The Board of Supervisors next week will consider a Riverside County Department of Animal Services proposal to hike fees charged to cities that contract with the agency over the next three years to cover expenses for personnel, impounds and other necessities.
“The proposed rates are necessary to keep up with the ongoing operational costs associated with providing efficient services and essential programs to Riverside County residents and their animals,” according to an agency statement posted to the board’s agenda for Tuesday.
The board meeting is slated for 9:30 a.m. that day at the County Administrative Center in downtown Riverside.
Officials said that a “rate study” was carried out to compare the county’s service fees with other jurisdictions, and the result was a determination that the department should charge 5% more each fiscal year, retroactive to the start of the current one in June, and continuing until June 2028.
Under the proposed revised fee structure, the city of Riverside would continue to pay the highest annual expense for services. The municipality would pay roughly $2.54 million in 2025-26, and by the end of 2027-28, the annual outgo would amount to $4.4 million.
Indian Wells would shoulder the smallest annual expense, totaling about $5,747 in the current fiscal year and $18,683 by June 2028, according to figures.
Other cities impacted by the proposal would be Blythe, Calimesa, Cathedral City, Coachella, Eastvale, Hemet, Indio, Jurupa Valley, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Perris, Rancho Mirage and San Jacinto. All of the municipalities are under contract with the county for animal control. The Department of Animal Services additionally deploys personnel to all unincorporated communities.
In May, the board approved a “no kill” policy, resolving that the county would make it an objective to preserve the lives of a minimum of 90% of all cats and dogs impounded at the county’s four shelters.
The policy entails greater emphasis on free or low-cost spay and neuter clinics, enhanced “return-to-owner” programs that unite lost pets with their loved ones, adoption campaigns with full fee waivers and expedited “trap-neuter-return-to-field” programs that were inaugurated in March 2024.
The no-kill effort dovetails with a reformation initiated last year by the board.
A lawsuit filed in August 2024 by Rancho Mirage-based Walter Clark Law Group sought a permanent injunction against the Department of Animal Services’ euthanasia programs. The plaintiffs called it a “groundbreaking case” predicated on the 1998 Hayden Act. That legislation, authored by then-state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Santa Monica, states in part, “no adoptable animal should be euthanized if it can be adopted into a suitable home.”
One organization previously alleged the county had the highest pet “kill rate” in the nation.
In September 2024, the board hired Austin, Texas-based Outcomes for Pets LLC Principal Adviser Kristen Hassen to rectify problems within the agency, and last February, the supervisors approved the Executive Office’s selection of Mary Martin to head the department following a nationwide executive recruitment drive. Martin took the helm at the end of March.