Animal Services is apparently losing its butt on AVID Microchips according to information sent to me anonymously. Where is the extra money going?
In Fiscal Year 2006-07, the Department spent $204,973 on purchasing microchips.
Approximately 17,000 dogs/cats year adopted got chips and 6,000 New Hope animals get chips, 23,000 cats/dogs got chips, not including chips the public requested. Animal Services pays $8.90/chip. Another estimate put the cost at $8.00 per chip if a thousand more were sold to the public directly.
However, this same source says the wholesale price for ships directly from AVID is $3 per chip, for a cost of $72,000. Somewhere, someone is making $133,000 for 2006-2007 off of the department.
Assuming the department was thinking ahead and bought two years of chips for $144,000, that still leaves $61,000 that went to someone else’s pocket.
Or, as I heard elsewhere, it bought, 40,000 chips for $205,000, but received only the $91,000 mentioned by Laura Chick in that special fund.. In this case, $114,000 is missing.
Therefore, somewhere between $72,000 and $114,000 is "missing."
Where did that “profit” go? Does AS purchase directly from AVID, or from a distributor who make a killing by buying wholesale and selling above retail?
In addition, Animal Services charges the public $6.25/chip, and therefore is losing $1.75 on each chip sale to the public.
In addition, the AVID website says to buyers of 500 or more will be given a special discount. I wonder what the cost per chip would be if you bought 40,000?
Beside the chips, their are costs for the installation kits and scanners.
I have no independent validation for these prices or chip numbers, but a request for public records would reveal details of the deal.All of these figures may be off, except purchase cost and the $91,000 paid to the public. LA's accounting system shunts money around in so many was it is difficult to distinguish between a valid transcation and something smelly.
Laura Chick ought to check into this.
4 comments:
You only need a big needle to insert the chips.
http://www.avidmicrochip.com/products.htm
You need a user name to get in. They'll give anyone one. I would think if someone bought 40,000 chips that they'd give them a few free scanners.
Last year I got to see what an Avid chip looked like up close, because when the West L.A. tech inserted it under my cat's skin, then put him back in the carrier, the chip popped right out...
Matter of fact, either West L.A. or Avid screwed up again on that one because I still haven't gotte paperwork on that chip, and that was either last July or August. Then again, maybe the paperwork is still sitting in the parking lot of the old West L.A. facility.
Avid people have told me that they are seriously understaffed, which is not too heartening since they have the L.A. contract. But they also tell me LAAS is glacially slow in getting the paperwork to Avid.
Good thing he's an indoor cat...
AVID and some other chip companies too, have different plans. Some prices include the prepaid registration, some do not. The $8 might include the prepaid registration, but everyone who gets a chip might not be given a prepaid regisration. I've ordered several of their Scanners, which work very well, by the way, but everytime I've ordered one, I paid a slightly different price.
I am trying to find microchips for my dogs, donkeys, horses and cattle that will be more reasonable than the vet. $35.00 for one chip in one animal. Considering i have 35 animals at the moment i have got to look for better pricing. wish we had a vet that only charged 8.00
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