Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
Changes in Shelter Business Hours <br />August 27th, 2008 <br /> <br />Purpose: To adjust the Animal Shelter’s business hours by closing to the public on Sunday and open on <br />Wednesday, offering full services. Part of this change will include adjusting the time the shelter opens from <br />11:00 am to 12:00 pm on weekdays and extending the hours the shelter is open on Saturday from 4:00 pm to <br />5:00 pm and on Tuesday from 6pm to 7:30pm. While this change would not affect the number of hours the <br />shelter provides full services to the public, it allows for better utilization of available staffing throughout the <br />week. Additionally, adjusting the time the shelter opens from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm offers advantages of <br />allowing additional time to be devoted to animal care functions and customer service, while lightening the load <br />for staff responsible for these duties. This change will be done on a three month trial basis given that budget <br />conditions result in a need to adapt business hours to facilitate continued effective service to the public within <br />limits of available resources. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Benefits and Challenges of a change in shelter hours may include: <br /> <br />• Greater flexibility with staff scheduling <br />• Opening one hour later, at noon on weekdays allows adequate time for staff to perform animal care and <br />cleaning duties, staff meetings and other operational functions prior to opening to the public, resulting in <br />increased number of staff devoted to customer service during business hours. <br />• Adds an additional hour on Saturday afternoon and additional one and one-half hours Tuesday <br />afternoon. <br />• Ensures a manager is on duty during each business day. <br />• Results in a change in the number of business hours the shelter is open to the public. This has been <br />thirty-six and one-half (36.5) hours, but would increase to 38 hours. <br />• Re-aligns business hours to include an additional week- day, when live releases typically are greater <br />than they are on Sundays. <br />• Provides better flexibility for adoption scheduling. Some animals currently adopted on Sunday must <br />wait to leave the shelter until after it is sterilized, which can be several days as sterilization services are <br />not available on Sunday. <br />• Most shelter services would no longer be available on Sundays which could affect animal placements, <br />although they could be redistributed from Sunday to Wednesday and other days of the week. <br />• Rabies clinics currently performed at the shelter by a CRV on Wednesday would be conducted during <br />business hours. <br />• Intakes that occur on Sunday would be through the night deposit boxes only. <br />• Animal pick- up on Sundays would need to be pre- arranged, or redistributed to other days of the week <br />for Placement Partner transfers and owner recoveries. <br /> <br /> Live Releases: Comparison of Select weekdays for FY 2007-2008 <br /> <br /> Sun Tue Wed* <br /> Adoption 201272 127 <br /> RTO 4781 36 <br /> Transfer 3756 33 <br /> Total LR 285 409 196 <br /> <br />Currently the shelter is closed this day* <br />New Business Hours: <br /> <br />Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 12:00- 6:00 <br />Tuesday, Thursday: 12:00- 7:30 <br />Saturday: 12:00-5:00 <br />Sunday: Closed <br />Current Shelter Business Hours: <br /> <br />Monday, Tuesday and Friday: 11:00 am- 6:00 pm <br />Wednesday: Closed <br />Thursday: 11:00 am -7:30 pm <br />Saturday: 12:00 pm- 4:00 pm <br />Sunday: 1:00 pm- 4:00 pm