Century-Old Law Gives Attleboro City Clerk Extra Cash

An outdated municipal law in Attleboro has put extra cash in the City Clerk Betty Shockroo's pocket for years, and an Attleboro city councilor plans to change that. 

City Councilor Richard Conti plans to introduce a motion during the next committee meeting, slated for Thursday, July 19, to stop the flow of extra cash.

The Attleboro City Clerk is paid $1 for each dog licensed annually in the city.

"These people are livid that $1 is coming off the collar to fuel an elected official's salary," Conti said. 

That $1 may not seem like much, said Attleboro resident and former City Councilor Roxanne Houghton, but it adds up when there are more than 3,300 dogs licensed in Attleboro.

"This has nothing to do with the city clerk herself," Hougton said. "It has to do with the fact that it's 2011 and she makes a salary of $78,000, and why are we giving her almost $3,500 more and the [animal] shelter gets nothing."

Houghton said she was outraged to learn of an ordinance written in the 1800s that still remains on the books today and pays additional cash to a city employee, when the city's shelter is in desperate need of extra funds. Currently, there are cat cages piled up from the floor to the ceiling at the shelter.

"Why not give that money to our shelter," Houghton said of the Pond Street shelter, which is in desperate need of funds to buy medicine, cat litter and food for cats and dogs. 

Houghton said she took the matter to city councilors, but was told that they didn't want to take any action that would take money out of Shockroo's salary. 

"It’s not about Betty. We all agree she is a nice person," Houghton said. "They don’t represent Betty. They represent the people of this city."

Houghton went on to say that residents have lost a lot of their representation by the council because councilors are aligned with the executive branch. 

"I'm not saying blame the mayor (Kevin Dumas) for that, but I blame the council for not having a spine to say we are a separate entity," she said. "To me, this issue is a litmus test for our council. It is about the city council representing us, not their co-workers, not their friends and not their relatives."

Below is a chart with the existing fees to register a dog in the City of Attleboro. The city clerk receives $1 of each registered dog in the city.