Archive: Opinions

EditorialI like cats.  My wife likes dogs.  My family has four cats and a dog, all but one of which came from the SPCA.  That one was a stray, and because we believe in the core values the SPCA espouses we had her neutered and have provided her with a loving home.

I like the Town of Lansing.  One of the reasons I settled here was that on top of being a beautiful place to live with an active, caring community, the town government is conservative, providing excellent services for a low price.  If ever I saw a community do more with less, it is Lansing.  Our roads are second to none, we have an amazing, diverse recreation department that is run with only three full-time employees, our parks are gorgeous.

That puts two things I like at odds.  The SPCA, which is charging Lansing $18,613.50 for dog control this year wants to charge $32,499.00 next year.  That is for the services currently being provided.  The SPCA is offering a second option which removes emergency veterinary care from the package, lowering the price to $29,790.  Lansing would pay for that as needed on a case-by-case basis.

The alternative is Country Acres, a Homer-based shelter that is offering its services for $18,600.00.  That offer does not include emergency veterinary care.  A number of people have surmised that the service wouldn't be as good, that the company couldn't possibly be meeting its expenses on that price, that more animals would be killed, that response time would be longer, but nobody has offered data to support these fears.

It should be noted that the town would pay more for the second SPCA option and for the Country Acres option depending on how many animals are picked up that need the medical services.

The SPCA is based on $3.00 per capita for the first option, or $2.75 per capita for the second.   But that doesn't mean every person in Lansing would pay three dollars.  What you pay in taxes is based on the value of your property, not the number of people in your family.  So while that may be a perfectly reasonable formula for figuring out how much to charge a community, it may not seem as reasonable to taxpayers when the tax bill shows up in our mailboxes.  Councilman Bud Shattuck said Wednesday that it would have added 1% to our total tax bill if that had been the price for this year.  That is a lot for one budget item.

For myself I think that the SPCA's service probably would be better.  They are closer to Lansing, they have a history here, they offer value-added service.  But I also think about what I like about the Town of Lansing.  They keep taxes down in large part because they stick to what they need, not what they want.  Ditto the Village of Lansing.  I think the school district taxes are high because that board has done the opposite over a long period of years.  Fire District taxes are low because they keep them low and plan well for the future.  They have a twenty year plan.

This year the town paid the SPCA $6,204.50 more for dog control than they did in 2007.  At the time I thought the 50% rise was a lot.  In hindsight, when I look at the Country Acres bid for next year I have to admit that rise, while historically large, was well within reason.  This year the SPCA is asking Lansing for 74.6% more for the same services, or 60.05% more for reduced services.  That is 140.07% more than two years ago for the reduced services version.  Even though I completely support the SPCA's effort to match income to the cost of providing services, it's a big jump when you are looking at a tax rise.

If the Town pays $11,190 more for dog control, what will be next?  People will lobby for this project or that , and the next thing you know Lansing will be the town that does more with more.  More taxes.  More people forced to leave the town that they love but can't afford.

At Wednesday's meeting some proponents of the SPCA complained they could not see copies of the two proposals in order to respond to them more knowledgably.  Town Supervisor Scott Pinney had explained that making them public would hinder the town's ability to negotiate with the two providers.  He seemed moved by that argument, and said the town would agree to stop negotiating at this point so the public could view the proposals.  As I left the meeting I wondered if SPCA proponents hadn't shot themselves in the foot because the current price difference is so significant.

Maybe, maybe not.  The SPCA knows what it costs them to provide dog control.  Country acres does, too.  I really don't, so I couldn't say if those numbers had any more wiggle room in them.

Personally, I was swayed by the proponents of the SPCA who spoke at Wednesday's Town Board meeting.  But I was equally moved by what Councilmen Shattuck and Marty Christopher said about how people in town are hurting.  I guess that's why it's a darned good thing I'm not an elected official!

To me the tragedy of this situation is the timing.  In better economic times I don't think most people would object to an organization as well loved as the SPCA revising its prices to reflect their real costs.  It is a reasonable thing to do.  A business that doesn't do that is not a business for long.  But these are not better economic times.  These are fairly lousy economic times.

The Town Board has a very tough decision to make.  Whatever they decide I will respect it, because they have a long-standing history of thinking of taxpayers first when constructing their annual budget.  And because they have been champs at doing more with less.

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