At the same time San Antonio is increasing its reliance on rescue partners, a city-led audit released this week found that the city’s Animal Care Services department hasn’t been able to adequately monitor those partners’ outcomes.
ACS asked 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 euthanized.
But according to the city’s auditors, ACS hasn’t been able to ensure that the animals they release are getting spayed or neutered. It also hasn’t been able to inspect the rescue groups’ facilities or confirm whether they have 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 required the department to begin a “corrective action plan.” The deadline to execute those changes is May 1.
The internal audit is the latest effort among city leaders and animal rescue advocates who want to improve a department that’s struggled with its goals of public safety and animal welfare in San Antonio, but rejected help changing.
Last year ACS leaders buried a shelter consultant’s suggestions to improve the department’s live release rate, and turned down money the City Council offered to hire more animal control officers.
“I’m willing to say, we’ve gone through a lot with ACS recently,” Councilman John Courage (D9), who serves on the Audit Committee, said in an interview after the meeting. “The audit is pointing out some things they need to improve, and I think we ought to let them go through that process.”
The document Sims signed indicates some steps have already been taken to address the problems. Last fall ACS has updated its contracts for rescue 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’s reliance on partner organizations to help find homes for animals that make it into their care has drawn scrutiny in the wake of 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 projected that change would 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’s help looking into ACS partner contracts last year during a broader discussion about the department’s budget requests. Notably, she said, the department was also asking for money for new spay/neuter partnerships, even though past agreements hadn’t produced the results the city had hoped for.
“I’m glad they did the audit. I wasn’t surprised at the findings. We know that ACS needs to tighten up,” Viagran said in an interview Tuesday. “We really need more accountability.”
In a meeting with ACS’s advisory board last year, the department’s Chief Operations Officer Bethany Colonnese acknowledged that ACS faces a challenge balancing the need to do “due diligence” on where the animals are going without standing in the way of prospective adopters.
The latter has been the source of increased criticism as the city’s live release rate — meaning the percentage of animals that are adopted, transferred or returned to owners — has been on the decline.
But Colonnese, who had been working on strengthening the city’s standards for releasing animals to rescue groups, said the city was fortunate not to have any of its animals wind up in situations like those faced by hundreds of animals at an Arkansas nonprofit that was shuttered several years ago for poor conditions.
The city’s audit did not appear to include all partner organizations. Notably, K9s for Warriors, which has received significant money from the city but has not achieved its performance goals, was not on the list.
“I think that’s going to be our next question [for the auditor],” Viagran said of the groups that weren’t included in this audit. “I know there’s been a lot of talk about K9s for Warriors so we’re going to see what they’re dealing with there.”
