Horry County terminates contract with Humane Society

The Horry County Humane Society is no longer in control of the county’s animal shelter after Horry County officials terminated the contract with the group Monday.

In a unanimous vote during Monday’s Public Safety Committee meeting, council decided to vote to end the contract and decided the county would continue to run the shelter indefinitely.

The county will take over full control of the shelter on July 1, and Councilman Al Allen asked the committee to seek reimbursement for the cost to the county from the HCHS through July 1.

The committee decided to start work to find a non-profit group to handle off-site adoptions for the county shelter, which would continue to make adoptions a top priority for the shelter, according to Allen.

The move would create 17 new county employee positions, according to county public safety director, Paul Whitten.

The new positions would be funded with the money the county already allotted to the animal shelter contract and would not become a new cost for taxpayers, Whitten said.

The county awarded the HCHS the contract in June 2006 and paid the group more than $536,000 to run the shelter through June 2009.

The contract was never put out for bid before it was given to the HCHS, according to county officials.

The shelter closed for a month on Dec. 8, 2008 after the deadly and highly contagious Canine Distemper Virus infected dozens of animals adopted from the shelter and caused more than 100 dogs to be euthanized.

Shelter officials knew of the distemper problem on Nov. 24, but continued adopting animals from the shelter until it closed on Dec. 8.

The HCHS board fired executive director Renee Macklen on Dec. 17, but the board continued to deny any knowledge of the outbreak at least until Dec. 5 when board member Sandi Brown emailed the board about the virus.

HCHS vice president Suzer Sachs denied knowing of a Nov. 4 shelter closing during a Dec. 19 board meeting when questioned about it by News13.

Sachs later told News13 at the meeting that she was at the county animal shelter on Nov. 4 and found out the shelter had closed the day before after shelter vets noticed several dogs were showing signs of distemper.

Shelter staff said Sachs demanded the shelter re-open the next day, an allegation Sachs denied.

HCHS board president Kate Philips told News13 she still didn’t know about the outbreak until days after the shelter closed, although she received the email about the crisis from Brown.

Philips made several emails between board members public at a Feb. 2 board meeting Philips said proved the board didn’t know about the outbreak until the shelter closed, but one of the emails dated Nov. 4, 2008, Philips writes Macklen, “Hope it is not distemper. Lord help us.”

The county took control of the daily operations at the shelter on Jan. 9 and gave the HCHS 30 days to sort out its search for a new executive director and to reorganize.

The board received nearly 300 applicants for the director’s job, according to Philips.

Since the county moved in, all floors inside the shelter’s kennels were resealed, cracks in kennel walls were repaired, and the walls of the kennels repainted.

Interim shelter director, Sergeant Gary Gause implemented a new intake system where no animal is allowed on shelter property until it is evaluated for medical issues and inoculated, including shots for distemper; a practice not carried out when the HCHS ran the shelter.

The county started an audit into the shelter’s finances in January, but the results of that audit were held up because the HCHS failed to turn over financial records to county auditors, according to Allen.