As San Antonio increases its reliance on rescue partners, a city-led audit released this week found that the city’s Animal Care Services department did not adequately monitor the partners’ results.
ACS asked the City Council during last year’s budget cycle for funds to increase the amount it pays rescue groups that pull animals from the department’s shelter, reducing the number of animals that are already – euthanize.
But according to city auditors, ACS cannot ensure that the animals they release are spayed or neutered. It also failed to inspect the rescue groups’ facilities or confirm whether they had adequate insurance coverage, the audit found.
The 15-page report was approved without discussion by the Council’s Audit Committee on Tuesday. ACS Director Shannon Sims, who plans to retire later this year, signed the audit document, which requires the department to begin a “corrective action plan.” The deadline to make those changes is May 1.
The internal audit is the latest effort by city leaders and animal rescue advocates who want to improve a department that has struggled with its goals of public safety and animal welfare in San Antonio, but has refused to change the help
Last year, ACS leaders buried a shelter consultant’s suggestions to improve the department’s live release rate, and rejected money offered by the City Council to hire more animal control officers.
“I’m willing to say, we’ve been through a lot at ACS lately,” Councilman John Courage (D9), who serves on the Audit Committee, said in an interview after the meeting. “The audit points out some things they need to improve on, and I think we should let them go through that process.”
The document signed by Sims indicates several steps taken to address the problems. Last fall, ACS updated its contracts for salvage partners and added a contract coordinator who will be responsible for making sure inspections are completed and paperwork is up to date, according to the document.
The corrective action plan also calls for monthly status reports on whether partners are complying with their contracts.
ACS’ reliance on partner organizations to help find homes for animals in their care has drawn scrutiny after a 26% budget increase the department received for 2024.
The city previously paid its rescue partners between $75 and $125 per animal based on the age, weight and type of animal pulled from the department’s shelter. For the 2024 fiscal year, which began in October, the City Council approved an additional $288,000 for ACS to increase most rescue partner payments to a flat rate of $200 per animal.
ACS expects the change to increase the number of animals rescued by partners from 9,500 in 2023 to 11,000 in 2024.
Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3), who chairs the audit committee, said council members requested audit assistance looking at last year’s ACS partner contracts in a broader discussion about the department’s budget requests. Notably, he said, the department is also asking for money for new spay/neuter partnerships, even though previous agreements have not produced the results the city had hoped for.
“I’m glad they did an audit. I was not surprised by the findings. We know that ACS needs to be tightened,” Viagran said in an interview Tuesday. “We really need more accountability.”
At an ACS advisory board meeting last year, the department’s Chief Operations Officer, Bethany Colonnese, acknowledged that ACS faces a challenge in balancing the need to do “due diligence” on where animals go without getting in the way. to prospective adopters.
The latter has been the source of increased criticism as the city’s live release rate — meaning the percentage of animals adopted, transferred or returned to owners — has been declining.
But Colonnese, who is working to strengthen the city’s standards for releasing animals to rescue groups, said the city is fortunate that none of its animals have ended up in situations like the one facing the road- hundreds of animals in an Arkansas nonprofit that closed a few years ago for poor conditions.
The city’s audit appears to have excluded all partner organizations. Notably, the K9s for the Warriors, who received a lot of money from the city but didn’t meet its performance goals, weren’t on the list.
“I think that’s our next question [for the auditor],” Viagran said of the groups excluded from this audit. “I know there’s been a lot of talk about K9s for the Warriors so we’ll see how they deal with that.”
