Council to decide Humane Society future at animal shelter

Horry County Council’s Public Safety Committee asked county staffers to conduct an audit into the Horry County Humane Society’s handling of tax dollars in running the county’s animal shelter in Conway.

The HCHS took control of the shelter in June 2006 and has received $1.5 million in tax dollars through a contract with Horry County; a contract that was never bid on.

In the contract, the county gave the HCHS three county vehicles along with the daily operations of the county’s animal shelter, along with more than $535,000 to operate the shelter through June 2009.

A deadly Canine Distemper Virus outbreak closed the shelter on Dec. 8 and kept the shelter closed until Jan. 8.

Several members of the animal shelter staff told News13 the former shelter director and HCHS board members knew of the outbreak in early November, but didn’t close the shelter until a month later.

Shelter documents showed a Clemson University Laboratory faxed a confirmation of a distemper case to the shelter on Nov. 24, but shelter records showed shelter officials continued adopting animals out to families even after the notice.

Wednesday, several members of the Public Safety Committee asked HCHS president Kate Philips to step down from the HCHS board of directors.

Philips told the committee the board did nothing wrong and initiated an investigation into the outbreak as soon as board members found out about it.

Philips said at a Dec. 19 board meeting that she didn’t know about the outbreak until Dec. 11, but said later she knew as early as Dec. 5 after another board member emailed the board about the issue.

Wednesday, Councilman Al Allen proposed a five-step plan to correct the problems with current shelter administration by keeping county police in charge of the shelter for up to 90 more days, investigating shelter finances, withholding county funding until the investigation is completed, a comparison in cost of the county running the shelter as opposed to a private organization running it, and Allen asked county staff to present the committee with options outside the Humane Society to run the county’s shelter.

Allen and other members of the committee also wanted the HCHS board of directors to resign, “All public confidence has been lost in this board as a leadership institution and in order for the taxpayers to feel comfortable with their dollars being used, I believe there should be some sort of reconstitution of the board,” Allen told News13.

“I believe all emails, all documentations back and forth from the board will show no board member knew about the distemper issue until Dec. 5 of the positive confirmation and when we did, we took immediate action and started an internal investigation and terminated employment of those involved in the cover up,” Philips told News13.

The board fired former shelter executive director Renee Macklen at a board meeting on Dec. 17, then Philips fired shelter director of operations Rita Rhodes and vet tech Tina Mills on Jan. 9.

Allen said all other private contracts with the county have accountability measures in place except the Horry County Humane Society, a result of not allowing other organizations to bid on the contract with the county, according to council members.

The committee asked county staff to provide the results of the audit into the HCHS finances to the Public Safety Committee at the next committee meeting in February.

Council will also explore other options of running the animal shelter, including allowing another private organization to bid on a new contract if council feels that’s the best option, council said.