Fort Smith leadership decided Monday to remove its contract with HOPE Humane Society from Tuesday’s Board of Directors agenda. This relieves the shelter of its duties as the city impoundment facility and also withdraws funding, thereby making the facility insolvent.

Ward 1 Director Keith Lau moved to get a request for proposal to determine the cost of building a city-run facility and combining it with the cost of an incentivized licensing law. Ward 2 Director Andre Good, At-large Director Robyn Dawson and Vice Mayor and At-large Director Kevin Settle concurred with the motion.

Fort Smith Animal Control will cease bringing dogs to the Humane Society after May 30. It will have until July 17 to find homes for all animals at the shelter through local adoptions or out-of-state transports. The issue will be brought back at the June 4 regular meeting.

Humane Society Board Vice President Storm Nolan said the shelter would likely close.

The shelter has a $500,000 loan with BancorpSouth due July 17. Shelter board president Sam Terry told the board the Humane Society doesn’t have the full amount to pay it off, and the bank would have the right to foreclose on the facility.

Terry did not speak to the media but said in a text message to the Times Record the board will meet later in the week and release a statement “at a later time.”

“We’ve been subsidizing the city for decades now with donations from private citizens,” Nolan said. “Obviously, this is not the direction they want to continue.”

From HOPE to how?

Most of the questions during the discussion revolved around how. How did the shelter get so overcrowded? If the board were to approve a new $650,000 contract, how could it ensure there is some sort of change? How does the city even start its own shelter? How is it going to be funded?

The Humane Society started in 1937 after “concerned citizens” got together and took over the impoundment duties from the city, which had its own facility at the landfill, Nolan said. This decision is “going full circle,” he said.

Local veterinarian Nicole Morton said overcrowding happened because too many animals are brought in and the staff isn’t getting them out fast enough. According to shelter statistics, animal control alone brought in almost 3,000 animals in 2018.

A little more than two years ago, the shelter adopted a no-kill philosophy. According to Best Friends Animal Society, in order to be a no-kill facility, shelters must maintain a 90% live save rate. This means they cannot euthanize more than 10% of the animals brought in.

When asked if there was more the shelter could be doing or better ways to perform current processes to minimize the number of animals in its care, Morton said “not to my knowledge.”

“We euthanize animals frequently for humane reasons but not for overcrowding,” Terry told the board.

Nolan, when asked after the study session, said there was no possibility of the organization euthanizing more than 10% of the animals in its care.

“We won’t do it,” Nolan said. “That’s not us.”

Moving forward

Questions that were asked of Humane Society — How is euthanization determined? How many can or should be euthanized? How long should the animal be kept and in what condition? How will the city care for animals humanely and in a cost efficient manner? — are still relevant.

The board will have to answer these questions and find a facility to house animals in after animal control no longer takes them to the shelter.

Morton told the board she knows of a location it could potentially rent for $750 per month and be animal control’s responsibility. She is sending the members and city administration information.

In the meantime, the shelter will look for homes and transport opportunities for the animals, 378 at the time of publication, at the facility. The city will continue discussing incentivized licensing, which research has shown tends to reduce the overall cost of animal control operations over time.

“This is not an effort to close down HOPE at all,” said Good. “If the overcrowding of HOPE is done so by the amount of animals we bring in, if we had our own facility to impound, could they still operate at some level to carry out their mission?”

Terry told the board he believed it was possible to continue to be a rescue, but that was before the board decided to remove any additional funding.

Nolan said it will close this summer “short of a miracle.”