Financial assistance for the nonprofit Humane Educational Society is back on the table.
The animal shelter might get a cash infusion from Hamilton County worth $263,000 next week, despite being turned down for emergency federal funding late last year. Hamilton County commissioners will vote Wednesday on a proposal to send money from the county’s general fund to the shelter, which is contracted to serve the county’s unincorporated areas.
The money would offset the unpaid taxes the shelter owes the county.
A move several years ago from the Highland Park neighborhood to the shelter’s current address — a multimillion-dollar facility at Randolph Circle — helped lead to the tax bills. The shelter’s board president, Jim Kennedy, and its executive director, Rebecca Bryan, have said the society’s leadership at the time did not think the shelter would need to reapply to retain its tax-exempt status in the new building.
(READ MORE: Humane Educational Society moves into new $13 million facility in Chattanooga)
The shelter owes over $530,000 in delinquent tax bills to Chattanooga and Hamilton County. County Mayor Weston Wamp said during a Wednesday meeting that he’d discussed with city staff the possibility that Chattanooga would offer the shelter similar relief to what the county might approve.
“I’m coming to you saying, ‘This is not great, not an ideal situation. We don’t want to have to do this. But HES provides very important services to our county. They are a contracted service provider of the county,'” Wamp said.
He said the fact that the county paid for the new building is also a factor.
“In a strange way, we also contributed to there being a very large tax bill, although that tax bill is improper,” as the organization is a nonprofit, he said. “I think this is the cleanest course of action.”
Shelter leaders attended several commission meetings in December to ask for financial support. A request that the county use federal funds to support shelter operations, rather than the shelter’s back taxes, was tabled last month as commissioners expressed concern about the shelter’s viability.
The shelter’s building is scheduled for a tax sale in the summer. But receiving the funds needed just to offer current shelter services were priorities for Bryan and Kennedy, who said that without emergency assistance, the shelter would be forced to make cuts to its services.
The shelter needed the additional funds to continue its operations until its fiscal year ends in June, Bryan said in a phone interview last month.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County Commission sends animal shelter away empty-handed)
When commissioners in December declined to use federal funds for the shelter’s operations, they instead opted to apply the money — for which the county was required to designate a specific use by the end of 2024 — to several parks projects.
At the meeting Wednesday, commissioners who opposed the funding said that a new proposal pulling money for the shelter from the county’s general fund balance seemed more appropriate.
Commissioner Joe Graham, R-Lookout Valley, opposed providing the shelter with the emergency assistance under discussion last month but said he had advocated for and firmly supported the new proposal. He proposed offering the shelter money to be used for its taxes last month.
“This money is going to go basically at zero net gain for the county,” Graham said.
He said he, too, would press the city to offer similar relief to the shelter.
Contact Mariah Franklin at mfranklin@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.