Rochester proposes first pet license fee increase in decades

ROCHESTER — Pet owners may soon have to dig a bit deeper into their pockets to assure their pet is properly licensed in the city of Rochester.

The Rochester City Council is proposing to increase its annual pet licensing fees for dogs and cats.

City Clerk Lee Ann O’Connor recently presented the idea to the City Council in an effort to “right-size the fees” for pet licensing.

Oakland County currently handles pet licensing for 47 cities, townships and villages, charging $15 for an annual license for spayed or neutered dogs, $25 for intact dogs, and at least a $40 late fee, with the fee increasing each year.

The county charges seniors $14 for an annual license for spayed or neutered dogs, and $23 for intact dogs, and also offers three-year licensing options at varying costs. The county licensing program does not include cats.

O’Connor said Rochester is among other local communities that do not use the county and use their own fee structures, including Berkley, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Oak Park, Royal Oak, and Southfield.

In Rochester, any person owning or harboring a dog or a cat is currently required to license the pet by March 1 of each year. To obtain a license, residents must show a current rabies vaccination certificate from a veterinarian licensed in Michigan and pay the license fee. After March 1, a late fee is charged.

The city currently offers an annual pet license for $3 for spayed or neutered dogs or cats, $15 for intact dogs or cats, and a $12 late fee per animal.

“We are currently the lowest in the county and (our pet license fees) haven’t been adjusted in many decades,” O’Connor noted.

If at some point the city decided to switch its licensing to Oakland County, O’Connor said, there would be no benefit, as the city would still be required to be a point of sale for the licenses, so there would be no staff time saved.

“The bigger concern would be they would have to be our animal control and service our animal control and repeal that, and the Police Department would no longer handle that,” she noted.  “And the county informed Chief George that they would only come to calls that were related to state law violations that were issued under a warrant — torture, fighting, things like that — so that would take away our local control of our laws and all the other things — barking dogs and running at large.”

“I want to maintain local control,” said Councilman Steve Sage. “We don’t want to do a disservice to the residents to have to go down to the county to maintain this.”

The Rochester City Council, at its June 10 meeting, ultimately recommended keeping its pet licensing and animal control programs in-house and increasing the annual pet licensing fee to $5 for spayed or neutered dogs or cats, and $25 for intact dogs or cats.

The increase in pricing was a compromise — with Sage, Mayor Stuart Bikson and City Councilman Christian Hauser wanting to keep rates the same; Council members Debbie Jones and Marilyn Trent in favor of an increase; Councilmember Sara King indifferent; and Mayor Pro-Tem Nancy Salvia absent from the meeting.

“Three dollars is almost like you do it for free. You can’t even buy a $3 cup of coffee,” said Trent. “It’s costing us, at this point, to do it. We’re not making a load of money, but just to cover our costs of the city would be nice to do.”

Sage said he would accept “a modest increase,” as long as it was offset in subsidizing seniors. Hauser said he would also accept an increase if the late fee was dropped.

So council also recommended dropping the licensing late fee, decided to give seniors a new licensing discount  — at a fee of $3 for spayed or neutered dogs or cats, and $15 for intact dogs or cats — suggested one-year and three-year licensing options and recommended moving the license expiration dates from March 1 to Dec. 31 to fall with the calendar year.

While King said she didn’t really care either way about the fee structure, she was firm in saying she wants any extra funds generated to tackle what she referred to as “a cat problem” in the neighborhoods within the city, specifically near Griggs Street.

“The amount of cats roaming the neighborhoods (is unreal). You can hear them all hours of the night in the alleys and they are going to continue to multiply. There are so many strays. … I don’t know what can be done. People are talking about getting live traps and trying to catch them, but you don’t want to catch racoons or skunks and have to deal with that,” said King. “There are cats everywhere.”

O’Connor said the proposed pet licensing changes will require an ordinance amendment, which she plans to work with City Attorney Jeffrey Kragt on and bring before council during an upcoming meeting.

For more information, contact the Rochester City Clerk’s Office at (248) 733-3700.