Something doesn’t smell right at Broward’s animal shelter
Broward County opened its new animal care and adoption center on November 15, 2016. The county spent more than $16 million and the shelter has an annual budget close to $7 million.
Today, taxpayers in Broward County are not seeing any dividends from their investment. The current conditions for hundreds of cats and dogs are stifling and inadequate because it’s so overcrowded and there’s no clear no-kill policy moving forward. Simply put, the facility is poorly managed.
The moment you enter the building, huge mobile fans are noisily trying to filter and refresh the air. After you pass through the lobby and enter into either the cat area or the dog kennels, you are assailed by the stench of feces and urine. There are more fans in these areas too.
This is the “band-aid” the new shelter is employing to try to keep the air clean because the filtration systems cannot possibly keep up with the number of animals currently housed there.
The construction management division of the county said the new shelter should hold 124 dogs and 165 cats. The shelter is exceeding those estimates by more than 100 percent. During a recent field assessment by Best Friends Animal Society in early November 2018, the shelter had “358 cats and kittens in care and 266 dogs.”
Using their metrics for analyzing capacity, the shelter should house at a maximum 153 dogs and 283 cats (their formula considers the ability to house up to 30% as doubles). More importantly, the assessment indicated that the shelter was exceeding its capacity for care beyond “physical space,” as they shelter did not currently have enough staff to care for the large number of animals in their care.
With the current pet population, Best Friends indicated that staffing should be 19-20 staff members per day; the shelter currently has 10-11 daily.
This field assessment was performed in November, but animal advocates have been petitioning county administration and their supervisors to increase the amount of kennel staff since September 2018, when the community began analyzing the shelter intake data and realizing that the shelter population doubled.
It is now February 2019, and the shelter has not increased kennel staff to care for the enormous population explosion. The kennel staff should not have to work under these conditions. The Best Friends assessment further states that there is no plan to increase the positive outcomes of this massive overpopulation.
The shelter is not implementing the necessary programs to work toward a no-kill community. That was evident during the “community meeting” held at the shelter on Saturday, January 19.
Not only did the shelter director fail to answer any questions, she attempted to end the meeting early after only a few questions had been asked, attempting to preclude the community from providing its input and getting answers.
It is clear the new shelter director has no plan to increase positive outcomes. When asked about her strategic plan, she says she will release it in March 2019; it takes a full year to create a strategic plan? Most private corporations would go bankrupt waiting to design a strategic plan.
President Abraham Lincoln famously said in the Gettysburg address that government is “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Broward County commissioners and administration work for the people of Broward County.
We have tried to work with the current administration to reach the no-kill community we want and deserve. It is now time to let your commissioners know that we will not allow this lack of capable management of the county shelter to continue. Let the county know that we are tired of waiting, we want a no-kill community now! We want competent management of the shelter now!
Wendy Schugar-Martin is an animal advocate in Broward County. She is cofounder and executive director for The Freckles Freedom Fund, Inc., a non-profit dog rescue which facilitates the rescue of neglected, homeless and abandoned bully breeds.