Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The Springfield City Council has essentially paid its bill to Sangamon County Animal Control, but some aldermen this week didn’t like it.

One, Ward 3 Aldermen Roy Williams, Jr., says animal control needs to start answering some questions, and quick.

“A problem, why I need them here, is because they don’t need to be that arrogant, first of all,” said Williams.  “They need to show up to answer questions that we may have.”

Gregory thinks the city isn’t get what they’re paying for, especially in his ward.

“All they tell the citizens is, when they call animal control, they say ‘call the police,'” said Williams.  “Our police can’t do everything.  That’s why you’re the animal control.”

The city’s contract with Sangamon County Animal Control ran out at the end of February.  Williams says voting to pay the $384,095 animal control bill is the right thing to do.  But, he’s not sure that the bill is worth it.

“The animal control officers should be enforcing and doing what he’s supposed to do,” said Williams.  That’s the kind of stuff we need to dig into, instead of just giving them an automatic check because we did some kind of agreement a long time ago in the name of, quote-unquote, saving money.”

Williams begs to differ with the assertion of saving money, saying the doesn’t get good services  He wants the next contract to be bid out, to see if there’s any other entity that can do the job.

City officials say Sangamon County Animal Control is believed to be still working for the city, despite the last contract lapsing.  Negotiations are said to be continuing.

A previous version of this story misidentified the alderman speaking.  Capitol City Now regrets the error.