April 30, 2007 the income from dog licenses was $125,989.
March 31,2007 income from dog licenses was $80,610.
I can’t quite swallow that all of that additional $45,379 was licenses purchased as delinquent in April. I must assume that the lion’s share of that was monies turned in by township treasurers, city clerks/treasurers or veterinarians too late to record in March books. There is no way to know exactly who sold the licenses from the records published and no way to know how many were for spayed/neutered dogs. Nor can I tell how many were sold prior to March 31 and not recorded until April. This would have to be considered my best educated guess.
I am going to take the drastic side (for lack of those detailed records) and say that the $125,989 was all spayed/neutered dog licenses paid for prior to March 31 and at $10.00 per dog. The county would receive $7 per dog, while the other $3 went to whoever sold the license.
That would mean that 17,998 dog licenses were sold for $179,980 prior to March 31.
Meaning $53,991 was paid out to township treasurers, city clerks/treasurers or veterinarians. That is a nice little chunk of change.
If our county treasurer were to hire two temporary people for 3 months (January, February and March) just to sell dog licenses, I think we would still have quite a chunk of change left over. How much could a temp cost? $2,000 a month ($10-$12 per hour plus), $6,000 for 3 months for one, $12,000 for two. That means $41,991 is still left. I’m also assuming that the majority gets sold through veterinarians, not township treasurers or city clerks/treasurers. There would be some there, but the township clerks I have spoken to say they don’t sell very many licenses.
I think that is well worth bringing the dog licensing completely “in-house” and certainly applying all encouragement and/or pressure on the treasurer to do so. That is a duty imposed on the treasurer by the dog law and it could even be considered malfeasance or misfeasance of office to not do it. That is his job.
As it is, he is paying out a lot of money that should be going into the county’s general fund. As a taxpayer, I feel that is not taking very good care of our money.
March 31,2007 income from dog licenses was $80,610.
I can’t quite swallow that all of that additional $45,379 was licenses purchased as delinquent in April. I must assume that the lion’s share of that was monies turned in by township treasurers, city clerks/treasurers or veterinarians too late to record in March books. There is no way to know exactly who sold the licenses from the records published and no way to know how many were for spayed/neutered dogs. Nor can I tell how many were sold prior to March 31 and not recorded until April. This would have to be considered my best educated guess.
I am going to take the drastic side (for lack of those detailed records) and say that the $125,989 was all spayed/neutered dog licenses paid for prior to March 31 and at $10.00 per dog. The county would receive $7 per dog, while the other $3 went to whoever sold the license.
That would mean that 17,998 dog licenses were sold for $179,980 prior to March 31.
Meaning $53,991 was paid out to township treasurers, city clerks/treasurers or veterinarians. That is a nice little chunk of change.
If our county treasurer were to hire two temporary people for 3 months (January, February and March) just to sell dog licenses, I think we would still have quite a chunk of change left over. How much could a temp cost? $2,000 a month ($10-$12 per hour plus), $6,000 for 3 months for one, $12,000 for two. That means $41,991 is still left. I’m also assuming that the majority gets sold through veterinarians, not township treasurers or city clerks/treasurers. There would be some there, but the township clerks I have spoken to say they don’t sell very many licenses.
I think that is well worth bringing the dog licensing completely “in-house” and certainly applying all encouragement and/or pressure on the treasurer to do so. That is a duty imposed on the treasurer by the dog law and it could even be considered malfeasance or misfeasance of office to not do it. That is his job.
As it is, he is paying out a lot of money that should be going into the county’s general fund. As a taxpayer, I feel that is not taking very good care of our money.
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