Fact:
MCAS is failing
animals & people
Fact
MULTNOMAH C0UNTY ANIMAL SERVICES IS FAILING ANIMALS & PEOPLE
Multnomah County Animal Services (MCAS) is in a state of complete collapse, as widely reported in multiple media outlets including the Oregonian, OregonLive, Oregon Public Broadcasting and three local television stations.
MCAS FAILS to provide animals with basic needs of food, veterinary care and daily exercise, resulting in the suffering and death of hundreds of dogs and cats. According to its own 2022 records, only 22 of the 4,784 dogs and cats who entered MCAS in 2022 were classifed as unhealthy. But 552 became unhealthy in MCAS’s care and, while some got out alive, 456 were needlessly killed.
MCAS FAILS to provide animals with necessary enrichment and socialization causing serious behavioral issues. As a result, animals may become difficult to adopt and, if adopted, may be returned to the shelter, contributing to higher euthanasia rates.
MCAS FAILS to fully screen applicants, resulting in adoptions to people who do not have the means or ability to care for them. People with criminal histories are also allowed to adopt, subjecting animals to potential abandonment, mistreatment and abuse.
In 2023, MCAS has had record-breaking numbers of adoption returns due to its poorly conceived and administered free pet give-away, inadequate screening and its adoptions of unheathy or unstable animals.
Fact
MULTNOMAH COUNTY CHAIR JESSICA VEGA PEDERSON IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FAILURE OF MULTNOMAH COUNTY ANIMAL SERVICES
Chair Vega Pederson has stated that she only learned of the crisis at MCAS on January 1, 2023, her first day as Chair. The truth is, she has been aware of its desperate state since she first became Commissioner in 2017, after receiving hundreds of reports of agency dysfunction and animal suffering from MCAS staff, volunteers, shelter visitors, auditors, and citizens.
To compensate for her failed leadership, Chair Vega Pederson is attempting to outsource it by convening task forces, focus groups and paying tens of thousands of dollars to hire unqualified consultants like Ron Sarazin of Olympic Consulting, who has no expertise or experience in animal sheltering.
The incompetence of these highly paid consultants has been disastrous for the animals and citizens of Multnomah County. Superficial, band-aid measures are imposed on top of already flawed programs and procedures and only serve to temporarily mask the dysfunction.
Fact
MULTNOMAH COUNTY ANIMAL SERVICES IS LEADERLESS
After blundering through five directors and interim directors since 2015, Multnomah County paid over $10K to an executive recruitment firm in 2022 to find a permanent director with professional animal sheltering experience. Three months later, it chose to make its latest interim Director, (transferred from the Multnomah County Department of Social Services and lacking any animal shelter experience) its permament director.
As a result of her inexperience, MCAS is now outsourcing policy decisions to out-of-state advisors and trade industry groups, using their credentials to defend unproductive, unpopular service changes and cutbacks.
Chair Vega-Pederson seems unaware that hiring an experienced animal services director, who has a record of success in leading publicly-funded animal services agencies, would eliminate the need to hire a band of consultants, consulting with other consultants.
Fact
CHAIR VEGA PEDERSON’S FIVE-MONTH REVIEW IS DOOMED TO FAIL
Chair Vega Pederson's five-month, three-phase-plan to conduct a review of MCAS is not only rife with dithering and delay, but is also utterly devoid of specifics. Even more inadequate is the vague, non-committal goal “to become the shelter that we know we can be.”
The Chair feels no sense of urgency to correct MCAS’s chronic failure to carry out its mission of rescuing and caring for stray, lost, and sick animals as is evident in the five-month-long review process. It’s clear that she is avoiding any commitment to timely, significant change - the longer the process takes, the more likely public and media attention will wane, shifting focus to the next inevitable, County crisis.
Even more shocking is that, despite his previous failure, Ron Sarazin of Olympic Performance, has been retained, at the cost of $200 per hour, to oversee and participate in the Chair’s review. in fact, instead of hiring a professional animal services agency director, with proven expertise and experience, the County will have paid over a quarter of a million dollars to consultants at the end of this process.
Rather than suffer through this lengthy, laborious review, with no specific goals, outcomes, or timelines, we challenge the Chair to display common sense and courage by scrapping the entire plan and making an immediate change. This will require the replacement of the current consultants with a turn-around organization with proven success in rescuing failing publicly funded animal service agencies.
Fact
THE MULTNOMAH COUNTY COMMISSION RUBBER STAMPS MCAS’s BUDGET DESPITE FAILING TO EXERCISE OVERSIGHT OR DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY RESULTING IN WILDLY OUT-OF-CONTROL BUDGETS
The standard, industry-wide number used in determining an animal service agency’s needs in every County budget document (until FY 2023) is shelter intake. As stated in the document itself, “shelter intake is a predictor of shelter staffing and expenditures.” thus serving as a essential guide in the budget request and approval process.
In FY 2019, animal intake was recorded as 5,679 with a budget of $10,489,374 or $1,847 per animal. In FY 2022, animal intake was recorded as 4,441 with a budget of $12,365 or $2,784 per animal.
This represents a cost-per-animal increase of 51%.
Even more disturbing, as referenced above, the number projecting “Animal Intake at Shelter” seen every previous Program #90007 budget document, has suddenly, and without explaination, been deleted from FY 2023 Budget document.
Clearly, Commissioners approved the FY2023 without noticing this blatant omission, approving a budget with no measure to determine actual need. Without this critical intake projection, future budgets will now be allowed to increase uncontrollably without any oversight or accountability.
MCAS MAY BE MISAPPROPRIATING DONATED MONEY IN ITS PUBLIC CHARITY, DOLLY’S FUND
MCAS makes passionate public appeals for donations to Dolly’s Fund which is designated exclusively for medical care for lost and abandoned animals in need of medical treatment. MCAS is the sole beneficiary and administrator of this non-profit fund.
Financial reports obtained through records requests show confusing and inconsistent expense categories suggesting probable misappropriation of these valuable monies donated in good faith by a trusting public. Hundreds of thousands of dollars remain unused in this fund while animals, desperate for medical treatment, suffer. Some tens of thousands of dollars are spent by MCAS leadership on what seems to be completely unrelated expenses like food, travel, insurance, Tri-Met taxes, PERS and other employee benefits. Benefits that should already be covered in MCAS’ operating budget.
It is heartbreaking that MCAS’s managers are so callous and indifferent to animal suffering that they confiscate donated monies intended to relieve it. Gimme Shelter Portland will expose and end this grift, returning Dolly’s Fund to its intended purpose. To save animals.
NOTE: There are four other designated non-profit funds administered and directed by MCAS. It is reasonable to assume that they, too, suffer from the same lax oversight and misappropriation.
Fact
MULTNOMAH COUNTY ANIMAL SERVICES LACKS TRANSPARENCY IN EVERY LEVEL OF IT’S OPERATIONS & PERFORMANCE
MCAS is a notoriously opaque organization, which attempts to deny public access to its inner workings. County Commissioners and MCAS leadership ignore appeals for information and requests for meeting requests.
Questions, suggestions or constructive criticism are perceived as threats and met with either silence or thinly-veiled hositility. These tactics are purposely designed to discourage community and stakeholder involvement.
MCAS uses its Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) as an example of its willingness to take input and direction from community members but only openly and ardent MCAS supporters are chosen to participate. Others are openly excluded.
The only opportunity citizens have to speak directly to County Commissioners is testifying either in person or remotely at a weekly County Board Meeting. Citizens are offered three minutes to state their case, during which Commissioners sit stone-faced and silent, trying desperately to avoid any eye contact.
NOTE: The only way to get actual information on MCAS operations and performance is requesting and paying for public records. Even then the information may be incomplete, inaccurate or non-existent.
MULTNOMAH COUNTY ANIMAL SERVICES FAILS TO PRODUCE & MAINTAIN ACCURATE RECORDS
MCAS has long been plagued with inconsistent and contradictory records. Fiscal year numbers do not match calendar year numbers. Monthly numbers do not add up to yearly numbers. Euthanasia logs are inaccuate and incomplete.
Monthly and yearly records and reports concerning intake, return-to-owner, transfers, adoptions and euthanasia have been proven to be unreliable and inaccurate.
Most alarming, however, is that reporting intake and outcomes (including most notedly euthanasia numbers) has been suspended in 2023.