Salina City Commissioners Monday will consider privatizing operations of Salina Animal Services, and will also look at making possible changes to the public forum portion of the meeting.

On August 19th Request for Proposals (RFP) was issued to solicit proposals from interested parties for animal shelter management and operation services. The City of Salina received 1 proposal from Prairie Paws Animal Shelter Inc.
Prairie Paws Animal Shelter Inc. has met all the requirements as laid out in the RFP. They currently operate facilities in Manhattan, Ottawa and Emporia. Their proposal seeks to utilize their Manhattan facility to primarily support Salina animal shelter operation at a net cost of $830,000. If Prairie Paws is selected by the City Commission, City staff would anticipate negotiating a contract with them and bringing the contract back to the City Commission for approval. The anticipated timeline for transition would be within the month of December, with the intent of completing the handover by January 1, 2027.

Commissioners will also discuss making potential changes that the public forum portion of meetings. Staff have reviewed a range of other cities and municipalities in Kansas for comparison and to identify best practices. Some of the areas in which those Cities differ from Salina include:

1) allowing public participation on agenda items that do not require a public hearing.

2) many cities require registration
with a deadline before the meeting in order to participate

3) many cities have a total ‘cap’ on the public forum portion of the meeting

Conduct by some during recent public forum sessions prompted commissioners to discuss the issue.