As tax time approaches, Roanoke Treasurer Evelyn Powers is facing an increasing workload.

But it isn't just the annual tasks of collecting real estate taxes and preparing to send out personal property tax notices that's keeping Powers at work as late as 8 p.m.

Something that brings the city much less money is turning out to be just as big a hassle.

Dog tags.

"I can barely stay on top of things," she said.

Responding to a law passed last year by the General Assembly, treasurers statewide have been devoting unprecedented time and money to tracking down dog owners who haven't bought licenses.

The onerous task also has fallen to animal control officers, who have been calling or visiting thousands of homes where unlicensed dogs live.

While the enforcement seems to be increasing the number of licensed dogs, some treasurers wonder if the work is worth the relatively small financial return. Dog tags can cost from $1 to $10 per year, depending on the locality.

"It's a lot of processes for a tiny, tiny amount of money," said Bedford County Treasurer Rebecca Jones.

The law was enacted to make it easier to track down animals' owners. It requires veterinarians to send copies of dogs' rabies vaccine certificates to their local treasurer's office, which is then supposed to use the information to check to see if the dog has a license on file.

If none is found, the treasurer's office mails the owner an application for a license.

If the owner still hasn't purchased a license after 30 days, most treasurers are taking the extra step of forwarding the information to animal control, although that's not required by law.

Veterinarians started sending rabies certificates last summer, but treasurer's offices weren't required to begin mailing applications until January. In that month alone, the city sent out 1,105 applications. Of those, 460 have been passed along to animal control, Powers said. The numbers are similar in other localities.

The law was introduced by Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline County, after authorities in Spotsylvania County had trouble tracking down the owner of several unlicensed pit bull terriers that had fatally mauled someone. Del. Don Merricks, R-Danville, introduced a bill this year to repeal the law, but it did not pass.

Not a revenue generator

The law appears to be successful in getting more dogs licensed.

Roanoke County last year issued 3,600 dog licenses -- almost 800 more than it typically sells in a year, said Treasurer Kevin Hutchins.

Treasurers are quick to point out, though, that the law was not intended to raise revenue.

In fact, many treasurers have said that the mandate is costing them money.

The additional dog tags Roanoke has sold in the past eight months have brought in an extra $3,800, Powers said.

But the city has spent more than $2,000 to enforce the law: $225 for brochures, $562 for envelopes, $570 for postage and $706 for a scanner. There are no extra labor costs yet, but that's only because Powers hasn't asked her staff to stay late. She doesn't want the city to have to pay them overtime, so she has been putting in the long hours because she is salaried.

In October, the Bedford County Board of Supervisors raised the price of dog tags to pay for a part-time position specifically to manage the workload created by the law, Jones said.

A one-year tag for a sterilized dog increased from $3 to $5, and a tag for an unsterilized dog increased from $5 to $10.

Roanoke charges the same rate as Bedford County.

Powers said she and other treasurers will ask state legislators later this year to increase the maximum price they can charge for dog tags. The state limit is $10 for a one-year license.

The extra work in treasurers' offices is trickling down to animal control officers.

Roanoke officers have been going door to door in their down time to order the dog-tag scofflaws to court.

Officer M.W. Quesenberry, who supervises the police department's animal control and protection unit, did not know how many summonses have been written from their list of hundreds of unlicensed dogs.

Roanoke County's five animal control officers are going down their list of 424. They've been calling dog owners with a "friendly reminder," said Lt. Matt Viar.

"We don't have the manpower to go door to door," he said.

Some people surprised

Powers' office is also fielding angry phone calls.

"They call in here and cuss you out," she said. "People are getting really upset."

The law has taken some dog owners by surprise.

"I didn't even know anything about it," said Addy Price, who was shopping at PetSmart earlier this week for her pit bull, Jade. "What do I have to do?"

Barbara Gee, who was there with her 7-month-old German shepherd, Bruce, said she recently received a call from a Roanoke County animal control officer reminding her to buy a license.

"I actually started laughing," Gee said. She knew about the law because she works at a veterinary hospital, she said, but she hadn't had time to purchase the license.

She said she bought the license Tuesday at the county treasurer's office, where the clerk pointed to stacks of envelopes waiting to be mailed to the owners of unlicensed dogs.

"They are so backlogged," Gee said.

The law also has raised concerns among veterinarians, who could be fined $10 per certificate for not sending them to the treasurer's office.

"It's a multifaceted problem for vets who just want to give dogs vaccines to protect them," said Steve Karras, president of the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association.

The association had been worried that the information on rabies certificates, which includes the dog's breed, would become public information and be used by insurance companies for breed profiling, Karras said.

A bill passed this year exempts from the Freedom of Information Act details about breed and information about the animal owner that is not already on the license application.

Now, the association's biggest worry is that people who don't want to buy dog tags will stop vaccinating their dogs against rabies, said Karras, who also owns and practices at Cave Spring Veterinary Clinic in Roanoke County.

Reported cases of animal rabies in 2007 were at their highest since 1982, according to the Virginia Department of Health. Most of the cases involved wild animals.

The association plans to compare the number of rabies shots this year against previous years to determine if the law has had an effect.

Some veterinarians also feel as if they are being forced to turn in their clients who may not have purchased a dog license or have more animals than their locality allows, Karras said.

"We're not the dog police or the cat police," he said.

He would like to see the Virginia Department of Health be responsible for managing the rabies certificates, although he admits that idea doesn't cover the licensing issue.

"In our minds, it's not a done deal," Karras said. "I think it is real important we revisit this."