A needed renovation project for the Gilmer County Animal Shelter was sketched out years ago thanks to generous donors, but due to the plans being way more expensive than what the county has, it’s still on hold.
According to previous Times-Courier reports, private donors initiated the expansion project in September 2021. Bob Lipman donated $200,000 and Evelyn Hice Griffin donated $1.2 million. As part of the agreement, the county set aside $100,000 for the project.
Gilmer County commissioners voted unanimously to upgrade the facility and add an additional wing to the animal shelter, with the set budget of $1.5 million.
At the time, Board of Commissioners Chairman Charlie Paris said the expansion would address the shelter’s overcrowding issue and add more rooms to house dogs and cats. He said it would also upgrade the HVAC, add a dedicated area for animals to be spayed and neutered, as well as a sick room and an adoption room.
In May 2023, commissioners rejected a bid for the shelter renovation project. The only loan bid they received came in at $7.6 million, more than five times the original budget. Reports show commissioners voted to reject the bid and rebid the project at a later date.
However, almost two years later, that still has not happened. So where did the donated $1.5 million go?
Paris confirmed that the donated funds are being held in a separate account. Lipman, frustrated over the project not coming to fruition, did request his donated $200,000 to be refunded. Despite the refund, and since the money in the account has been accumulating interest, commissioners still have almost the full amount of $1.5 million set aside for the shelter.
“What we’re trying to do now is find something that we can afford to do,” Paris said. “We have talked to several people since then about something maybe a little less grand that we could do.”
Contractors informed commissioners that a functional addition can be added to the shelter for a lot less than $7.6 million, but they can’t get it down to what they have allocated for the project.
“It’s a difficult situation when you’ve got $1.5 million donated to a $3 or 4 million project,” he said. “There’s not an easy solution.”
Commissioners have discussed the possibility of building an add-on for cats housed at the shelter to improve their quality of life, which is the main renovation that donor Griffin was pushing for, according to Paris. Then at a later point, he said they could work on a solution for more rooms to accommodate dogs.
The process of getting a bid for a project like this first starts with getting a set of specifications from an architect. Then, Paris said the county commission advertises those plans to builders, who would then submit a sealed bid. Commissioners would compare all of the bids to choose the best price for an acceptable product.
“What we’ve got to do now is come up with an idea for a different set of architectural plans so we can do that again, put it out to bid and see what they would build it for,” he said. “We don’t want to go through that process for something we know we can’t build for [any price] close to what we have, so that’s what we’re trying to figure out, is just what we feel like we can do with [the funding].”
He shared that there’s been some talks within the animal rescue community about fundraising more for the shelter expansion project. Commissioners also tried including more funding through their 2025 budget, but weren’t able to after making large cuts. Paris is hopeful they can revisit this in the future.
“[Renovations] are badly needed, and I’m very hopeful that we will be able to come up with a solution before too much longer,” Paris voiced. “But, I will say that with the inflation rate that we’ve been seeing for the last several years, it’s almost increasing the price faster than we can increase the money.”
He stated that any concerns shared on social media about the county spending the donated money elsewhere, or that officials “stole” it, are false. The donations will go toward benefitting the shelter, it’s just a matter of when.