L.A. Animal Shelter Captains on Leave Due to Troubling Audit Results

Six Los Angeles animal shelter captains under investigation by the LAPD’s Burglary Crimes Division were placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday.

According to the Daily News, money has gone missing from vending machines at the shelters. While the six captains aren’t suspected of pocketing the money, they may be violating a California law that prohibits state workers from personally benefitting from contracts they implement.

This was just one of a litany of disturbing problems uncovered by a two-year audit of the L.A. Department of Animal Services. The audit results were announced during a press conference on Tuesday.

The Animal Services department has been under scrutiny over the past year due to missing dogs and fraudulent time cards, the seizure of more than 100 firearms and a shelter worker who used a cruel method to euthanize dogs.

According to the audit results, Animal Services also failed to collect more than $1.3 million in dog license fees over the past two years. Instead of billing all pet parents in its database, the department only billed those who had paid for a license the previous year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Those who didn’t pay were dropped from the database, resulting in fewer license renewals.

In addition to lost revenue from dog licenses and vending machines, the audit report noted these problems:

• There is no daily inventory taken of shelter animals. City Controller Wendy Greuel, who oversaw the audit and wrote the report, told the Daily Breeze she felt this was the most troubling of all the issues. “When we drop our kids off at school, we expect officials to know they are there and being cared for,” she said. “Without proper oversight, there is no way to keep track of the animals in our care.”
• Lax recordkeeping resulted in a $125,000 discrepancy in revenue that should have been collected from implanting microchips in adopted shelter animals.
• Department officials were not able to confirm whether cash donations to shelters were legitimately spent. The donations were used as petty cash at some shelters.

“What’s clear is that constant changes in management have exacerbated the department’s fiscal and operational challenges in carrying out its mission of providing for the health, safety and welfare of animals,” Greuel told the Daily Breeze, referring to the high turnover in Animal Services supervisors. Over the past 10 years, there have been six different general managers.

Brenda Barnette currently holds that position. She has pledged to use the audit as a “blueprint for change,” according to Gruel.

Paul Koretz, a city councilman and chairman of the new Personnel and Animal Services Committee, told the Daily Breeze he thought Barnette “believes she was hired to help lower our euthanasia rate and she found all these other problems. I think she was surprised at the number of these kinds of problems to deal with.”

Barnette released a statement this week, saying city officials were aware of the department’s problems and she had been hired to resolve them.

“I’m working hard every day to reform the department,” Barnette stated. “I know we have a long road ahead and look forward to working with the controller and other city officials.”

The Animal Services department must provide a plan of action for correcting these problems by March 15.

PHOTO: Jocelyn Augustino