Council Mulls Shorter (And Possibly Last) Contract with Pasadena Humane Society

The 116-year relationship between the city and the Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA could be ending next year over continued wrangles regarding increased fees the society is charging Pasadena and several other area cities that the nonprofit serves.

The Pasadena City Council on Monday is scheduled to discuss extending the Humane Society’s contract to provide a wide array of animal-control and welfare services – but only for one more year, until June 30, 2021. Historically, the city and the society have worked under contracts of three to five years.

But now, a large fee increase has led Pasadena to consider a “bridge year” contract that “will allow the city to analyze potentially cost-effective and sustainable alternative options for the provision of future animal control services,’’ according to a staff report from the city’s Department of Public Health.

“The need to seek alternative options has arisen because of higher costs proposed by PHS,’’ the staff report said.

Currently, the city pays $1,250,924 a year for the PHS’s services. The society proposed an increase of $715,636 – for a total proposed cost of $1,966,560.

For the bridge-year contract that’s on the table at Monday’s council meeting, the city negotiated an increase of $374,963 – for a total of $1,625,887. That’s the number council members will consider on Monday.

According to the staff report, during that bridge-year contract, the city will consider an array of possible alternatives to the PHS for animal control and welfare, including:

• Partnering with the L.A. County Department of Animal Care and Control.
• Forming a joint powers authority with other affected cities for animal control.
• Creating a division within the city to handle animal-control issues.
• Developing a hybrid approach of two or more of those options.
• Continuing to contract with PHS.

State law requires cities to maintain animal-control shelter systems and rabies-control programs. PHS has done that for Pasadena — along with providing services for adoption, veterinary care, pickup and impounding of stray animals and other services – since 1904.

The flap over the proposed fee increases first arose last September, when the city managers of eight area municipalities served by the PHS, including Pasadena, sent a letter to the society condemning the proposed hikes and questioning the PHS’s transparency.

In that letter, the managers – including Pasadena City Manager Steve Mermell — said their efforts to get answers about proposed increases of up to 500 percent “have not been fruitful.”

Besides Mermell, the signers of that 2019 letter included the city managers of Arcadia, Bradbury, La Cañada-Flintridge, Monrovia, San Marino, Sierra Madre and South Pasadena.

As reported at the time, Arcadia was asked to pay $525,000 annually, up from $90,000. La Cañada-Flintridge’s proposed fees went from $40,000 to $146,00; Bradbury’s proposed bill jumped from $4,700 to $20,415.

The society’s then-new president and CEO, Dia DuVernet, who started her position last June 10, defended the proposed hikes at the time — saying an outside accounting firm had done a cost analysis that justified the increases.

“We spend almost all of our $13 million budget providing services to the cities we are contracted to serve. However, under the current contracts, the fees cover less than 25 percent of our budget,” DuVernet said in a written statement at the time.

However, according to documents obtained last year by Pasadena Now, the organization is actually operating in the black.

An IRS filing for the society covering 2017 showed revenue of $12.7 million and expenses of $10.7 million. Donors are another source of the society’s revenues.

“We noted to her (DuVernet) that the public filings of the PH show a surplus of revenue over expenses for several years and questioned why the need for so large an increase in one year,” city spokesperson Lisa Derderian said last year.

Derderian said the city requested the full study conducted by the Humane Society with all of the data and assumptions that justify the fee increase.

According to the Public Health Department memo that accompanies the agenda for this Monday’s council meeting, matters have not gotten much clearer in the eyes of Pasadena officials since last year.

“Last year, PHS proposed dramatic cost increases for animal control services to the city, as well as to the cities of Arcadia, Bradbury, La Cañada-Flintridge, San Marino, Sierra Madre and South Pasadena,’’ the memo says.

“For Pasadena, the proposed increase was $715,636 (57 percent) above the current cost of $1,250,924, for a total proposed cost of $1,966,560. The proposed increases effectively doubled the annual cost for these services across the seven cities from $1,592,594 to $3,088,384.

“The (proposed) cost increases were the result of a new policy direction taken by the PHS Board, based on their own internal study and a question as to whether PHS wished to even continue delivering this type of service. PHS was not open to discussing the policy direction or its implications, nor to sharing the full study.’’

What’s more, the staff report again questions the society’s transparency.

“In response, staff from the group of affected cities met with PHS in an attempt to understand PHS’s methodology and cost basis for the increases,’’ the memo says. “Despite this meeting, the methodology utilized by PHS has not been clear and staff has not been able to establish a cost basis for the proposed increases.’’

DuVernet did not respond to a phone call from Pasadena Now regarding the latest turn of events.

But last September, she defended the society’s actions.

“I think I’ve tried to be as transparent as possible and tried to reach out to the contract cities,” she said at the time. “I think since the contracts are all different and all being evaluated independently that it’s best to have these conversations one on one with different cities.’’

DuVernet also refuted a statement in the city managers’ September letter that said several local cities “have been given to understand that PHS may no longer consider these animal control and related animal welfare services as a part of its mission.”

“Please let me assure all of you,” she said, “that PHS absolutely wants to continue providing high-quality animal control and care to our contract localities. Compassion and care have been at the heart of our mission since 1903.”