Dog permit fees eyed

Washougal City Council members have asked city employees to reexamine the City’s dog-licensing fees.

Washougal City Manager David Scott said the city is trying to determine if a new fee structure could help Washougal “potentially provide more cost recovery” to the City’s animal control program.

Washougal Finance Director Daniel Layer told Council members during a Sept. 25 workshop that the City’s current dog licensing fees are “the lowest in the county” and that the city, unlike most jurisdictions, offers a lifetime permit instead of an annual permit.

“Staff has been working on this, doing the analysis and seeing if we’re still where we need to be,” Layer told the Council, adding that officials may want to consider either increasing the permit fees or switching to an annual-permit system.

Washougal’s current, lifetime animal-licensing system costs $25 for unaltered dogs and $15 for spayed or neutered dogs. In comparison, Camas charges $38 for a lifetime permit; Ridgefield charges $20 or $30 for an annual license or $50 for a lifetime license; La Center charges $40 for an annual license; Battle Ground charges $43 for an annual license; and Clark County charges $40 for an annual license.

“We can do an analysis that shows what our revenue currently is, what revenue would be anticipated if we made a couple of different changes, what kind of subsidy it is now and what kind of subsidy it would be if we made those changes,” Scott said. “Maybe we can check in with our colleagues and see what level of subsidization they have. This would have a minor effect on the budget. If we eliminated the subsidization completely, it would (save) $150,000.”

Councilwoman Janice Killion said that she was “shocked” to discover that the City offered a lifetime license when she moved to Washougal.

“I’ve never lived anywhere that had a lifetime fee — it was always annual,” Killion added. “But there’s a cost to administer that, too. I would like more analysis on the licensing fee. I think that unlike cemeteries or some other services, the City as a whole benefits from an animal control program, so the city should subsidize it somewhat, I think. We probably couldn’t get enough license fees or impound fees to pay for the whole thing, but I’d like more analysis on it.”

Killion and Councilwoman Michelle Wagner said they would be in favor of offering annual and lifetime permits.

“I like the hybrid model because you’re giving people a choice,” Wagner said. “If we did it, I would definitely want to make the combo option, annual and lifetime, available for folks. I just feel like if we make tweaks to go from lifetime to every year, that’s a huge jump. I feel like you need to make baby steps towards that goal. Any increase you do is going to mean more to the program — if you did $15 per year or $45 for lifetime, that’s more than you’re currently getting by a lot.”

“It might be an administrative nightmare because everybody would have a different start date,” Killion added, “but maybe we could (offer) three-year licenses, or five-year licenses or something other than annual, which would be a huge change for people.”

Wagner said that she assumed that residents who currently own lifetime permits would be “grandfathered” into the new format if the Council decided to switch to annual permits.

“That’s a policy choice that the council (would) need to make,” Scott said. “I mean, we sold them a lifetime license, so it might be tricky to say, ‘You don’t get one anymore.’”

Wagner said she believes the City could consider requiring dogs to be registered to use the dog park the city has proposed building.

“We could say, ‘If your dog is not registered, you don’t have access to the dog park.’ That’s an easy one to do,” she said. “That’s a way to get more people, maybe, (to register their dogs).”