Multnomah County Animal Services failed to spend more than $2 million in donations and county funds it received over the last five years that were supposed to cover spay and neuter surgeries, veterinary expenses and outreach to increase pet adoptions, county auditors said in a report released Thursday.
Auditors said that mismanagement and a lack of oversight prevented the long-troubled animal shelter from spending the vast majority of money earmarked for those purposes. They called the lack of spending a lost opportunity for the shelter “to provide important and necessary services to animals and the community.”
“People who donate to these restricted-use accounts have a reasonable expectation that the money they donate will be used to the benefit of animals in the community within a timely manner,” auditors wrote. “Additionally, if the board sets aside resources in a given year for a specific purpose, it is reasonable to expect those funds will be used for that purpose during that year.”
Since 2009, the shelter has managed four restricted accounts with money earmarked for veterinary expenses, spay and neuter surgeries for low-income families, outreach to increase adoptions and capital improvements for the shelter. These accounts have been funded by thousands of donations from the public, auditors said. The county also has contributed $25,000 a year to the spay and neuter fund.
But auditors found that the shelter didn’t have clear policies, procedures or planning in place for how it would spend the donations – leading to significant amounts of money going unused year after year.
Over the last five years, the shelter received more than $2 million for the spay and neuter, veterinary expenses and outreach accounts. That included six-figure donations from several estates.
But the shelter spent just over $627,500 from those accounts during that time, or about 30% of the money it received. The current unspent balances across those three accounts totals $2,066,000, auditors said.
The outreach account alone has a balance of almost $1 million.
The shelter has spent just $42,000 from the spay and neuter account in the last five years and the account has a balance of over $315,000, auditors found. Last year, the shelter started adopting out unspayed and unneutered pets, saying it didn’t have the staffing and resources to complete those surgeries on all pets before they were adopted.
A review by The Oregonian/OregonLive published in February found that the shelter has struggled to spend its overall budget as well. Last year, it spent only about 71% of the money it was allocated. That underspending has come even as the animal services budget has increased steadily, from $9.5 million in 2016 to $12.7 million this year.
Leaders from the shelter and the department admitted to auditors that a lack of clear policies and procedures had contributed to the underspending, but also attributed the problems to staffing shortages, turnover and the shelter’s closure to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, auditors said many of the services that the accounts were supposed to fund could have been provided while the shelter was closed.
Auditors recommended that the shelter stop soliciting donations until it develops a plan for spending the money it already has. They called on the shelter to implement policies and procedures within the next three months to provide proper management and oversight to ensure the funds are spent in a timely manner.
The County Auditor’s Office took a hard look at the restricted accounts in response to an allegation made through the Good Government Hotline that alleged deteriorating care for animals and services to the public at the shelter.
At the direction of Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, the animal shelter is currently undergoing a months-long review aimed at addressing its longstanding problems. The first part of the review, made public in April, found that the shelter failed to fully implement more that 50 recommendations made over the last seven years to improve conditions for cats and dogs and in some cases allowed initial steps toward progress to be reversed.
The review, conducted by leaders at the shelter and a consultant who has worked with the shelter for three years, found that the shelter still doesn’t have adequate staffing to meet national standards for cleaning, feeding and enrichment; doesn’t have policies to ensure the integrity of data; hasn’t maintained adequate documentation on animal behavior or euthanasia decisions; and has failed to implement formal staff training.
Those problems, already largely reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive and other media outlets, occurred despite outcries from staff and community members and multiple attempts by auditors and experts to provide the shelter with a roadmap for improvement.
— Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; 503-221-8228; @jamiebgoldberg
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