Confusion and Concern over New Pet Licensing Protocols in Escambia County

 

A new pet licensing system in the county is creating concern....

I've now been contacted by multiple citizens that are concerned that a Canadian company is now handling pet tag renewals in Escambia County.  The chief concern is for the safety of personal information; some with whom I have spoken are concerned that their information will be "sold" to other entities and such information may subsequently be used inappropriatly or may generate unwanted sales solicitations.

I asked animal services director John Robinson about this, and about the "why" this change has occurred.  From director Robinson:

"Escambia County’s pet license program has needed an overhaul since I arrived in 2014. There were several issues including a low compliance rate, a record keeping system that was all on paper and a failure to meet Florida Statute requirements to send renewals to citizens.

 We discovered there was no way to resolve these issues internally, without hiring several more people to run our license program. We determined that the best solution would be to outsource our license program to a company that does that. A solicitation for vendors was done and Docupet was selected from that process. Docupet is able to remedy all of the aforementioned issues and allow citizens to renew their annual license online.

 There have recently been some concerns raised from one individual source that are inaccurate but keep coming up despite the my efforts and those of the former County Administrator, the County Attorney’s Office and the CEO of Docupet to address them.

 The biggest false accusation is that Docupet will sell the information to other vendors. The contract between the County and Docupet does not allow for the sale of information and specifically states that the information can only be used to promote pet licensing and additional services, which are free lost pet service and the sale of designer license tags. I have also spoken with the County Attorney regarding this concern; the information belongs to the County and the information from the rabies certificates is even protected from public record request.  

 This licensing program began at the first of the year, so we are beginning to see renewal notices go out as required by state law. In my opinion we are already seeing an improvement in compliance and license revenue in just the first few months of operating the new program.  

We have had some bumps along the way and change is hard, even good change. I think that is what we are experiencing now. We have been working on licensing messaging the last few weeks to help citizens understand these changes. We will get CMR to help with that once we have it ready." 

In his continuing effort to assuage concerns eminating, apparently, from one veterinarian's office in particular, Director Robinson even went so far as to have the licensing company's CEO send a letter to this veterinarian explaining the realities of the program and debunking some of the fals assertions.  You can read the letter, below.