The Warren County Animal Control and Adoption Center now has accurate numbers after learning the system being used was not providing accurate information. 

In June, Tri-County Humane Society president Tammy Lerch expressed her concerns regarding the number of dogs and cats she said were unaccounted for. She believed there were missing dogs and cats based on previous reports. At the beginning of July, Commissioner Blaine Wilcher said an audit determined that census outtake and intake were not being recorded correctly. 

Wilcher reported, “The current tracking system in use leaves too much room for human error. There were records filed in incorrect months showing an outcome for a previous quarter when it should in fact have been on a current quarter. This was discovered multiple times during the audit, causing inconsistencies in the quarterly count and the current census which was then used for the following quarterly report, thus creating a snowballing effect of inaccurate shelter numbers being reported. While the count was off due to the tracking system being used as well as the inconsistency of accurate numbers of in-house animals, the animals were not unaccounted for although it did appear this way due to the multiple discovered errors mentioned above.”

At the county Health and Welfare Committee meeting last week, Clay Lerch of the Tri County Humane Society asked if the numbers that were being reported were completely wrong.

“The numbers from last time, and I don’t want to harp on it because you are doing a whole new system that is going to keep it a lot better, the numbers that were on the old sheets, are you saying that those intake numbers were not right at all?” asked Lerch. 

“They were going off of what the computer numbers were doing and it was printing out the wrong numbers which nobody went back through and checked. They were all off when we went through,” said Animal Control director Sherri Bradley. “It was a free system.”

“Free is not always good,” said Wilcher. 

“I wouldn’t have known to look back through,” said Bradley. 

“We are glad you brought it up,” said Wilcher. “You and Tammy both because we need it to be accurate every time we meet.”