Saskatoon city committee recommends more SPCA funding but less than wanted

The head of the animal welfare agency, and an agency veterinarian, said they may have to euthanize more animals without further funding.

A Saskatoon city committee voted to give the Saskaoon SPCA more support, but fell short of the minimum SPCA staff say they need.

“Our reserves are only so deep,” executive director Graham Dickson said, in an interview with Global News.

“We can only dig so far into them if we don’t come to some kind of an agreement with the city by the end of this calendar year, by October.”

On Tuesday, the planning, development and community services committee voted to raise the city’s overall level of support to $698,000 in interim funding for 2022 to the SPCA, though the agency was hoping for $1.16 million at most and close to $900,000 at least.

The city is already providing the SPCA $466,00 for this year.

The administration was working with the SPCA after the group came to city budget deliberations last year and outlined their financial shortfalls. The failure to find common ground brought the society back.

The discrepancy lies in what city and SPCA staff believe to be the costs of providing pound services.

The SPCA is contracted by the city to run the pound — meaning it can’t turn away animals brought in by animal control. It holds them for 96 hours (starting on midnight of the day the animal is brought in) before trying to set them up for adoption.