The City of New York Office of the Comptroller Bureau of Management Audit

Audit Report on the Shelter Conditions and Adoption Efforts of the Center for Animal Care and Control

ME01-109A
June 6, 2002

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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Background

The Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC) is a not-for-profit corporation that was formed for the purpose of providing animal care and control services in the City of New York. CACC’s contract with the New York City Department of Health (DOH) took effect on January 1, 1995, when it followed the ASPCA as New York City’s provider of animal care and control services.

CACC’s contract with DOH requires that it "provide animal seizure, shelter and care services . . . and related services." In order to provide these services, CACC is to maintain an emergency telephone number for receiving complaints regarding animals, in response to which CACC is to seize "unlicensed or unleashed dogs, cats whose owners are not identified, vicious and dangerous animals, animals that have bitten, rabid or suspected rabid animals, prohibited, exotic or wild animals, and venomous reptiles and bats." CACC is also required to accept "animals which are lost, stray, homeless, unwanted or abandoned with professional caretakers," and to maintain a process by which all licensed dogs and owner-identified cats seized "may be expeditiously claimed and returned to their owners." CACC’s contract further specifies that it "shall operate animal shelter facilities in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island . . . open to the public on a 7 day a week, 24 hours a day schedule, every day of the year excluding major holidays." The "care of animals at the shelters shall include feeding, boarding (including bedding and cleaning of cages), watering, exercising, and provision for immediate first aid as required, including but not limited to isolation of sick animals as necessary." CACC is to "operate and maintain animal receiving facilities . . . in the boroughs of the Bronx and Queens." CACC "shall provide adoption services at the shelters and receiving facilities and shall promote adoption as a means of placing animals." In addition, "for all adopted dogs and cats [CACC] shall provide, or cause to be provided, spay/neuter services and administer rabies immunizations pursuant to the New York City Health Code." The contract also requires that CACC "enlist the aid of volunteers and . . . conduct education and community outreach concerning animal control and public health issues related thereto."

CACC’s mission statement is quoted on its website and in its Report 1998 & 1999 as follows:

"The Center for Animal Care and Control, Inc. is dedicated to providing humane care for all New York City animals in need, while protecting the public health and safety of New Yorkers. CACC will give the most humane care possible to the hundreds of animals that are brought to our shelters each day. The CACC works together with the citizens of New York City, including area shelters and humane organizations, to reduce the number of homeless animals through increased adoption, spay/neuter programs, animal rescue services and by heightening awareness about the responsibility of having an animal companion."

In addition, according to the description of its mission in its staff manual,

"The CACC has numerous programs and provides numerous services. These include but are not limited to sheltering animals; picking up animals that are at-large, sick, or dangerous; returning lost animals to their owners whenever possible; providing for the adoption of homeless animals to responsible persons; and, when necessary, providing a humane and painless death."

CACC provides these services to the approximately 60,000 animals that come into its shelter system each year at five facilities—three full-service shelters in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, and two small receiving centers in Queens and the Bronx. The vast majority of the animals that come into CACC’s shelters are cats and dogs. The Manhattan shelter can house approximately 500 cats and dogs; the Brooklyn shelter, approximately 400; the Staten Island shelter, 150-200; and the Queens and Bronx receiving centers, 19 and 50, respectively.

CACC also has a Field Operations Division, which responds to calls from the public and government agencies, using a fleet of 15 rescue vans to pick up stray or homeless animals, animals that threaten public safety, and sick, injured or dangerous wildlife.

According to CACC’s Monthly Animal Activity Reports, during calendar year 2000 a total of 60,877 animals came into its shelters—55,376 cats and dogs, and 5,501 other animals. Of these 60,877 animals, 14,270 were adopted, 677 were returned to their owners, and 41,203 were euthanized.

During calendar year 2000, CACC had a total budget from DOH of approximately $8.3 million. In addition to its five animal facilities, CACC has an administrative office in downtown Manhattan. During calendar year 2000, CACC employed approximately 170 people in its shelter, administrative, and executive functions.

Objectives

The objective of this audit was to evaluate the following two aspects of CACC’s services:

• the conditions under which animals are sheltered in CACC’s facilities; and
• the level and success of CACC’s efforts to promote the adoption of animals from its shelters.

These two aspects of CACC’s services are addressed in both CACC’s contract and its mission statement. Specifically, CACC’s contract with DOH states that CACC "shall meet all its obligations under [the contract] in a humane manner . . ." and that CACC "shall provide adoption services at the shelters and receiving facilities and shall promote adoption as a means of placing animals." CACC’s mission statement states that CACC "is dedicated to providing humane care for all New York City animals in need . . . [and] the most humane care possible to the hundreds of animals that are brought to our shelters each day" and "works . . . to reduce the number of homeless animals through increased adoption, spay/neuter programs, animal rescue services and by heightening awareness."

Other areas of CACC’s services that were not covered by this audit are described in the body of this report (page 4).

Scope and Methodology

The scope of this audit was CACC’s shelter conditions and adoption efforts between January 1, 1999, and June 30, 2001.

To obtain an overview of CACC’s structure, services, operations, policies, and procedures, we interviewed all members of CACC’s executive and managerial staff, and two members of CACC’s board of directors. We reviewed CACC’s written policies and procedures, the Monthly Animal Activity Reports that CACC is required to submit to DOH, CACC’s staff manual, CACC’s 2000 Certified Public Accountant (CPA) report, and minutes for meetings of CACC’s board of directors from January 1999 through June 2001. We also attended three board of directors’ meetings. During the course of the audit, we reviewed CACC’s personnel, disciplinary, financial, and marketing files, as well as data in the CACC shelter management computer system, known as "Chameleon."

To determine whether CACC is sheltering animals under humane conditions in compliance with its contract, we visited CACC’s five facilities a total of 15 times between February and April 2001.

To evaluate the success of CACC’s adoption efforts, we analyzed the data in the CACC Monthly Animal Activity Reports submitted to DOH for January 1999 through June 2001. To assess the level of CACC’s efforts to promote adoption as a means for placing animals, we interviewed executive and managerial staff regarding adoption programs and marketing efforts, reviewed CACC’s files on special events, off-site adoptions and advertising, and reviewed the CACC website.

To evaluate CACC’s use of volunteers to help improve shelter conditions and increase animal adoptions, we interviewed executive and managerial staff and reviewed CACC’s files on volunteer activities.

To determine how CACC’s shelter operations, adoption efforts, reliance upon volunteers, and fundraising compare to those of other shelters across the country, we conducted a telephone survey of 13 municipal animal care and control centers in other major cities throughout the country. We also gathered information on several New York City area shelters to determine how CACC compares to them in terms of staffing levels, adoption efforts, reliance upon volunteers, and fundraising.

To determine the general public’s level of awareness of CACC and its services, we conducted a telephone survey of New York City residents.

To determine the level of user satisfaction with CACC’s adoption and shelter services, we conducted telephone surveys of CACC customers and rescue groups.

Since we were prevented from speaking to current shelter staff without a supervisor being present (See "Audit Limitations"), we interviewed former CACC employees in order to obtain information on CACC’s actual practices.

To determine the merit of allegations of animal mistreatment at CACC made by former employees and rescuers, we attempted to review the personnel files maintained at CACC’s administrative office, and the disciplinary action notices, notes-to-file, and managers’ logbooks kept at each of the three full-service shelters.

To determine whether DOH’s funding level and CACC’s budget were sufficient to allow CACC to properly care for and effectively promote the adoption of the animals in its shelters, we compared DOH’s funding level of CACC and the CACC calendar year 2000 budget to the standards of the Humane Society of the United States.

This audit was conducted in accordance with Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), and included tests of the records and other auditing procedures considered necessary. This audit was performed in accordance with the City Comptroller's audit responsibilities as set forth in Chapter 5, § 93, of the New York City Charter.

Audit Limitations

Throughout the audit, CACC imposed obstacles that prevented us from conducting audit tests as we deemed necessary. CACC prevented us from obtaining a complete and accurate view of its operations and from obtaining all of the information necessary to develop a full set of constructive recommendations to help improve its operations.

The limitations imposed by CACC included its refusal to allow us to interview staff members without a supervisor being present, its refusal to allow us access to certain documents, and its delays in the production of some other records. In addition, it was very difficult to arrange a meeting with the board of directors, and only two members of the board eventually met with us. The audit limitations necessitate certain qualifications to our findings, described below.

Since we were unable to independently interview any employees, such as kennel attendants, veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and adoption counselors, who would have been able to give us direct, first-person observations of CACC’s actual daily operations, we could not obtain a full account of management problems, inaccuracies in the organization’s records, or possible misstatements of the organization’s policies and practices.

Because CACC denied us access to certain records that may have contained adverse information regarding the conditions at CACC shelters and the treatment of the animals kept there, and delayed our access to other records (providing the opportunity for the removal or alteration of records), our record review may not have uncovered the full extent of the problems of animal abuse and neglect, accidental euthanasia, and poor veterinary care described in this report.

In addition, since we could not interview all of the board members—who are ultimately responsible for overseeing CACC’s operations—we may have missed the opportunity to gain insight into the reasons for some of the problems CACC is facing.

Results In Brief

CACC does not provide humane conditions for all of the animals in its shelters and has not made aggressive efforts to increase adoptions of homeless animals. This report describes our findings in three main sections.

The first section, "Animals Are Not Always Sheltered under Humane Conditions," discusses the inadequacies discovered during our visits to the shelters, including that dogs are rarely, if ever, exercised, animals were not provided constant access to water, contagious animals were sometimes kept in the same wards as non-contagious animals, and at the two larger shelters, animals’ cages were not consistently spot-cleaned; evidence that animals in CACC shelters are sometimes subjected to abuse and neglect; the fact that some animals have been accidentally euthanized; and evidence of poor veterinary care in CACC shelters.

The second section, "CACC Has Not Made Aggressive Efforts to Increase Adoptions," presents recent CACC adoption statistics and discusses some of the likely reasons that adoption levels are low and have not improved over the last three years. These reasons include: limited public awareness of CACC and its adoption services and a lack of aggressive efforts by CACC to improve public awareness; inadequate use of off-site adoptions; inadequate efforts to ensure that the adoption process is encouraging to all potential adopters; CACC’s discouragement of some rescue groups that take animals from its shelters; the apparent inappropriate limitation of the pool of animals available for adoption; and a lack of adoption services at CACC’s Queens and Bronx facilities.

The third section of the report, "Possible Causes of CACC’s Shortcomings," discusses the fact that CACC compounds the problem of under-funding by failing to aggressively raise funds on its own and by failing to take sufficient advantage of volunteers. It also discusses a problem evidenced by CACC leadership apparently interpreting the organization’s mission more narrowly than it was originally conceptualized and failing to aggressively pursue some of the goals outlined in its mission statement, such as, "providing humane care for all New York City animals in need" and "reducing the number of homeless animals through increased adoption."

Lastly, under "Other Issues," we discuss the facts that: CACC’s board violated its bylaws by meeting and voting on certain items without the required quorom present; CACC’s board appears to have violated the letter and spirit of the Open Meetings Law by speaking at almost a whisper and thereby preventing attendees from hearing their discussions; and CACC’s contract with DOH does not include specific and measurable performance requirements or standards.

Many of the findings in this report are supported by the results of our surveys of individuals acquainted with CACC’s operations (former employees, customers, and individuals from rescue groups who work with CACC) in addition to our document reviews, observations, and interviews with CACC management. In total, six of eight former employees, 36 of 59 rescuers, and 14 of 33 customers we surveyed criticized aspects of CACC’s operations and management. Their allegations and the results of our testing painted a similar picture—that of a shelter system in which: inadequate resources and staffing levels prevent the provision of some of the basic necessities for humane animal care; the frustrations of over-worked or unqualified employees are sometimes taken out on the animals; opportunities to help animals and increase adoptions are squandered; and, perhaps most notably, the status quo is perpetuated by a management that is not truly committed to all aspects of the organization’s contract and mission, namely, to provide high quality, humane, animal care and place as many animals as possible in adoptive homes.

Notes Regarding Exit Conference

An exit conference with DOH and CACC officials was held on March 4, 2002. Three issues raised during this meeting should be mentioned here.

First, DOH noted an inconsistency between our finding that animals in CACC’s care are not always sheltered under humane conditions, and the results of its own inspections of CACC facilities. To illustrate this point, DOH provided us with reports of 531 inspections of CACC facilities that were conducted by DOH veterinarians and public health sanitarians between January 1, 1999 and June 30, 2001. As DOH stated, those inspection reports did not reveal any cases of poor veterinary care or inhumane treatment. However, we do not believe that this is necessarily inconsistent with the findings in our report, because DOH veterinarians and public health sanitarians evaluate conditions in the shelters and the quality of care differently than we did. During their inspections, DOH veterinarians and health sanitarians look at 13 different areas, including floors, washrooms, wards, and infirmaries (many of which were not covered by our audit.) However, just as we did not cover in our audit all the areas that they cover in their inspections, they do not evaluate all of the conditions that we did (for example, how many animals had access to water at the time of the inspection). In addition, their inspections evaluate conditions more generally than we did, resulting in "yes" or "no" answers for conditions such as, "cages washable and clean," and "separate, adequate, clean area provided for sick animals"; in contrast, we counted the number of cages that were soiled, and the number of wards in which healthy and contagious animals were housed together. Lastly, DOH inspections cover a specific point in time, and therefore could not have identified the instances of poor veterinary care, accidental euthanasia, and abuse and neglect that we uncovered through our review of CACC’s records and our surveys of past employees, rescuers and customers. Thus, while DOH’s inspection reports show that DOH has monitored CACC facilities through frequent on-site inspections, they are not comparable to the type of review that we conducted and therefore neither contradict nor are inconsistent with the findings in this report. (In response to this audit, DOH officials used the above-mentioned inspection reports to formally disagree with our finding regarding inhumane conditions. We therefore conducted a more thorough analysis of DOH’s inspection process and reports, and the results of that analysis, which concluded that the process and reports are flawed, are described starting on page ES-11 of this report).

The other two issues worth discussing were raised by CACC. First, CACC’s executive director repeated a prior claim that the mission statement quoted in this report is not CACC’s mission statement. In response, we pointed out that we quoted CACC’s mission statement exactly as it appears on the organization’s website and in its Report 1998 & 1999. Therefore, the mission statement as cited in this report was quoted directly from CACC’s own description of its mission statement. Shortly after the exit conference, CACC’s mission statement was removed from its website.

Second, CACC’s executive director claimed that CACC cannot use volunteers more than it does because of prohibitions imposed by the employees’ union. She stated that she would provide us with correspondence between CACC and the union documenting this fact, as well as with a copy of the union contract. The correspondence she described was never provided, and after reviewing the union contract, our attorneys concluded that the contract is very clear regarding this issue and directly contradicts the executive director’s claim that CACC is limited in its use of volunteers. Specifically, the contract gives CACC the unlimited right to utilize volunteers as it sees fit, as long as the use of volunteers does not cause the layoff of any regular employee or prevent the replacement of a regular employee who leaves or is terminated.

Recommendations

The audit resulted in 41 recommendations, the most significant of which are summarized below.

• While additional funding will most likely be impossible to obtain in the near future, given New York City’s financial situation after the September 11^th attack on the World Trade Center, we recommend that, if it ever becomes possible, DOH consider amending CACC’s contract to fund the hiring of additional kennel attendants and veterinary staff.

CACC should take the following steps, and/or DOH should monitor CACC to ensure that these steps are taken:

• Ensure that: dogs are walked; all animals have constant access to water; animals’ cages are kept clean; animals are put only into dry cages; and cats, dogs, contagious, and nursing animals are kept in separate areas.
• Investigate the possibility of obtaining additional interns through area colleges to supplement staff in providing animal care.
• Immediately terminate any employee who physically abuses any animal.
• Provide more supervision of CACC employees, particularly the kennel attendants, who are directly responsible for the care of the animals.
• Provide additional training on and increase supervision of the euthanasia process to ensure that all control procedures are followed.
• Quickly terminate any veterinary staff members who are found to be unqualified or who consistently provide poor care.
• Evaluate the performance of all veterinary technicians and determine whether there is an advantage to employing licensed technicians. If there seems to be an advantage, CACC should consider hiring only licensed veterinary technicians in the future.
• Implement a process to monitor and evaluate the performance of contracted veterinary clinics.
• Ensure that the photographs posted by CACC on Petfinder are clear and attractive.
• Increase CACC’s outreach, public education, and advertising efforts. CACC should speak to other shelters to obtain ideas, and pursue relationships with local media outlets and enter into partnerships with private companies willing to sponsor special events or advertising campaigns.
• Increase CACC’s participation in adoption events and expand its off-site adoption program.
• Develop a formal customer service quality assurance program as required by the contract with DOH.
• Work more cooperatively with rescue groups interested in helping CACC place animals. CACC should ensure that all employees understand the importance of maintaining good working relationships with these groups, that they treat rescuers professionally and courteously, and that they return calls from rescuers in a timely fashion.
• Make the PET application process less cumbersome and less paper intensive, and inform rescue groups by letter that: CACC is implementing the PET program incrementally; it plans to eventually provide PET applications to all rescue groups; and it will not stop working with those rescue groups that have not yet received PET applications.
• Ensure that all animals initially given a "4" status are re-evaluated for temperament.
• Cease the practice of limiting the adoption of older animals.
• Use its Bronx and Queens receiving centers to show adoptable animals until the opening of the planned full-service shelters in the Bronx and Queens.
• Plan and implement additional fundraising efforts. CACC should contact other non-profit animal shelters to obtain ideas regarding effective fundraising methods.
• Aggressively increase its number of volunteers through a stronger recruitment effort aimed at individuals interested in the care of animals. CACC should consider enlisting the aid of rescue groups and other area animal welfare organizations in recruiting volunteers.
• Expand duties available to volunteers to include more direct animal care, such as dog walking, cage cleaning, and cat grooming.

We also recommend that:

• CACC’s board of directors and executive management convene to discuss the organization’s mission, to determine whether the current mission statement accurately reflects CACC’s purposes, and to reconcile its organizational and management philosophy with its contract and stated mission. If the board and executive management determine that the current mission statement is accurate, then they must develop a plan for the organization to change direction and bring its operations in line with the pursuit of all of the goals in its mission statement. If the board and management decide that they are not interested in pursuing all of the goals in CACC’s mission statement, they should change the mission statement accordingly, and negotiate any necessary amendments to CACC’s contract with DOH.
• CACC’s board of directors should comply with the Open Meetings Law and ensure that all board members, officers, and invited speakers speak audibly so that members of the public who attend the board meetings may hear what is said.
• DOH should amend CACC’s contract to include specific and measurable performance requirements and/or standards for all appropriate service-related areas.

Agency Response

The matters covered in this report were discussed with officials from CACC and DOH during and at the conclusion of this audit. A preliminary draft report was sent to DOH officials on December 31, 2001, and a revised pre-draft was distributed and discussed at an exit conference held on March 4, 2002. On April 19, 2002, we submitted a draft report to DOH with a request for comments. We received a written response from DOH on May 6, 2002.

In its response, DOH stated that it "disagrees with the report’s main findings: that animals are not sheltered under humane conditions and often receive poor veterinary care." However, DOH agreed with our adoption-related findings stating, "CACC has not been as successful as hoped in the area of increasing adoptions." DOH also agreed with our other findings, stating that its own on-site monitoring, which was expanded in July 2001, "to include a comprehensive review of all contractual requirements . . . has found deficiencies in CACC’s . . . customer service, volunteer program and education and outreach efforts." DOH also committed itself to increasing its site visits to four times a year, effective July 2002. DOH’s response is discussed in detail in the body of this report and is included in its entirety as an Addendum to this report.

DOH also appended a 28-page response from CACC to its own response. In its lengthy response, CACC took strong exception to nearly every aspect of the audit’s methodology and conclusions. Specifically, CACC alleged that:

"Many of the conclusions reached in this audit are not credible, as evidenced by: the antagonistic tone throughout the audit; the use of words and phrases of an inflammatory nature; the failure to use experts in areas requiring specialized knowledge; the slanting of the data presented; the inadequacy of the sample taken; the failure to make explicit the significant differences between CACC and the organizations with which it is compared in the audit; the failure to credit CACC’s significant accomplishments; and the use of anecdotal information from unnamed sources holding clear potential for bias against CACC."

Moreover, CACC alleged that there was "political influence in the audit process," claiming that the audit was "motivated by the political interest of [former Comptroller Alan Hevesi]." CACC further alleged that "the audit was conducted during the Mayoral campaign in which Alan Hevesi was a candidate who supported the special interest group’s call for the abolition of CACC." CACC’s executive director also stated, "CACC is surprised . . . that Comptroller William Thompson could be so ill served by his staff both in reporting and the issuance of this audit; one that was clearly motivated by the political interests of his predecessor."

In addition, CACC claimed that the audit was not conducted in accordance with GAGAS. Specifically, CACC alleged that:

"The auditors established their own criteria for evaluating the performance of CACC ignoring technical standards for care . . . [The Comptroller’s Office] assigned auditors with no known skills or knowledge in the areas of humane animal care, veterinary medicine or labor law . . . samples were neither random or statistically significant . . . the subject audit is neither objective nor balanced . . . [auditors] failed to provide a reasonable perspective for the findings they recorded as they have repeatedly failed to provide the proper context for the frequency of occurrences . . . four different scopes suggest that the auditors knowingly ignored the Governmental Auditing Standards relating to audit planning and that CACC was not afforded proper due process."

Obviously, there is a stark contrast between the audit’s findings and CACC’s response, and in order to present and discuss fully CACC’s position on the matters presented in this audit, a separate section has been added at the end of this report entitled "Discussion of CACC’s Response." The Comptroller’s Office, after carefully reviewing CACC’s response, has concluded that CACC’s arguments are invalid, that they are based upon distortions and misrepresentations, and that the audit’s findings should not be changed. The full text of CACC’s response is included along with DOH’s, as an Addendum to this report. The "Discussion of CACC’s Response" begins on page 73.

As stated earlier, DOH disagreed with the audit’s "main findings: that animals are not sheltered under humane conditions and often receive poor veterinary care." In support of that position, DOH argued:

"These findings are contrary to observations by DOH Veterinarians and Sanitarians. DOH has been closely monitoring the operations of CACC, the contractor that provides services to the City under contract, since its inception, January 1, 1995. From that date through April 2002, DOH has closely monitored CACC’s contract performance and conducted over 1,200 inspections of CACC facilities. During these inspections, DOH did not observe evidence of inhumane treatment or substandard veterinary care cited in your audit. Although the audit notes on pages ES7 and ES8 that differences in review methodologies may have yielded different results, the training and experience of the DOH staff who conducted these inspections provide us with a high degree of assurance that the animals in CACC’s charge are appropriately cared for. While DOH did not see evidence of such deficiencies, the Department is nonetheless concerned by the audit’s findings.

"During the audit period from January 1, 1999 through June 30, 2001, DOH conducted over 531 inspections of CACC facilities. Copies of these inspection reports were provided to the Comptroller’s Office at the March 4, 2002 meeting. . . . These inspections included frequent unannounced visits that investigated the physical plant, ward conditions, humane treatment, rabies observation of biting animals, compliance with applicable laws and regulations, record keeping and other activities that affect shelter operations. During site visits, DOH Veterinarians inspected all caged animals and reviewed medical records.

"Based on the observations by DOH Veterinarians and Sanitarians during these inspections, we disagree with the findings of poor veterinary care and inhumane treatment reported in the audit. Specifically, DOH did not observe any cases of poor veterinary care, contagious animals being caged in general wards with healthy animals or inhumane treatment during 531 inspections conducted by DOH Veterinarians and other staff during the audit period. The auditors may have drawn other conclusions about the handling of contagious animals based on a misunderstanding of how cage cards are used by CACC. In addition, we also monitor animal bite cases and found no instances where these animals were accidentally euthanized."

The intent of this audit was to review CACC’s compliance with its contract’s requirements, not DOH’s monitoring of CACC. That is why only a cursory review was made of the 531 inspection reports that DOH provided, and why that review concluded (as stated in the "Notes to Exit Conference" section of this report) that there was no apparent inconsistency between DOH’s inspection results and ours, mostly because of apparent differences in the inspection methodology. However, in its response, DOH uses those reports as the foundation for its disagreement with our findings regarding inhumane conditions, and we therefore conducted a more thorough analysis of those DOH reports in order to evaluate the validity of DOH’s argument. The results of our analysis lead us to conclude that if those inspection reports are truly reflective of DOH’s monitoring of CACC, then DOH’s monitoring process has significant weaknesses, as discussed further below.

• No Criteria For Inspection Ratings: When DOH officials first argued at the audit exit conference that its own inspection reports showed a different picture of shelter conditions than ours, we asked them what criteria their staff use when they conduct inspections and enter "yes" or "no" ratings on the inspection sheets. DOH officials could not provide any specifics on what would lead their staff to answer "yes" or "no" to each of the questions on the inspection reports, and stated that they do not have written criteria or standards for use by the DOH Veterinarians and Sanitarians when they perform such inspections. It is therefore clear that the DOH inspection reports are subjective in nature and may not be a reliable source to illustrate shelter conditions. (See Appendix III for a sample inspection report.)

• Inspection Reports Indicate Near Perfect Performance: Each of the 531 inspection sheets that DOH gave us contains 13 rating categories (e.g., "Floors," "Washrooms," "Wards," and "Infirmary") and those categories include a total of 37 "yes/no" questions (e.g., "Cages washable and clean" in the "Wards" category), for a total of 19,647 questions on the 531 reports. Of those 19,647 total questions, 18,216 had an accompanying "yes/no" entry (some were left blank), and of those 18,216 with an entry, 17,855, i.e., 98 percent, were answered "yes," indicating a near perfect performance.

Of even greater interest were the answers to the seven questions in the "Wards" category and the two questions in the "Operations" category, questions that are most similar to the areas tested by the auditors. These questions included: "Cages not overcrowded"; "Cages washable and clean"; "Cages intact"; "Animals in appropriate cages"; "Clean, appropriately filled cat litter pans provided"; "Temperature appropriate"; "Ventilation adequate"; "Veterinary protocols adhered to"; "Food protocols adhered to." Of the 3,717 questions in the "Wards" category, 3,536 had an accompanying "yes/no" entry, and of those 3,536 with an entry, 3,528, i.e., 99.8 percent, were answered "yes," indicating a close-to-perfect rating. Equally astonishing is that 100 percent of the 907 questions with entries in the "Operations" category were all answered with a "yes", indicating a perfect rating.

What makes such inspection report results even more dubious, however, is the context in which they were derived. On the one hand, the audit determined that CACC’s performance was deficient in many areas, and DOH agreed, stating that "DOH monitoring has found deficiencies in CACC’s adoption process, customer service, volunteer program and education and outreach efforts." On the other hand, DOH argues that such an organization, that is widely known to be under-funded and under-staffed, that does poorly in terms of recruiting volunteers, that needs to improve customer relations and fund raising, and whose adoption efforts need improvement, otherwise performs perfectly in terms of treating animals humanely and providing appropriate veterinary care. We are not convinced.

• Other Obvious Flaws in the Inspection Reports: When reviewing the 531 reports provided by DOH, we noted that 932 of the 19,647 questions were not answered at all and were left blank: specifically, in the "Wards" category, 181 questions were not answered, and in the "Operations" category, 121 questions were not answered. This indicates that these areas were not evaluated during the inspections. In addition, the DOH inspector did not sign 39 of the 531 inspection reports, and the reviewer did not sign 31 of the 531 inspection reports.

• Likely Advance Announcements of Inspections: One of the most disturbing outcomes of our review of DOH’s inspection reports, and one that casts even more doubt upon their validity, is the fact that some of the former CACC employees we were able to contact during this review stated that they knew of the DOH inspections ahead of time and took special steps to prepare for them.

We were able to contact four of the former employees we identified through CACC personnel files (these people stopped working for CACC between December 2000 and June 2001) and five of the former employees who either contacted us or whom we contacted as part of the background research for this audit, to ask them whether they knew of inspections in advance. Three of these nine former employees stated that they knew when inspections were soon to occur. One stated: "When we were expecting inspectors, we stepped it up a little—did a little more than normal in terms of cleaning up the kennels, washing down the halls, disinfecting, etc. . . . The manager would make it aware to me that inspectors were coming. I would have to inform all kennel staff, and there were times when I would ask additional staff to stay on or come in." He went on to state: "There were also surprise inspections, which we were notified about on the morning of. With these we had to run around to do everything, make calls to get additional people in, do everything in a hurry."

The second person stated that, in addition to the fact that the shelter staff knew of and prepared for inspections ahead of time, once the inspector arrived, "He would go to the manager’s office first for an hour or so, and the foreman would go around to make sure that everything was ready."

The third person recalled a few inspections that the shelter staff knew about beforehand. She stated that the staff were instructed to "pull it together," and that on the day of the inspection, management scheduled more people to be at work to take care of the kennel areas.

In summary, we believe that the evidence of animal mistreatment that we found during the course of this audit supports our conclusion that inhumane conditions existed, in circumstances we describe, at CACC’s shelters. We do not believe that the evidence that DOH provided to refute our findings is credible. This audit supports its finding of inhumane treatment on real documents found at CACC itself, and cites instances of inhumane animal treatment, accidental euthanasia and substandard veterinary care based upon CACC’s own documents. We found such documents in the personnel files maintained at CACC’s administrative office and in the disciplinary action notices, notes-to-files, and managers’ logbooks kept at the shelters. As mentioned in the "Audit Limitations" section of this report, we had only limited access to these documents; therefore, it is very likely that there are more instances that we could not uncover. In its response, DOH stated that it "does not agree with the findings of inhumane treatment and substandard veterinary care," but never addresses the hard evidence we provide in the audit.