Correspondence - #13 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Orozco, Norma From: Michael Mavrovouniotis < Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2023 12:14 PM To: eComment Subject: Agenda item #13 (August 15, 2023) To keep its costs under control,the city should: [R14] Urge OCAC to reopen the kennels and speed up adoptions. [R6] Pursue the Joint Powers Authority in order to protect its budget in the long-term. While the county makes all the decisions,the cities bear 93%of the costs. The county is indifferent to the consequences of their policies,because the county not footing the bill. It's up to the cities to protect themselves and their taxpayers. During the pandemic,fewer animals were coming into the shelter,mitigating the negative impact of bad policies. But now the numbers are returning to pre- pandemic levels,and the full impact of OCAC's bad policies will fall on the cities. The increase in costs to the cities is driven by the increase in length of stay,which is the consequence of the bad adoption policies. If we compare FY 2021-22 to FY 2018-19,we see that: • The number of animals coming in dropped by 37% • Admin costs increased by 15%. • Net cost per intake increased by 69%. This is not caused by inflation(the Consumer Price Index increased by only 11%). • The cost increase is caused by the fact that the shelter is too slow in getting animals adopted. With each animal staying longer,the shelter is warehousing more animals,and all expenses increase accordingly. This is what the Assistant Director of OC Community Resources(Cymantha Atkinson)wrote on November 14,2018(emphasis added): "[The OCAC director]can fill you in on the essential component that play groups play inaccurate dog evaluation and expedited dog placement.Both these factors decrease length of stay in the shelter which serves our primary goal of providing excellent animal care while simultaneously reducing the financial impact to our partner cities.[The director]can also point to other shelters nationwide that implement this best practice." OCAC forgot its responsibility to the cities and is keeping pandemic-era policies in place. OCAC and the county don't care about the fmancial impact of their bad policies,because they're just passing the costs to the cities. The cities are told the increase is driven by external factors(inflation,intakes)when in reality it's driven by bad policies and bad management. DIRECTLY FROM OCAC STATISTICS FY 2018-19 FY 2021-22 Change Intakes(animals coming in) 14,453 9,113 -37% Shelter Services Count(Total Days of Stay) 198,749 195,239 Shelter Services Cost 5,514,047.46 5,315,838.60 Admin Cost 2,480,780.48 2,852,173.02 Shelter Services Revenue (876,236.30) (1,142,023.31 Animal License Revenue (229,568.73) (233,651.92) Admin Revenue (18,679.41) 5,094.46 DERIVED FROM THE ABOVE FY 2018-19 FY 2021-22 Change STATISTICS Net Cost(excluding License Revenue) 6,834,125 7,296,870 Net Cost per Intake 473 801 69% 2