From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:
ATLANTA–Fulton County Animal Control
director Jere Alexander resigned on November 3,
2008 after an exposé of shelter conditions by
Randy Travis of Fox 5 TV. She was succeeded on
an interim basis by 30-year county shelter worker
Herman Swann.
“Alexander worked for Barking Hound
Village, the company that last March acquired
the $2.1 million contract to manage the shelter,”
reported Jeffry Scott of the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:
PHILADELPHIA–Effective on January 1, 2009, the
Pennsylvania SPCA will resume providing animal care and control
services to Philadelphia, after a six-and-a-half year hiatus. But
the new animal care and control contract will pay the Pennsylvania
SPCA $2.89 million, more than three times as much money as the
$790,000 contract that the charity relinquished in 2002.
“The Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Association has
provided services since 2002,” reported Dafney Tales of the
Philadelphia Daily News. “An audit released in October by the City
Controller’s Office found numerous problems with PACCA, including
insufficient software and phone systems, and failing to properly
handle bite cases. PACCA chief executive Tara Derby admitted to
failures, in a written statement, but said that many were
corrected,” and attributed other shortcomings to insufficient
funding.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:
The Best Friends Animal Society in November 2008 laid off 30
personnel, retaining 420. “Our revenues are up about 5% this year
compared to last, but in recent years we have averaged near 20%
annual growth,” chief executive officer Paul Berry told ANIMAL
PEOPLE. “Donors are giving less frequently, because they are
worried about the uncertain economy. We wanted to act now, in
advance of any urgency,” Berry added, “so that we could afford our
folks a proper severance and get them out in the job market now,
before the worst of it hits.” The largest previous layoff by any
major U.S. humane society of which ANIMAL PEOPLE has record came when
the Massachusetts SPCA, with 600 staff, laid off 20 and eliminated
32 vacant positions in 2003. The MSPCA had survived the Great
Depression without laying off anyone, but had earlier all but folded
the Bands of Mercy and Jack London Clubs to cope with the debt
incurred in building Angell Memorial Hospital, opened in 1915. At
peak in 1912 as many as 265,000 Bands of Mercy involved
schoolchildren in educational activities, while the Jack London
Clubs mobilized 750,000 teenaged animal advocates.

Read more