The discovery June 12 of nearly 80 malnourished, feces-encrusted dogs in a Tabiona man's cabin has put the Roosevelt City Animal Shelter on the map.

Now city and shelter officials are hoping they can parlay the national attention generated by the incident into additional financial support from the facility's second-largest user: Duchesne County.

Statistics compiled by the shelter during the nine months it's been open show that 390 county animals have been impounded. By comparison, 522 Roosevelt City animals have been impounded in the shelter through the end of March.

Roosevelt City Finance Director Justin Johnson said the city had budgeted $60,000 for shelter operations for fiscal year 2008-09; however, Roosevelt had to increase original funding for the shelter to $132,600 to balance its budget. Johnson said the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 calls for the city to spend $133,950 on shelter operations.

“Our budget doubled, it more than doubled,” he told the Roosevelt City Council on June 10.

For 2009, Duchesne County agreed to pay the city $50,250 to help offset operating and maintenance costs for the shelter. The one-year contract called for two payments of $25,125, one of which the county has made. The second payment has been authorized, Duchesne County Commissioner Ron Winterton said Friday, and is expected to be delivered July 1.

Winterton said commissioners won't re-evaluate their support for the shelter until September when they begin their budget-making process for the coming fiscal year.

“Nobody's really been through this and we're taking it as is,” Winterton said. “We want to support it the best we can because I think it's been a win-win for us.

“Once we get a figure of what it's costing to operate then we'll know: Does the county need to step up a little bit more or have we been very generous in what we've given them so far?” the commissioner said, admitting that he hadn't seen the shelter statistics.

“If there's not very many county animals going through there, we might be looking at cutting it back,” he said.

Winterton noted the county does maintain some kennels for stray and quarantined dogs behind the jail in Duchesne, but he called it “a Band-aid-type fix.”

“What they've got over (in Roosevelt) is probably a better solution,” he acknowledged, noting that shelter director Kim Farley is “the expert.”

“She's done a good job and we don't want to take away from that at all,” Winterton said.

Farley – the shelter's only full-time staffer – and her sole part-time employee were overwhelmed last week after county animal control officers and sheriff's deputies were called to the Tabiona home of Lloyd Junior Weaver. Authorities believe the 65-year-old had been ill for sometime before his death on June 12, and was unable to care for the nearly 80 dogs he was keeping in his one-room cabin.

Farley said Friday that all of Weaver's dogs – most of them poodles – had been adopted locally or were transferred to shelters and animal rescue organizations on the Wasatch Front. She noted that before last week's incident most people weren't aware that Roosevelt City had an animal shelter.

“They didn't even know where we were,” she said.

The facility, which the city must make a $10,000 annual loan payment on, sits on the bench behind Shade's Frontier Diesel on U.S. Highway 40. It was built to replace the kennel space offered by Dr. Mark Dennis at his Basin Veterinary Clinic for years.

Farley said the new facility makes it possible for more adoptions to take place and allows the shelter to receive grants that pay for food and for a spay/neuter program. Volunteers take dogs and cats to Boulder, Colo. once a month for adoptions, she said, and the shelter is nearly certified to begin transporting animals to the Denver area as well.

“In the past it was about moving them as fast as possible,” said Farley, who noted that animals are typically held for seven days before either being adopted, turned over to an pet rescue organization, or destroyed.

As for what would happen if Roosevelt City decided it could no longer to fund the shelter, Farley's assessment is grim.

“(Animals) would probably be euthanized as soon as the 72-hour period was up. It would just be bad,” she said. “At least now they're given a chance.”

Roosevelt City leaders are expected to bring up their animal control funding concerns with the Duchesne County Council of Governments. The group – comprised of the three county commissioners and representatives from Altamont, Duchesne, Myton, Roosevelt, and Tabiona – was set to meet Monday, after press time.