Mayor, council president: Circle of Friends' financial decisions are right move

Jan. 27—GRAND FORKS — The dramatic reshuffling that took place at Circle of Friends earlier this week may be enough to save the animal shelter's contract with the city, maybe.

Mayor Brandon Bochenski and City Council President Dana Sande told the Herald separately Thursday that Circle of Friends' board of directors has begun taking the right steps to address the shelter's dire financial state.

"They're proving they're trying to make it work (and) they want to take on the city's animals," Bochenski said. "I know they've got more work to do, shoring up their finances. So we'll take a month here and let them get their finances sorted out and the plan sorted out."

The nonprofit's board

voted Wednesday evening to oust CEO and Executive Director Lauralee Tupa and approved plans to end the lease

on its Adoption Center at 910 S. Washington St. The organization will move out as soon as possible, and has asked its remaining executive leadership to explore staff cuts for a follow-up meeting.

As of Wednesday, the shelter owed some $55,222 in unpaid bills and was $25,500 short of its next payroll, due Feb. 2.

The shelter is attempting to bring its finances under control so it can continue to operate as the city's animal impound provider, a contract that's effectively Circle of Friends' only source of income now that it has terminated its chief fundraiser, Tupa.

A presently unsigned agreement between the city and shelter would pay Circle of Friends $198,625 to operate as the city pound for 2024 and authorize the shelter to perform up to $250 in medical care on impounded animals without additional authorization — a price ceiling that would essentially render the shelter's emergency care facilities moot, according to shelter veterinarian Taylor Biermaier.

Circle of Friends is currently operating under the terms of its 2023 contract with the city, though it hasn't been paid for services rendered in 2024.

The future of the city-shelter relationship is in doubt after

multiple Grand Forks City Council members

and

Bochenski expressed support for putting out a request for proposal

for another veterinary provider to take over the animal impound contract.

Bochenski indicated Thursday he still expected plans for a request for proposal, which will go before a City Council vote Feb. 5, to go forward.

Some Circle of Friends' board members are skeptical about the shelter's ability to fulfill a yearlong city contract. During Wednesday's meeting, board member Mitch Price floated possible amendments to the 2024 agreement, like a month-to-month contract.

City Administrator Todd Feland said Friday he had not yet communicated with Circle of Friends' leadership but said a month-to-month contract is a potentially more pragmatic option given the shelter's rocky financial state.

"We haven't done that in the past, but knowing we're in a different place and time, now, we need to work closer," Feland said. "We now have to be more mindful, month-to-month, of what their costs are."

Feland said he expected to reach out to Circle of Friends next week and will likely present an amended city-shelter agreement with a month-to-month payment plan to the council on Feb. 5. Any payment from the city to the shelter will come after that meeting.

The future of the city-shelter relationship after that remains an open question.

Sande, who has said he supports putting out a new request for proposal, said the shelter board's intervention had likely come too little, too late.

"That's not out of spite, it's just a fact," he said. "They've gone so long without taking action, and I don't see how anything they do right now is going to change the situation. There are no short-term fixes for them that I see."

He did say he'd vote for an amended contract with Circle of Friends, to maintain the shelter's immediate services as the city pound.

Bochenski held a more favorable view, pointing to the board's vote to close its Adoption Center.

"It's an indication they're willing to make the tough decisions financially," Bochenski said. He's previously said that while he supported the request for proposal, Circle of Friends could once again win that bid from the city.

Bochenski said Thursday he had not spoken to Tupa since her termination, but expressed his sympathies, as did Sande.

"It's tough. You don't want to see anybody lose their job and I think a lot of the blame's being placed on her unduly," Bochenski said. "There's a lot of other people that were involved in the decisions that led to this financial situation."

Circle of Friends' board of directors chair Chris Douthit emphasized Tupa's termination was for budgetary reasons.

Tupa has declined interview requests and not returned text messages and voicemails from the Herald since the publication of its Jan. 12 report

outlining how the shelter spent most of the over $2 million in reserves

it held in March 2022 over the intervening 21 months.

Tupa last spoke publicly in her role as executive director in a Wednesday morning interview on Grand Forks Best Source, a recording of which is linked on the Circle of Friends Facebook page. During the interview she said there are "a lot of misunderstandings happening." She also was critical of the Herald's Jan. 12 report and said it is in part to blame for a drop in donor support.