Story Highlights:

• The Carthage Humane Society requested $40,000, up from $20,000 last year.

• In an earlier meeting, the council's budget committee tentatively approved an increase to $25,000 for the group.

The Carthage Humane Society will get more money than it did last year from the city, but it's not what the group asked for.

Kaylene Cole, chairwoman of the Society's board, and Connie Shull, director of the animal shelter, appeared before the city's budget committee Thursday to plead their case for a much larger increase in city funds than the committee had tentatively granted.

The group asked for $40,000, a 100 percent increase over the $20,000 it received from Carthage last year, saying it was doing a better job of keeping its books and had a better idea of what it really cost to provide service to the city.

"In the past, our bookkeeping was almost non-existent and the number requested from the city was basically pulled out of the air," Cole told the committee. "It was not until this new board took over that we found out how much it actually costs to provide services to the city."

The budget committee, however, said it only felt comfortable giving $25,000, a 20 percent increase, saying it needed more of "a proven track record," before it considered giving more money.

"You're just not there yet," said budget committee chairman William Fortune. "Once you get up and running with you new bookkeeping system, there are possibly some opportunities for grants and other sources of revenue. But based on what's happened, I'm a little reluctant to make the leap with such a large increase."

In 2006, the Missouri Attorney General's Office sued the Carthage Humane Society, claiming it did not keep a good accounting of its money. That suit was settled in December 2007 with an agreement that calls on the group to create a new bylaws, keep a budget and do a better job accounting for the money it takes in.

The society is operating under the close supervision of the Missouri Attorney General's Office for the first year after the agreement was signed and an attorney for the Attorney General's office has said the group is making progress toward keeping proper records.
At Thursday's budget committee meeting, Cole and Shull presented numbers showing the group took in 770 animals between March of 2007 and March of 2008.

Cole and Shull said under the contract with the city, the Humane Society has to hold the animals for seven days and provide them with any medical care they might need during that time.

Committee member Claude Newport said he too was only comfortable with the increase to $25,000, but he would be open to reviewing the group's request later in the fiscal year if it appeared they might have problems.

In other business, the committee pared more than $300,000 from the public works department's capital improvement requests.

On the advice of  Public Works Department Head Chad Wampler, the committee decided to hold off on $418,000 in improvements to the intersection of Fairview and River streets until the city knew better how the traffic pattern would work out around the new Carthage High School when it was completed in January of 2009.

The committee left in $40,000 to conduct engineering studies in advance of that project.

The committee also removed a $180,000 request for a stoplight at the intersection of Phelps Boulevard and Missouri Highway 571.

It put back in the budget $130,000 to improve drainage between Centennial Street and 13th Street.

The committee also discussed the impact of a salary survey, which will be released to the city council on Tuesday.

City Manager Tom Short said the overall total impact of the survey's recommendations would be a $110,000 increase in city spending on salaries.

Short said the current budget includes $80,000 for normal step increases under the city's current salary plan.