2 days Ago
The head of the San Diego Humane Society said the city of San Diego’s proposed 20% cut to its contract was a devastating blow and that his agency would be unable to provide sheltering and animal control services under such a reduction. Gary Weitzman, the organization’s president and CEO, said Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed $3.5 million budget reduction would result in the elimination of essential services — and could bring an end to the organization contracting with the city, an arrangement in place since 2018.
“I don’t think we have an ability to continue to serve the city of San Diego with a reduction like that,” Weitzman said Wednesday. “Because it can’t be targeted for just one thing or two things — to reduce patrols or the way we are caring for animals. It is really across the board and it’s such a tremendous reduction, we’d actually be unable to continue with the contract.
” Weitzman’s comments came a day after the mayor unveiled a “draft” budget that proposes cutting payments to the Humane Society beginning July 1. The mayor’s plan calls for cutting $112 million in city spending overall. Weitzman said his organization had held multiple meetings with city representatives since January, knowing that the city was facing fiscal pressure.
But he said the size of the proposed cuts announced by Gloria came as a surprise. “We had let them know these cuts would have a profound deleterious effect on our service to the city, and ended those meetings with really a little bit more comfort that anything that traumatic would not happen,” Weitzman said. He said his organization hopes the public will speak out against the proposed cuts.
In the draft budget proposal, city officials said the cut would “affect services like patrols, with further impacts to be determined.” But Weitzman said its services can’t be compartmentalized. “Everything is attached to something else, so their notation to decrease patrols in the city doesn’t really just decrease patrols,” he said.
“We lose officers, we lose dispatch, we lose animal care because the shelter is attached to those patrols.” With fewer officers, he said, there would be more stray animals on the streets, no enforcement of animal laws in communities and no patrols in parks to address off-leash or aggressive animals. He said public safety would be affected.
“A cut of this size would effectively eliminate our entire Humane Law Enforcement operation for the city, as well as significantly threaten the welfare of the more than 20,000 San Diego animals we care for,” he said in a statement. Humane Society officials had proposed changes that would save about $500,000 under its current contract, including suspending park patrols, halting spay-neuter vouchers funded by the city and looking at fee adjustments, but Weitzman said the city didn’t respond to the proposals. The city entered into a 10-year contract with the Humane Society in 2023 after city officials looked into providing the services in-house or finding another contractor.
The Humane Society said it was paid $17.7 million this year, and that was slated to increase to $18.2 million in July.
Services under the contract include sheltering stray, injured or lost animals, reunifying lost pets with owners, facilitating animal adoptions and coordinating and managing the city’s dog licensing program. The agency’s law-enforcement officers investigate alleged cases of animal abuse, cruelty and neglect. Weitzman said the city already gets a type of discount on its services because the organization relies on private donations and contributions to absorb some of its operational costs.
In 2023, the organization increased fees for a number of services, including adoptions, vaccinations and licenses. Adoption fees for an adult dog increased from $100 to $150, although fees can be reduced or waived, a spokesperson said. An annual dog license for a spayed or neutered adult dog was set at $20, up from $18.
Weitzman said the Humane Society enjoys a great relationship with the city of San Diego, and he said the private-public partnership is a model in the U.S. The organization also handles animal services for 12 other cities in the county.
The society’s shelters are committed to not euthanizing any healthy or treatable animal. The agency has faced steep demand for its services in recent years, taking in record numbers of stray and lost animals at its shelters, which at times reach 200% capacity..
