Niceville and PAWS End Contract for Animal Control. Here’s What Happens Next:

In Brief:

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Who: Niceville City Government, PAWS (Panhandle Animal Welfare Society)

📜 What: Contract termination for animal control services

📆 When: December 31, 2024

📍 Where: Niceville, Florida

❓ Why: Dispute over service cost increases and contract inequities

Niceville’s city government parted ways with Panhandle Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). If you live within city limits, this change means a couple of things to you.

 

PAWS released a really long statement to social media this week – letting people know that the City of Niceville ended the contract with the non-profit that provides animal control, pet shelter, animal cruelty investigation, and as an adoption agency on the last day of 2024.

 

They said that the city refused to increase PAWS’ request of one dollar per resident to $7.50 – which worked out to about $130,000 per year for animal control. The increase would have cost the city roughly $20,000 in 2025.

 

This means that, in the short term, Niceville doesn’t have animal control services.

 

But in the longer term, Niceville’s city manager argues, it stops the city from getting fleeced – and is the latest in a series of moves by City Hall to take a harder look at past contracts to look for efficiencies that can save the residents who pay him and all of the residents of Niceville.

 

RELATED: After five years on the gravy train, Valparaiso will start to pay something for fire protection from Niceville.

 

PAWS Interim Director Tracey Kinsley says that she has inherited an inefficient organization that has long undercharged the cities and the county it serves – and she needs to raise revenue to right the ship and keep the non-profit financially viable. That means raising rates – starting with the first contract up for renewal, Niceville.

What Do Residents Do for Animal-Related Services Right Now?

 

Florida State Law doesn’t require cities or counties to have animal control, though it allows counties and municipalities to have that function. Most have some internal organization or a contractor that does so.

 

According to PAWS, they will no longer provide animal control services inside the city boundaries of Niceville.

 

City Manager David Deitch noted there will be a lapse in coverage related to animal control as they find a person to hire as the city’s animal control officer and establish the unit. “Until we get our program in place, we will not accept any animals or respond to animal-related issues unless it is a violent animal. In that situation, residents need to avoid the animal and contact the police department,” Deitch said in an email.

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But what is really going on? And is the city to blame for the end of the contract?

 

To hear it told from PAWS’ leadership’s perspective, the shelter has had a notable rise in business costs thanks to inflation. They say many more calls come into their HQ for services. PAWS leadership notes they needed to raise employee pay and buy medical supplies, meds, and animal food.  

 

Kinsley said in her statement about the end of the agreement that, “While the conclusion of this partnership disheartens us, we remain committed to our mission of caring for animals and serving the communities and people that support us. We encourage the residents of Niceville to continue engaging with PAWS in meaningful ways and to advocate for comprehensive animal services within your city [Niceville].”

We talked to Niceville City Manager David Deitch about the decision to end the partnership with PAWS – he said it came down to the fact that PAWS not only increased the price, but the organization already forced the city to pay more than anyone else they provide services for before the price hike.

 

Deitch said he’d hoped initially to get a reduction in overall rate – or a pay-per-use model, similar to the one the city of Mary Esther has with PAWS – which has no contract. Mary Esther, according to records obtained by Mid Bay News, pays $110 per call.

 

In November of 2024, the last month for which there was data, PAWS responded to Niceville to corral six cats and a dog in separate incidents. Based on the monthly payment to PAWS from Niceville, those services worked out to $1252.71 per call – or ten times more money than the city of Mary Esther paid. In email correspondence that Deitch furnished for Mid Bay News, he noted that the city paid higher rates than other local governments, including Okaloosa County, Destin and Fort Walton Beach.

 

“I let the PAWS executive director know that we would not be renewing because of the disparity in the rate, the per capita rate, that Niceville residents were going to have to pay, which, again, is $2 more than everyone else that PAWS services in Okaloosa County, which I think is unfair,” Deitch said in an interview with Mid Bay News.

 

He says that the email traffic between the City of Niceville and PAWS that Mid Bay News obtained shows that the city repeatedly requested negotiations, but PAWS did not respond to those requests for talks and had to be asked several times for contract terms, which were delivered after the city’s fiscal year began in October of 2024.

 

Following the breakdown in negotiations, the city has put out a job advertisement for an animal control officer. Deitch says he is narrowing down his options from several candidates to bring someone on board. “We’re still working through the fine details and the agreements and potential ordinance changes and things of that nature, but that is the plan from now on.

 

Kinsley acknowledges that other jurisdictions currently have lower rates than Niceville. Still, she says those rates will change – and are based on contracts with more extended time periods than the one PAWS had with Niceville. In short, the three-year terms insulated the other governments, but they should expect a significant cost increase when their contracts come due later this year. She says she wants to move to contracts with the cities that do not currently have contracts and pay a fraction of what cities with contracts have. Until those cities sign contracts, they either get the services for a lower costor for free from PAWS.

 

“It was brought to my attention, that there are not contracts everywhere [between PAWS and local governments],” Kinsley said, “and there need to be. And, so, I’m trying to get the contracts up to best practices, [and] not have the animals impacted negatively.”

 

The increase, Kinlsey said, was to help make the ends frayed by the nationwide friction of inflation come together.

 

While PAWS admits that the last two months of data have been what Deitch said they were, they maintain the value of the organization is over the long haul – as they have to pay to maintain animals and have large unexpected animal neglect calls that pop up. Kinsley cited a 2019 call that resulted in PAWS taking in more than 100 dogs from a local pet store in Niceville.

 

She noted that Niceville had 204 calls in 2024 to PAWS for animal-related incidents. Of those, she said, 22 were considered ’emergency’ cases, which she claimed turned into cruelty and neglect investigations. “So, those phone calls, emergency phone calls, obviously cost more than the phone call of ‘hey there is a stray dog running,” she added, “that was the whole reason behind the increase.”

 

The City of Crestview

Two years ago, the City of Crestview’s leadership ended its contract with PAWS and established its own Animal Control services, complete with a facility to house animals and two officers to maintain the animal population in the city.

 

City Manager Tim Bolduc says the change was difficult at first – and it’s more expensive for the city – but it’s worth the cost.

 

He says two years ago, the City of Crestview was in the exact same situation with PAWS. “Three years ago, on the week of Christmas, is the exact time it happened to me; it seems like a pattern,” Bolduc said. When he told them that he wouldn’t acquiesce, he says they put out a press release similar to the one they put out on the first week of January.

 

Bolduc says the city had to act fast. They set up an animal control operation in 30 days. With help from the city of Laurel Hill, which provided a facility to house animals, and Walton County, which provided manpower in the immediate days after the contract ended, they were able to fill the gaps in service and stand up their operation.

 

“When you live in a city, you want a higher level of service. That’s why people pay additional tax, right?” Bolduc argued.

 

What do you think? Has Crestview Animal Control been a success? Leave us your comments here. We will add them to this story.

What Happens Next?

 

Deitch and Kinsley expressed a willingness to negotiate with one another in interviews with Mid Bay News. Both had caveats.

 

Deitch said that if PAWS had held the line at $6.50, he would have instructed city personnel to pay the bill – but the principal of the matter: paying more than everyone else, as well as what he perceived as a lack of willingness to negotiate from PAWS, made him believe that PAWS was not a worthwhile partner under the terms of the deal they put in front of him. “If PAWS had come back to me with a similar rate, I would have had no problem with it. I probably would not have objected. Had they come back and said, ‘The rate stays the same because we’re already paying a dollar more per resident than everybody in the county. While I find that unfair, it was still not as egregious as two dollars more than everybody else,” Deitch said, “And me, as the city manager, one of my primary responsibilities is as a fiduciary of taxpayer dollars.”

 

On the other side of the table, it seems Kinsley may feel negotiations are still possible. “This is not how I wanted to start off as the new executive director. I don’t want politics to be involved when animals are involved and I do want to negotiate,” Kinsley said, “But I do truly believe that the increase I requested was an honest and fair request based on the numbers.”

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