The cost of bailing Fido out of the clink is likely to go up sharply in Naperville soon.
City Council members this week agreed that an update is due for the fee structure for boarding, impounding and fines related to dogs and cats. It’s been 26 years since the fees last were updated.
Officials generally agreed that it would make sense for the rates to reflect the city’s current expenses for housing and feeding pets that have gone astray. According to Joanne Aul, animal control supervisor, the city spends about $20 to keep a dog overnight, and about $16 to cover a cat’s expenses.
Rate increases proposed by city staff didn’t go far enough, some council members said. The overnight boarding fee, now set at $6, was suggested to rise to $10, with impoundment fees proposed to go from $15 to $25.
Citations for violating pet code in the city, now at a flat $10 per offense, were pitched to start at $50 and graduate up to $150, if the offense occurs four or more times during a single year. Comparable communities, on the other hand, have fines that range “from $15 to $1,000 depending on the infraction,” Aul wrote in a council memo. Council members didn’t suggest adjusting the proposed new scale for those fees.
Some council members noted that boarding fees in some communities, including Elgin and Schaumburg, run as high as $36 a night. They agreed that boarding pets in Naperville’s pound — most commonly done when owners can’t come in immediately to retrieve their errant pets — should cost enough to discourage residents from turning to the city to keep their pets when they are out of town, rather than paying higher fees charged by privately run kennels, without being excessive.
An ordinance being drafted by staff to be presented for council approval at an upcoming meeting will show rates that are close to the city’s costs but not high enough to be punitive.
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