Complaints lodged about the Stanislaus Animal Shelter Agency – including that far too many pets are being euthanized and a lack of funds and staff – were investigated by the Stanislaus County Civil Grand Jury which has come up with a list of recommendations.
The report, issued last month, was a disappointment to Vaughn R. Maurice, the director of SASA, who said the report is fraught with erroneous information.
“I was surprised at how many things were inaccurate,” said Maurice. “It was a little disappointing. They seem like a good group of well-meaning people that are trying to help make things correct within government agencies. But we will set it straight and lay out responses to all of the findings and to all of the recommendations.”
According to Maurice, the civil grand jury inaccurately referenced two different agencies – one being the Stanislaus County Animal Shelter (SCAS). But the agency running the shelter is called the Stanislaus Animal Shelter Agency, or SASA.
“The grand jury report – I wish they would have checked with us first – is taking stuff off of social media and using it as fact,” said Maurice. “I really don’t understand why people would just trust something they see on the internet as factual. It isn’t. SASA is the agency that runs this shelter. The county doesn’t have its own animal shelter and haven’t for about 12 years now. There are rogue people out there that use that name and portend it’s something.”
Originally the county operated its own “dog pound” on Finch Road near the Modesto Airport but eventually got out when a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) was formed in 2009 with five member agencies – the cities of Ceres, Hughson, Modesto, Patterson, Waterford, and the County of Stanislaus. The JPA built the new Thomas W. Mayfield Animal Shelter Facility on Crows Landing Road, now within Ceres city limits. Each member pays for operating costs, based on the number of animals coming from the jurisdiction. When the JPA performs a “true up” of actual numbers at the end of the year to reflect new intake numbers, monies have been returned to the cities.
According to the civil grand jury, the shelter is falling short in its mission due mostly to being underfunded and understaffed.
The grand jury found that the return of monies to JPA members during fiscal year true-ups reduces the resources to fulfill the shelter’s mission. It also determined that several areas where restricted funds identified by SASA were not spent but were returned to its JPA members.
According to SASA board notes of Oct. 21, 2021, $572,227 was returned to JPA members as part of the agency’s true-up costs. Savings were attributed to staff vacancies including one veterinarian, two animal care specialists and a rescue coordinator; and also due to the shelter closed during COVID-19.
From 2013 to 2022 the shelter returned $3.1 million to JPA members while a lack of funds inhibited the hiring of additional staff including another full-time veterinarian or veterinarian technicians. Lack of funds also have hampered the hosting of events to increase community awareness of low-cost spay/neuter programs. Community awareness is “vital,” the panel said, “as is an understanding of how the agency and the community can work together to create a more humane and efficient way for the agency to achieve ‘no kill shelter’ status.”
“Certainly we have a very lean budget and a very lean staff, there’s no question,” said Maurice. “Other organizations of our size handling similar numbers of animals do have much larger staffs, that’s true. That being said, we do meet the minimum requirements of taking care of the animals in decent fashion that we do have under our charge. We still remain to be a ‘no kill’ shelter.”
While the state has allocated millions of dollars for animal shelters to achieve “no kill shelter” status, SASA euthanized 592 animals during fiscal year 2021-22.
The grand jury also became convinced that the mission of the shelter has been hampered by a lack of adequate staffing, noting that other shelters of the same volumes of animal intake employ roughly twice the staff. Maintaining staff is difficult, the grand jury noted, because of working conditions, salaries and the emotional toll in dealing with euthanizing pets. Without enough workers, the shelter has also fallen behind in returning phone calls and answering emails. The report noted a backlog of 400 to 2,000 calls or emails waiting for a response.
Maurice said more could be done with a larger staff.
COVID did not help matters. When Maurice took over the shelter after the departure of Annette Bedsworth last year, SASA was down 30 percent in staffing levels.
“When you have a small staff and then you’re missing 30 percent of your staff that makes it very challenging. Fortunately over the last year we’ve been able to fill many of those vacancies.”
The shelter could improve its social media and community outreach to publicize its animal “fostering” program to free up space and time to concentrate on additional animals in need of care, the panel found. The shelter allows residents to “foster” animals until they are old enough to be spayed or neutered and then made available for adoption but the foster and volunteer programs are not prominently advertised to the public outside of their social media sites.
Considerable vacancies resulting in excessive turnover and the use of interim positions held by upper management has caused the agency to fail to do long-term planning or evaluate the needs and wants of the shelter.
Of particular concern to jury is the difficulty in securing a full-time veterinarian. While a change in job title and salary allowed for full-time placement of one veterinarian position, SCAS is considering the use of outside contracts to provide needed medical care in lieu of hiring additional veterinary staff.
The jury cited positives as well. The shelter benefits from a private partnership with Dogwood Animal Rescue Project which offers vouchers for low-cost spaying and neutering of cats and dogs at Valley Pet Care, a for-profit independent clinic, located at the shelter. Dogwood is able to offer the assistance, courtesy of a $238,000 grant administered by the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at the Center for Companion Animal Health at UC Davis.
The report touches on whether canvassers who go door-to-door in neighborhoods in search of unlicensed dogs and to check on rabies vaccinations are a cost effective practice. The jury suggested the use of computer software that could alert pet owners who were non-compliant with licensing and/or rabies vaccinations as a way to free up animal control officers.
But Maurice said that the grand jury conflated the canvassers with animal control officers, saying that are two different positions.
Canvassers do check on dog licenses and whether a dog is up-to-date on rabies shots and also educate pet owners about services. The licenses collect the cost of employees, said Maurice. That’s much different than animal control officers who answer calls about dangerous dogs, retrieving injured or dead animals on the street (about 100 per month), assist law enforcement and enforce the laws with regard to animal laws.
The grand jury report also cites confusion people have about which services are offered at the animal shelter.
The panel’s reliance on websites led to other erroneous statements, said Maurice. While the report states that the shelter’s Budget Subcommittee is not functioning, he said that the subcommittee does meet seasonally to help craft the budget.
The grand jury noted that many past board meetings had to be cancelled for various reasons, including a lack of a quorum. The panel suggested moving SASA board meetings away from mornings which may be inconvenient for citizen involvement to the evening.
