As more suburban towns and municipalities successfully utilize hunters—particularly bowhunters—to help control deer populations, one can only wonder why some cities continue to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have professional and government sharpshooters kill their troublesome whitetails.

It’s especially baffling because most city councils and county commissions across the country today are already financially strapped, and are faced with cutting services to taxpayers.

Evidently, money grows on the trees in Solon, Ohio, where the city paid more than $185,000 to have 300 deer culled from its parks and public land earlier this year—and those in charge of the program are recommending it should continue.

The culling of whitetails last winter in the northeastern Ohio city by U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters cost taxpayers a total of $183,353, according to a summary report of the program produced by David Hromco, a former Solon official who managed the program on a part-time basis.

Between Jan. 30 and March 19 the federal employees killed 300 deer, which translates to a cost-per-animal of around $611.

According to Hromco, included in the charges were USDA cost, meat transportation and processing, police overtime, city personnel overtime for site monitoring, and baiting and direct city costs.

And this week, after reviewing the costs, Hromco must consider $611 per deer a good deal, because he says he wants to see it continue.

“Although continuing the program in the future can only be done at the direction of the mayor and council, it is the consensus and recommendation of those that monitored and administered the project to continue the program using sharp-shooting methods,” he said.

Here’s the breakdown of the cost for Solon’s deer cull:

USDA cost: $103,000
Meat transportation and processing: $19,253
Police overtime: $40,547
City personnel overtime: $8,602
Direct city costs for baiting, site work: $11,951
Total cost: $183,353
Cost per deer (based on 300 culled): $611.18

Not only could qualified and trustworthy bowhunters do the job just as well as federally-employed gunners, but we’ll also bet they’d even pay a few dollars for the opportunity to put some additional venison in their freezers.