LETTER TO THE EDTOR
According to the administrator, the Alice Springs Animal Shelter registered charity has been liquidated. The ASAS will no longer be able to trade including soliciting donations.
Ratepayers will now fund its activities, minus income from animal registration fees.
Last year, the Shelter expenditure was $466,800.
Multiple crises beset the Shelter, some of them from the dumping of pets as people left town. To cover the cost, the Shelter imposed a higher surrender fee. Some people threw their pets, especially cats, over the ASAS fence.
Staff were burning out and hard to replace.
The Shelter had $120,000 in the bank but their costs were escalating, when the committee decided they could not continue.
They approached the Council at which point it would have been smart to offer funding for more staff and loan some rangers to get the Shelter through its crisis.
The Council seemed unaware that it was responsible under the Local Government Act to take over the core duties of the Shelter if it folded.
The Council is looking for another charity to run the Shelter but is unlikely to find one.
The liquidation of the ASAS wasn’t inevitable, and its loss will affect us all.
Ralph Folds, Alice Springs
UPDATE August 29
According to a media statement, the Council has resolved to take on the functions of ASAS until the end of the financial year “to make sure the animals receive the care and attention they need”.
Maybe Alex Nelson would be good enough to remind us of the history here. Wasn’t it run by the SPCA at some point? Was Geoff Miers involved back then?
There would seem to be a long and troubled history, I wonder what the underlying issues are?
Some truth about what are the long term plans for the ASAS.
There are many reasons that the shelter should remain operational, such as ratepayers and residents who are hospitalised or interstate for medical treatment, or workers moving to the town who are awaiting permanent accommodation.
A volunteer run organisation, with council oversight, could be investigated.
There are folk who are willing to establish volunteers to continue the work of the ASAS.
@ Lynda Roberts: Thanks for helping to keep the Shelter in the spotlight.
The Shelter brought the community together around a common cause.
You could call in and find it open rather than be confronted with locked gates and a message to make an appointment.
It was self-funding, but now it will be an extra expenditure for ratepayers.
The Mayor opposed assistance to the Shelter, couched in terms of putting lives at risk if the current expenditure is changed.
I’m not sure that council oversight of volunteers would work, but I have been urging councillors to discuss a long-term plan to return the Shelter to the community.
The Council is now advertising positions to run the Animal Shelter at the ratepayer’s expense.
The estimated cost should be around $600.000 to $700,000 a year
That’s higher than the ASAS charity spent because donations have dried up and are no longer a tax deduction.
Fundraising events for the ASAS are unlikely to support a council operation.
Volunteers helped to cut costs at the ASAS before it went into voluntary administration.
Local businesses will no longer provide their services for free.
Ratepayers can expect a 3% increase in rates yearly to fund the shelter unless the RSPCA can be convinced to take it on.
The Council’s failure to support the ASAS through its crisis when it was on its knees, after many years of service to our town, has come back to bite us all.
The last thing Alice Springs needs right now is a spike in rates to pay for the shelter.
It’s time for an independent review to find savings to keep the next rate declaration close to inflation.
The Council has a big budget of over $20m and large staff numbers for the town’s size.
Serious program cuts and at least a 10% reduction in staff numbers are essential.
Alice Springs used to be a thriving, happy, bustling town back in the 90s with tourists everywhere. Nowadays it’s a different story, what on earth went wrong and who is to blame for this!
With businesses closing at a regular rate Alice is fast becoming a ghost town.
The thought that animals are now suffering too because of the lack of the council’s responsibilities at the appropriate point in time only brings more depression to this now sorry little town.
The RSPCA are a big enough, well-funded organisation which should be called upon to put their name to their advertising if the Alice Springs Council are not prepared to help their citizens, or future citizens by bringing a bit of bonhomie to the town.