In the meeting, county public health department Director Takashi Wada and Deputy Director Susan Klein-Rothschild met with the board to discuss last year’s set of 464 recommendations by the American Humane Association for the county’s Animal Services. Recommendations included a new, more financially efficient form of management.
“That was the first recommendation in their summary,” Klein-Rothschild told the Sun. “They said that’s the most important thing.”
In the meeting, Klein-Rothschild said Animal Services’ current model is technically county-run, but with significant contributions from community partners, such as the Animal Shelter Assistance Program (ASAP).
“Yet, we do not have current contracts with those community partners,” she said. “That creates tension and difficulty for all of us, both county and staff as well as partners, because it’s unclear whose role, whose responsibility, whose authority. One of the most important things I think we need to do through this process is add clarity for those things.”
ASAP Executive Director Angela Walters Rockwell emphasized in the meeting that ASAP, along with other community animal advocacy organizations, has been operating without written contracts or agreements with the county for decades.
“We are raising millions of dollars and providing essential services, all while lacking clear delineation of the roles and responsibilities,” Walters Rockwell said. “It’s time for there to be protection for organizations which devote so much money and so many hours of FTEs [full time employees] to serving the animals and the people of this county.”
Klein-Rothschild and Wada presented three alternative governance models:
• Hybrid—For example, in Clark County in Nevada, the county provides field services in unincorporated areas, cities provide services in their incorporated areas, and they all work together under a third-party provider.
• Contracted—In Marin County, for example, all aspects of field and shelter services are provided through nonprofit or private providers, contracted with a government agency. In this case, the Marin Humane Society is the contracted provider.
• Independent agency—The Southeast Area Animal Control Authority in Downy acts as an independent government agency, overseen by its own board. It’s entirely financially responsible and doesn’t have the county to fall back on in the case of insufficient funding.
The meeting didn’t produce any decisive conclusions, but the board recommended that Animal Services conduct further research on the hybrid model and come back in six months with a more specific direction.
Klein-Rothschild said Animal Services has yet to draw up a concrete plan for how to approach this research, but it will make sure to collect opinions from the community.
“We’ll do community outreach to get perspectives from our stakeholders and our local community on the different models, what they might offer, what our community is interested in,” she said.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2016.