PORT ANGELES — County animal control may be back next year — at least partially.
County Administrator Dan Engelbertson told the county commissioners that he believed $75,000 — over and above the $50,000 budgeted this year for animal shelter care only — could now be pegged for animal control in the county’s 2004 budget.
Despite being popular with the public, most animal control services were eliminated in budget cutbacks this year.
“We get a lot of calls on animal control,” Engelbertson said Monday after his preliminary budget work session with the commissioners.
With voter approval Nov. 4 of a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to enhance emergency 9-1-1 communications services, the county will have an additional $100,000 in annual revenues for upgrading aging dispatch equipment.
Money that would otherwise be budgeted to that end can now be channeled to animal control, Engelbertson said.
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The rest of the story appears in the Wednesday Peninsula Daily News.
