At its May 23, 2023, meeting the Board of Supervisors referred the Contra Costa Animal Services Department (CCAS) to the Public Protection Committee (PPC) to provide an update on its center operations. The update would inform the Board and the public of CCAS’s operational performance measures, including animal shelter intake and outcomes.
On July 3, 2023, the Department presented the animal shelter’s challenges, which other animal welfare organizations share both statewide and nationally. The pressing issue CCAS presented was the limited capacity to serve a growing animal shelter population. During public comment, members of the public shared their needs and concerns around CCAS’ lack of overall animal services within the County, and especially the lack of spay and neuter services in the community.
The PPC requested that CCAS return to its next meeting on August 7, 2023, with a draft CCAS proposal for Measure X funding and strategies to address the following areas:
- Increasing public access to low cost spay and neuter clinics,
- Building more robust foster and adoption programs, and
- Increasing CCAS community adoption and vaccine events
The Committee also requested additional information on how much the cities currently pay, the names of the rescue and community partners, which community partners and outside agencies provide spay and neuter services, data on the live intakes and outcomes for dogs, and strategies to identify additional grants or funding through Measure X and city and community partnerships.
The Animals Adopted to Groups reports included in Attachment A of this staff report provide detailed data for calendar years 2021 and 2022, as well as data collected for the period January 1, 2023, through June 30, 2023.
CCAS maintains monthly animal shelter performance reports on its public website, which include intake and outcome data, live release rates, length of stay, medical services performed by type, and field services by type. These monthly reports can be found at: https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/6820/Performance-Reports |
Ensuring that the Contra Costa County community is aware of, and has access to, the County’s full range of animal services is of the utmost importance. As such, CCAS has considered the feedback provided by PPC at its July 3, 2023, meeting, identified additional strategies to enhance services of greatest need and demand, and incorporated partnerships with community and business organizations. The following strategies address accessibility to low-cost spay and neuter clinics, increasing city and community partnerships, and additional funding sources to support program expansions. Funding details are included in Attachment B of this staff report, and cover expanding on and creating new CCAS programs and partnerships that address the following three areas of focus.
SPAY AND NEUTER ACCESSIBILITY:
CCAS identified 10 “low cost” spay and neuter organizations in Contra Costa County and Alameda County to compare “owned animal” spay/neuter (S/N) prices to 19 private veterinarian offices that represented different areas in the County. It was found that “low cost” generally represented 63-77% less cost than a private veterinarian practice.
To address the public’s concerns shared about the Animal Fix Clinic (AFC) organization’s S/N prices being higher than expected, CCAS spoke with AFC Management. It was found that community cats represent 45% of the current patients seen. The price for a community cat surgery is $45 which is less than it costs the AFC to provide that surgery (e.g., $150). The majority of owned animals that are altered by AFC fall under their Tier One (1) price list. Many of those costs are subsidized by voucher programs and other funding subsidies. Overall, the AFC Tier One prices are a third (1/3) of the average cost compared to a private clinic price for S/N services in Contra Costa County and less than some other “low cost” clinics such as: Valley Humane, EBSPCA, and ARF.
CCAS has budgeted two (2) new S/N projects for Fiscal Year 2023/24.
- Spay Neuter and Wellness Program - $150,000 allocation from Animal Benefit Fund donations.
This program will make S/N, vaccinations, and microchips more affordable and accessible to County residents. CCAS will accomplish this by establishing partnerships and developing programs to reach the areas of greatest need, targeting the species/breeds of animals most likely to be housed in the shelter, and supporting healthy community cats through TNR/RTF (trap-neuter-return / return-to-field) and Working Cat Adoptions. This initiative includes, but is not limited to, Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), Spay/Neuter Voucher programs, Mobile Spay/Neuter programs.
- Increasing Low-Cost Spay and Neuter Access Program - $100,000 UC Davis, California For All Animals Grant
The purpose of this program is to expand S/N for owned dogs and cats and unowned community cats. CCAS will work with community partners to increase access to low-cost S/N services for County residents. The goal would be to facilitate up to 50 clinics in a 12-month period (by one agency or multiple agencies) with 20 to 25 low-cost S/N surgeries per clinic. These clinics will be mobile or conducted at existing vet hospitals or the CCAS medical center on days where those business are closed.
In addition to the new funded projects, CCAS recommends additional support to further increase the public’s access to low-cost S/N and vaccine services, as follows:
- Explore the remodel of the current shelter and clinic to allow the clinic to be operated “solely” to provide affordable spay/neuter and vaccine services for Contra Costa County residents with a focus on animals representing the highest at-risk populations entering the shelter in the last five (5) years through General Fund, City Fees, other revenues and remodel funded through a proposal for ARP Funds (i.e., German Shepards, Huskies, Pit Bulls, Chihuahuas, and Community Cats).
- Continue to support Contra Costa Humane and the International Veterinary Outreach (IVO) to utilize the CCAS S/N Clinic on days the Department is closed to provide S/N services for County animals with a focus on large breed dogs from our targeted zip codes (94801 and 94565), which will have no budget impact to the Department.
- Continue to utilize Animal Benefit Fund (ABF) funding to provide public S/N and vaccines services by funding local animal welfare nonprofits to provide County residents affordable S/N services from private veterinarians in their communities through a S/N voucher or other service program.
CCAS COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT
CCAS was successfully awarded a $200,000 UC Davis grant for Community Engagement. This funding will allow the Department to update its strategic plan by assessing current program service levels, identifying socially vulnerable areas, and supporting collaborative partnerships to increase access to certain services and develop pet ownership support programs.
The UC Davis grant will help inform CCAS on community engagement needs, however, the Department recognizes the need for additional strategies to expand and implement community outreach and engagement programs. CCAS is committed to participate in more offsite programs such as adoption and humane education events as detailed in 2023 Community Engagement Events & Mobile Adoptions Tracking report (Attachment C). The report is a list of events CCAS has participated in and is scheduled to attend regularly.
CCAS has also developed an Outreach and Engagement Plan (Attachment D), which details strategies inclusive of targeting areas with higher demands and where geographic or accessibility challenges exist. The plan also details the means of accomplishing service expansions with the support of local veterinarians, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and city partners.
The targeted outcomes of expanding community outreach and engagement services include:
- Increasing awareness about the benefits of adopting shelter animals to reduce the length of stay and over population at shelters,
- Providing responsible pet and humane education to prevent pet owners from surrendering their animals to a shelter and to also reduce the potential of people abandoning their pets, and
- Reducing dog bites and animal abuse by offering more humane education classes, while also teaching the public to be compassionate when providing care for animals.
ADDITIONAL FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PARTNERSHIPS
CCAS’ Fiscal Year 2023/24 budget includes revenue increases of $968,000 from contract cities and $477,000 in County general purpose revenue. The increased appropriations will fund 5 additional positions and allow CCAS to better serve the community with improved shelter and field services. Although this fiscal year is the second year of a new service agreement structure with 18 partner cities, the County continues to bear a disproportionate cost of animal control services. CCAS operations continue to receive support from the Animal Benefit Fund for additional medical services, humane education, shelter intervention, and S/N and wellness programs expansions.
The additional revenues and recently awarded grants will support CCAS’ efforts to expand service delivery beyond animal control services, but additional funding is needed to improve and expand appropriate veterinary medical care and other programs. As such, CCAS’s goal is to apply for and receive Measure X funding to create a 3-year Pet Health Initiative Pilot Program to benefit County residents, their pets, and the local veterinary business community. CCAS has prepared a draft Measure X proposal (Attachment E), which the Department believes will have the following positive impact on animals and County residents:
- Remove barriers in vulnerable communities by targeting veterinary services outreach, (e.g., mobile S/N, vaccinations, micro-chip clinics).
- Provide health benefits by reducing disease in pets, reducing surrender or abandonment of pets due to medical costs, and increasing pet longevity, which result in a positive impact on human health and public safety.
- Provide economic benefits via cost savings for families and individuals with pets.
- Provide social benefits since pets have a positive impact on human life expectancy, increased social interaction, and improved public safety.
CCAS’s Measure X proposal requests three annual allocations of $1,273,000 for a total funding ask of $3,819,000. Specific Measure X funding amounts to support additional S/N, animal enrichment, shelter intervention, community outreach, humane education, vaccine/microchip, and pet retention programs are shown in Attachment B. |