The City of Brewton on Monday approved $10,000 in what was termed “emergency funding” for the Humane Society of Escambia County.

It has been a year since the city rejoined Escambia County Commissioners in funding the agency, which takes care of animal control and sheltering for Brewton and unincorporated areas of Escambia County. The city had run its own animal control department for about a year before that.

Mayor Yank Lovelace said it was his understanding that the emergency funding would help cover payroll for the humane society shelter.

City Clerk John Angel said the city’s payment to the agency — which was a total of $65,000 over the past year — was scheduled to go up to $75,000 a year beginning in December 2014.

When the city ran its own animal control department for under a year in 2012, expenses ran twice the amount that the city is now paying to the humane society.

Lovelace said the $10,000 is expected to be a one-time payment.

“That’s not to say they couldn’t come back next month and ask for another $10,000,” councilman Fred Barton pointed out.

Escambia County Commission Chairman David Stokes said the county pays more into the humane society than the city currently does — about twice as much. The Town of Flomaton had previously been a funding partner in the shelter but stopped more than a year ago because it could not afford it.

“We probably need to sit down and review it,” Stokes said. “(The current funding agreement) was a trial run.”