The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors decided to continue its partnership with MS Critterz during their regular meeting on Monday. 

The contract consists of paying the no-kill shelter $90 per animal at a maximum of 90 animals per month over the next five months. This agreement will run up to the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, when the Board will consider a year-long contract with MS Critterz beginning in October. 

Supervisor Chad McClarty has been heavily involved with the shelter since they approved to fund MS Critterz last August, under certain stipulations. In the initial agreement the county gave the shelter $36,000 for the first six months. Data was then collected for proof the shelter was taking in only Lafayette County animals. 

“I wanted to get the contract locked in from a budgetary standpoint so it’s just not open-ended to where if someone brought in 200 animals then all of a sudden we owe all this extra money,” McLarty said. “They’ve done a great job. It was a little rocky start. Basically it was a shell of a building when they took over, so it took them a while to get their feet on the ground. But, they’ve done an excellent job.” 

The shelter presented a cost scenario that totaled $78 per month per animal plus a 15 percent management fee that equaled to the agreed upon $90. 

MS Critterz president Gail Brown spoke to the board during Monday’s meeting and provided intake information since November. The shelter takes in animals exclusively from both the City of Oxford and Lafayette County. Since November they have taken in more animals from the county than inside Oxford’s city limits. 

“We have taken in 420 animals from Oxford and 497 animals from Lafayette County,” Brown said. “We expect those numbers to increase over the next six months as we’re now just in puppy and kitten season.” 

The city selected MS Critterz to take over the animal shelter last October, replacing the former management group of Oxford-Lafayette Humane Society. The city agreed to pay them $106,000 per year.

The next meeting of the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors will take place on May 20.