MOULTRIE — The Moultrie-Colquitt County Humane Society, with a history of issues and financial woes, was once again the topic of discussion at last week’s county commission meeting.

Tonya Dean appealed to the board of behalf of the Trap-Neuter-Return program in Colquitt County, which catches feral cats, spays or neuters them and then lets them go. She told them that the program was currently not being funded.

On Tuesday morning, March 5, a statement was posted on the Moultrie-Colquitt County Humane Society’s Facebook page asking for donations, “Since February 2023, a new TNR program was implemented within our community. We have been able to trap-neuter-return 575 cats in Colquitt County with the help of Feline Advocates of Leon County’s donations and local coordinator Tonya Dean. Unfortunately, all funds have been depleted.”

Dean met with the county commission that evening and told commissioners that from February to October of last year, her cat rescue facility in Tallahassee received a grant and they partnered with Be The Solution to fix 501 feral cats last year in Colquitt County.

“In January, I’ve been asking, ‘What are we going to do, what are we going to do, what are we going to do?’ and I was pushed off, pushed off, pushed off,” she said.

She said that she was told at that time that funds would be taken out of “Anne’s Fund” to support the TNR program.

Anne’s Fund is a spay/neuter incentive program made possible by a partnership between the Moultrie-Colquitt County Humane Society and the South Georgia Low Cost Spay and Neuter Clinic.

“Now, I’m being told that Anne’s Fund is not for TNR,” Dean said. “When I have a book, right here, that tells me it is because every single cat is at somebody’s house. They were let down, by the Humane Society, two years ago, when Drew was in there and they asked for help and nobody would help them. So, now, 15 to 30 cats later per house… I’m not gonna do it. Somebody else is gonna tell them. Dawn or Courtney can call these people and tell them that the Humane Society has failed them again and can’t help them.”

Chairman Denver Braswell asked who told her that Anne’s Fund was not for TNR and she replied, “Dawn Blanton, Marci Meadows and Courtney Azar.”

Commissioner Mike Boyd wanted to know how much was left in Anne’s Fund and County Clerk Melissa Lawson said Azar had told her that the balance was $18,000.

Boyd went on to say that the fund had initially been set-up with $25,000 and that he was told, earlier this year, that the balance was $26,000.

He reconfirmed with Lawson the balance amount of $18,000 and went on to ask, “But they can come to us and ask for an extra $6,000 a month and they want to cut funding out of another program?”

Braswell wanted to know if there were any stipulations on how “Anne’s Fund” could be used and Lawson said that there were certain criteria that had to be met for the fund.

“But at the end of the day, I think the goal is spaying and neutering. You can call it TNR. You can call it Anne’s Fund. The only difference is TNR is specifically for feral cats. But at the end of the day, it’s spaying and neutering,” Lawson said.

Boyd asked what the Humane Society was not doing to help her and Dean said, “Rescue was gonna pay for my transport for tonight because I was told that I couldn’t use the money. So, I came back and I said, ‘Okay, my rescue’s gonna pay for my spot.’ Then, they came back and said, ‘We can’t transport them. The board has shut that down, the TNR, right now, so we can’t transport them.”

She went on to say that the clinic would come and get the cats but there was no one to house them because she was told that the Humane Society couldn’t house them because it had parvo.

“Cats can’t get parvo. and in the past we have housed them there when we had parvo because we’ve had parvo more than we haven’t had parvo in this year. Now, all of a sudden it’s an issue,” she said.

According to an article in The Observer in August of last year, the shelter reported a total of 475 animals that had been spayed and neutered through the TNR program and the Anne’s Fund program.

“The spay and neuter services are provided through Anne’s Fund and can decrease the cost of surgery to as low as $35 for Colquitt County residents,” the article stated.

Lawson asked Cannon if he could speak with Blanton and Azar to see if Dean could get some help and he said he would but the board members that were appointed to the Humane Society by the City and the County should be addressing it.

“Unless, we want to take it over, those board members need to address it,” he said. “It doesn’t need to come back to the county and city unless there’s a funding issue, which the director should be doing that. The city and the county have a contract and it needs to be enforced or we need to break it and we need to take it over.”

He also said it was the board members that should go back and forth with the executive director, unless the county wanted to have a more proper role in the Humane Society.

“I’m not sure the commissioners want to do that. There is a board and if the board’s not given authority, they can’t continue to make decisions and enforce it upon the employees of the Humane Society,” Cannon said.

Boyd asked how much money had the County put into the Humane Society this budget and County Finance Director David Zeanah told him that it was $125,000 and he had set another $25,000 aside for “just in case.”

Boyd then asked if the Humane Society was being given the extra $6,000 that it had asked for per month for personnel and Cannon confirmed it.

Zeanah said that he’d been giving them $5,000 extra for the last four months and Boyd wanted to know if that was in addition to the $125,000.

Lawson replied, “If you’ll recall, Courtney came in and addressed us. Said that he needed an additional person and we committed to granting that additional funding. Now, I think the City did, too. Courtney was supposed to come and brief us in January. He gave his resignation and I understand that, that’s been rescinded and Courtney stayed on.”

She then asked Cannon if he confirm whether Blanton and Azar were co-directors of the Humane Society, now.

Cannon replied, “Yeah. I mean it comes down to who we appoint as board members. We need to have some strong board members that can provide oversight, provide direction and provide guidance to the executive director. If we don’t want to do that, we need to switch directions and take it over.”

“Chas, I definitely appreciate what you’re saying but we are their largest funder by far,” Braswell said. “So, if you don’t mind just kind of giving them a call and maybe punch somebody up. Sometimes people just get a little bit lax in their board responsibilities.”

Dean said that 90% of the kittens that come in the shelter that are sick, injured and need rescue are from feral and stray cats. and if they pull back on the TNR, the rescue’s going to pull back, too, and then the euthanization numbers are going go up.

“And that costs more money,” Lawson added.

Dean said that she was told that if they didn’t raise the money, the program would no longer be.

“Why don’t we just take the money out of their funding and give it to you,” Boyd told her.

Commissioner Paul Nagy said, “She works really well. You get the cat there in the morning. They take care of it. You don’t get charged anything. She’s doing her job.”

Lawson added that Dean spent her own money and her own gas and that she will go collect kittens when people call her. She has even waited for hours before being able to coax a kitten to her so that she could rescue it.

“So, she’s committed and gives a lot of herself,” Lawson said.

Nagy said, “I don’t mind taking a tiny bit of money from the Humane Society and giving it directly to her because what she’s doing works.”

“That’s the way to get their attention. Cut it,” said Boyd.

Cannon thanked Dean for what she was doing and it was agreed that he and Lawson would get together to discuss it more the next day.