CUMBERLAND — The remaining members of a board that oversees the Allegany County Animal Shelter resigned Monday night, which left county officials scrambling to implement leadership at the facility.
Meanwhile, some volunteers reportedly cared for more than 430 animals at the shelter.
County commissioners on Tuesday held a public work session to discuss emergency leadership at the facility.
In recent weeks, the organization’s executive director, manager, veterinarian of record, animal control officer and at least three of eight board members resigned.
“Last night, we received notice from the remnants of the animal shelter board that all of (the members) have resigned,” County Administrator Jason Bennett said. “Effective last night there was no animal shelter board foundation.”
He said he got a call Tuesday from a Maryland Department of Agriculture official who told him volunteers could feed and water animals at the shelter, but without a veterinarian, no medication could be administered.
“What we really need to figure out is the immediate … how do we care for the animals,” Bennett said. “The board that we know has thrown their hands up and said, ‘hey, we’re out.'”
The Garrett County Sheriff’s Office agreed to provide Allegany County some animal control help on a temporary and emergency basis, Bennett said.
He said Allegany County owns two of three buildings at the animal shelter.
The management foundation owns, and owes $75,000 on, the third structure, for which the county hoped to gain access.
“We did have some concerns about the building and conditions out there,” Bennett said. “We can just do a very baseline inspection of those things.”
Roughly $260,000 of county funding for the shelter is left for the year, Bennett said.
“There’s money there from our side operationally to handle this,” he said.
Attorney Gorman “Mike” Getty filled in at the work session for Allegany County Attorney T. Lee Beeman, who was on vacation.
“This is an evolving set of circumstances,” Getty said and added the shelter’s foundation is a nonprofit organization.
“What we do know at the moment is it’s not functioning,” he said.
Getty said the county’s administration could install temporary leadership at the shelter.
“I do think this is gonna have to come back quickly … in a public meeting where you all will take an action in terms of what the future looks like,” he said. “Today is just … making sure we’re taking care of the animals.”
Commissioner Bill Atkinson said the county should “focus on what’s the best thing we can do, and the easiest thing we can do to help take care of those animals as of today.”
Bennett said he would work to secure immediate management at the shelter.
“We’ll get started on this right away,” he said.
Background
Last week, Beeman said the shelter’s foundation had failed to comply with terms of its contract with the county.
Under the agreement, which runs through 2032, the foundation should have provided the county financial statements but hasn’t since fiscal 2022.
The foundation also neglected to supply the county an audit report due in July.
Additionally, the foundation was supposed to notify commissioners of any personnel changes and provide them an opportunity to comment, Beeman said.
The county contracts a state-required animal control service that the shelter oversees.
After all of the resignations, county officials didn’t know who was running the foundation, shelter or animal control office.
Return
Shortly after Tuesday’s work session, Allegany County Public Relations and Communications Manager Kati Kenney said the shelter’s former executive director, Jodi Eirich, and manager, Becky Shreve, agreed to return to the facility and secured a veterinarian, as well as an animal control officer.
Eirich and Shreve will work at the shelter on a temporary basis “with no end date” while county officials iron out a permanent plan and legalities that include ownership of the facility’s buildings and vehicles, Kenney said.
“They are there in the interim to run the shelter and animal control,” Kenney said.