City of Karratha agree to provide funding and service fees to SAFE Karratha to re-home animals

The future of an animal rescue service in Karratha is secure after the local government passed a motion to provide increased funding to re-home animals. At last night’s meeting City of Karratha councillors approved an amended motion to provide a lump sum payment to Saving Animals From Euthanasia and a fee for every animal re-homed. The move comes after council asked SAFE to provide a quote in May as a sole source supplier of animal rehoming services in the Karratha. In June 2016 council agreed to give SAFE $65,000 per year plus CPI for five years. City of Karratha Mayor Peter Long said SAFE is a landmark service known across the state. Mr Long said the amended motion would see SAFE receive a lump sum payment across the year and a fee for every animal the City refer for rehoming. “The actual animals that we refer to them for re homing, we will pay a certain amount for each animal, and our officers will look into that and determine what they think is an appropriate amount for each animal,” he said. Mr Long said the City will work with SAFE to come to agreement with the fee. “It is actually an offer to purchase a service now, so it has to go through a particular process and the process made easy because it's a sole trader, so she's the only one who's offering the service,” he said. SAFE founder Sue Hedley said the new funds would mean SAFE could continue to operate with a paid position. “We don't have volunteers and without one paid position it's just not doable,” she said. “I was at breaking point with the situation. There's going to be a lot more discussion in the future but it means that animals lives are going to be saved.”