Meeting called to order at 8:35 am. Board members present: Chris Roberson (Mayoral Appointee), Brett Lyles (Mayoral Appointee), Angela Finch (Board Secretary), and James Finlayson (staff). The board adopted minutes from the August meeting, approved Resolution 0926, received the 2027 budget presentation, and reviewed August 2026 statistics. The meeting adjourned at 9:13 am.
Okay, we're gonna go ahead and start and we will just fill Bailey in when she gets here. So we will call to order the board meeting for Indianapolis Animal Care Services. Today is September 21st, and the time is 8:35. First up, we'll do introductions. Chris Roberson, mayoral appointee. Brett Lyles, Mayoral Appointee. Angela Finch, Board Secretary. And James Finlays in TFL. So could be Bailey. Angela is not coming. Okay. Well, first up, we will do the adoption of the minutes from August board meeting. All right. Say aye. Okay. Um new business. First up, we have James Finlayson for resolution zero nine two six. Awesome. And this is just our annual keys to work contract. We are renewing. Um we use it to have one part-time person in the laundry room. Um the last four years in your way. What year we start using this uh I think post-COVID just be more the same amount for this person over the next two years too. Ran out of governments, so we're working on extending extending that the same amount of roughly the same amount of hours per week and contract for two years. Any questions regarding that contract? None for me. Second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Opposed. Okay. Next up, we are going to give our presentation of the 2027 budget for animal care services. James has uh the presentation up, but I will go over some of the or all of the slides here. I don't know if everyone was at our budget presentation to council. I don't think everyone was, but I know some of us were so nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to hear anything. Uh goes over our core responsibility. We are 24-7 municipal animal shelter, um, and response system provides care for animals entering our custody, protect public health and public safety, enforce Indianapolis Marion County Animal Ordinances, reduce shelter length of stay, and increase positive outcomes. Respond to animal welfare emergencies and community needs, and maintain regulatory veterinary operational and reporting requirements. Our division and services here, um, animal care and shelter operations, we have intake, housing, feeding, enrichment, behavioral support, adoption, foster replacement, field services and enforcement, responding to animal-related complaints, stray animals, welfare concerns, dangerous animals, uh, bike cases, any ordinance violations, medical and veterinary services, preventative care, treatment, surgery, disease control, population management, and shelter medicine, foster rescue and placement. Those are our foster programs, rescue partnerships, adoption services, any transfers and other pathways for animals to get out of the shelter, community programs and outreach, our pet retention, keeping animals in their homes, financial assistance, spay neuter initiatives, education and community engagement, and then emergency and design disaster response, animal response during emergencies, disasters, and community crisis. Our current agency staffing, we currently have 74 employees out of our six recent hires. We continue to be a workplace that has a strong track record for track record for internal career advancement opportunities. Since last August, we have new managers and placement, enforcement, and kennel, and they all have prior experience within our department. This budget will also allow us to maintain current staff levels and will allow for flexibility in hiring new roles. And we are excited. We did announce this already, but we are excited to announce we do have a vet starting. Tentative start date was December 1st. It has now been moved up to November 23rd.