If the Hamilton County commissioners raise
the cost to license local dogs, county Auditor Dusty Rhodes will howl about it
to taxpayers, he has warned. County Administrator David Krings has recommended
the commissioners boost the dog-license fee by 44 percent, to $13 per year from
$9 per year. Krings made a similar recommendation last year, but the
commissioners chose to wait until this year to consider the fee increase. Under
state law, the commissioners have until Aug. 31 to raise the fees for 2001. The
three commissioners were unavailable to comment on the matter this morning. The
county's dog and kennel fund has been experiencing deficits - even before com
missioners earlier this year voted to increase the amount paid to the Hamilton
County Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by 16 percent, from $50,624
per month to $58,630.50 next year. ''I believe increasing the fee is wrong and
I will not be a silent accomplice to a near-50 percent increase on the backs of
those who are following the law while scofflaws skate,'' Rhodes wrote Krings
last week. The auditor said his office and the SPCA ''are on track to increase
dog licenses this year by more than 5,000 over 1999.'' He told Krings that
increasing the fee ''would assuredly impact our progress in increasing
compliance.'' Krings disagrees. When the fee rose to $9 from $7 in 1992, ''the
number of licenses sold actually increased by 1,121 from the prior year,'' he
said.
