurisdictions for services provided during the fourth quarter. If any current contracting jurisdiction terminates its contract with the County, the County will make every practicable effort to reduce the County's variable shelter operating costs which are based on the volume of shelter animals served (including, but not limited to, personnel costs), in order to keep total County shelter service costs at the lowest reasonable level. In the event of an animal intake at a County animal shelter originating from the City due to any police request and/or pending court case that results in a County shelter stay of more than 15 days, the County shall charge the City for shelter services according to the Ventura County Animal Services approved schedule of rates and fees for each day that each such animal receives shelter services. Should an animal cruelty or neglect investigation regarding an animal originating from the City result in a court case, the City is responsible for reimbursing the County for all resulting costs, including, but not limited to, attorneys' fees and costs incurred by the County, according to the schedule of rates and fees adopted by the County. City of Moorpark Page 2 of 8 192 Field Services At the election of the City, the County shall provide the City with the following field services as may be required: responding to calls for service; pick up of dead animals; capture and transportation of animals; license, permit and other inspections; pre-hearing investigation of nuisance complaints; post-nuisance hearing compliance checks; investigation of potential cases of animal abuse and mistreatment; investigation of potential animal nuisances in violation of Ventura County Ordinance Code section 4467 or an equivalent municipal code provision; assistance with animal evacuations due to disaster or emergency; and similar or related field services. The City shall be charged according to the standard hourly rate for field services set forth in the Ventura County Animal Services approved schedule of rates and fees based on actual hours expended, and the City shall identify a not to exceed amount for field services per fiscal year, as well as the average level of service that the City authorizes the County to provide per week. The County shall notify the City in writing on a quarterly basis regarding actual hours expended for field services to the City, to enable the City to make the determination of whether the City wishes to authorize a higher annual not to exceed amount for field services. The County shall be under no obligation to provide the City with any field services in excess of the City's identified not to exceed amount. In the event the City declines to have the County perform field services, the City shall be responsible for: (i) Scanning animals for an existing microchip and making all efforts to reunite a lost animal with its owner based on any microchip information prior to transporting that animal to a County shelter; (ii) Making all efforts to use information available from any animal's personal ID tag or a pet license to reunite a lost animal with its owner prior to transporting that animal to a County shelter; (iii) Vaccinating an animal with current standard vaccinations identified by Animal Services prior to transporting that animal to a County shelter; and (iv) Taking a digital photograph of an animal, and loading the digital photograph and other pertinent animal information onto the Animal Shelter's computer information system for tracking animals subject to impoundment after an animal has been transported to a County shelter. Rabies Control At the election of the City, the County shall provide the City with the following rabies control program as may be required: response and investigation of reported animal bite and intimate contact cases to establish that state mandated quarantine procedures are complied with. This includes a follow-up visit to verify the health of the animal after quarantine. Shelter quarantine will be at the discretion of the County. City of Moorpark Page 3 of 8 193 Animal Nuisance Hearings At the election of the City, the County shall provide the City with the services of one Hearing Officer and one administrative assistant to conduct animal nuisance hearings for animal nuisance complaints (based on violation of Ventura County Ordinance Code section 4467 or its equivalent City municipal code provision) originating within the boundaries of the City. The County shall charge the City according to the standard hourly rate (for salary and fringe benefits) of the actual Hearing Officer and administrative assistant providing services based on the actual hours expended per hearing. The County will not conduct animal nuisance hearings for a violation of local leash law absent nuisance based on violation of Ventura County Ordinance Code section 4467 or its equivalent City municipal code provision. Should there be an appeal from the findings and orders of the Hearing Officer after an animal nuisance hearing regarding an animal originating from the City, the City will be responsible for reimbursing the County for all resulting costs, including, but not limited to, attorneys' fees and costs incurred by the County, according to the schedule of rates and fees adopted by the County. Animal License Processing per License At the election of the City, the County shall provide the City with animal license processing services at the annual fiscal year cost of $3.00 per applicable cat or dog license for each animal within the boundaries of the City. The County shall mail license renewal notices to the animal owner of record; and when the renewal and payment are received, the County will process licenses. City residents can use the County's online weblicensing feature at no additional cost to the City. Licenses will be required before the County will release an animal to a resident of the City. The City animal license fees that the County collects (less the County's license processing fee) will be credited to the City quarterly in arrears against the amount that the City owes the County under the parties' animal services agreement. Administrative Citation Processing At the election of the City, the County shall provide the City with administrative citation processing services for citations issued to animal owners within the boundaries of the City. The citation processing services provided to the City shall be substantially equivalent to any services that the County contracts for with respect to processing of County administrative citations. In the event that the County reaches a determination, in its sole and exclusive discretion, that it no longer desires to provide administrative citation processing services to the City, the County shall provide the City with 60 days' prior written notice before ceasing to provide such services. The County will provide the City of Moorpark Page 4 of 8 194 following administrative citation processing services to the City contingent upon the City's reimbursement of actual County costs incurred (including, but not limited to, actual costs charged by the County's General Services Agency for mailing and processing of citations and the cost of one hour per month for the services of a Supervising Animal Control Officer): generate auto citations in Chameleon software; send files to the General Services Agency for processing; receive and review auto citation files from the General Services Agency to ensure accuracy; send reviewed and completed files to the General Services Agency for processing and mailing to animal owners; receive and store finalized PDF file from the General Services Agency; generate email notification to the City's staff with PDF files for further collection and appeals; receive, through a Supervising Animal Control Officer, communication from City staff regarding citizen appeals when necessary; and receive updates from the City regarding customer data to be updated,with the County updating data in Chameleon software. The City will be solely responsible for collections once citations are issued to animal owners and for paying for collections, including, but not limited to, costs for contracted collections services. The City will be solely responsible for processing any administrative appeals from citations issued. The County will not be responsible for collections or processing administrative appeals from citations. License Canvassing At the election of the City, the County shall provide the City with license canvassing services within the boundaries of the City. The County shall charge the City according to the standard hourly rate set forth in the Ventura County Animal Services approved schedule of rates and fees for license team canvassing based on actual hours expended, and the City shall identify a not to exceed amount for license canvassing per fiscal year. The County shall promptly notify the City in writing when the City reaches 80% of its existing not to exceed amount, to enable the City to make the determination of whether the City wishes to authorize a higher not to exceed amount for license canvassing. The County shall be under no obligation to provide the City with any license canvassing services in excess of the City's identified not to exceed amount. Part Two: Specific Service Requests and Approvals The County will provide the City with the services authorized below: E Et Shelter Services. The City authorizes the County to provide shelter services for animals originating within the boundaries of the City during fiscal year 2017-18 according to the terms and conditions set forth in Part One of this Agreement. City of Moorpark Page 5 of 8 195 Field Services: ❑ The City authorizes the County to provide field services at a not to exceed amount during fiscal year 2017-18 of ; with field services of hours per week, to be provided by the County to the City, according to the terms and conditions set forth in Part One. The City hereby agrees to the County's enforcement of the City's municipal code provisions in providing field services. • The City authorizes the County to provide field services only for emergency calls (requests for an animal services officer by law enforcement or fire personnel, vicious animal at large threatening the public, wild animal at large in City area, livestock at large and in sight, stray animal bite with the animal at large or confined by a non-owner) at a not to exceed amount of 30 hours for the fiscal year. This level of service is intended to provide emergency response on an as-needed basis from the County on behalf of a City that employs its own field services when requested by the City and the County is able to respond. The City hereby agrees to the County's enforcement of the City's municipal code provisions in providing field services. ❑ The City declines to have the County provide field services. Rabies Control ❑ The City authorizes the County to provide rabies control services. • The City declines to have the County provide rabies control services. Animal Nuisance Hearings: EX The City authorizes the County to conduct animal nuisance hearings during fiscal year 2017-18 according to the terms and conditions set forth in Part One. The City hereby agrees to the County's enforcement of the City's municipal code provisions in conducting animal nuisance hearings, and the City agrees to enact, and maintain in full force and effect, municipal code provisions substantially equivalent to Ventura County Ordinance Code section 4467. ❑ The City declines to have the County conduct animal nuisance hearings. City of Moorpark Page 6 of 8 196 Animal License Processing: The City authorizes the County to provide animal license processing services for the City during fiscal year 2017-18 according to the terms and conditions set forth in Part One. ❑ The City has adopted the license fees set forth in the Ventura County Animal Services approved schedule of rates and fees. ® The City has adopted the following license fees that differ from the license fees set forth in the Ventura County Animal Services approved schedule of rates and fees: Specify: $30 for dog/cat altered, $85 for dog/cat unaltered Current City license fees were adopted by the City on May 6 , 2015 ❑ The City declines to have the County provide animal license processing. Administrative Citation Processing: ❑ The City authorizes the County to provide administrative citation processing services for the City during fiscal year 2017-18 according to the terms and conditions set forth in Part One. • The City declines to have the County provide administrative citation processing services. License Canvassing: The City authorizes the County to provide license canvassing services within the boundaries of the City at a not to exceed amount during fiscal year 2017-18 of 700 hours at$23.02/hr $16,114.00 ❑ The City declines to have the County provide license canvassing services. City of Moorpark Page 7 of 8 197 CITY OF MOORPARK COUNTY OF VENTURA Signature: _ Signature: Steven Kueny, City Manager Tara Diller, Director of Animal Services Date: Date: City of Moorpark Page 8 of 8 198