Community Rallies For Animal Shelter

Residents Rally In Support Of Animal Shelter

At Tuesday’s City Council Meeting, volunteers, staff, and local supporters of the Hayward Animal Shelter gathered in City Hall to raise concern about potential cuts to the part-time Animal Shelter staff. At the November 18th City Council Meeting, the City Council approved a plan to cut $1,000,000 in part time staff across the City as a part of the strategy to balance this year’s budget.

Mayor Salinas Gets Ahead Of It

Before opening Public Comment, Hayward Mayor Mark Salinas addressed the crowd which had gathered to support the Animal Shelter. “The City Council has no plan in front of us regarding the Animal Shelter,” he said. “We have had no discussions about the Animal Shelter. There is no plan regarding the Animal Shelter right now. There are no plans for cuts to the Animal Shelter. There’s no plan for cutting personnel in the Animal Shelter right now.”

He also addressed the tone of the emails he had received regarding this issue. “Many of us up here are animal lovers,” he said. “I love my dog very much. Over the week, I have received emails that have been ugly, that have been quite toxic, that have been mean, have been rather threatening. And it was horrible. We have feelings, too.”

Calls To Undo Council Pay Increases

Some members of the public laid blame on the City Council’s 2023 pay raises for the budget—echoing similar calls by former City Councilmembers on November 18th. “Your hubris and sense of entitlement is a disgrace,” a public commenter named Sheila said. She appeared to place full responsibility on City Council pay increases. “You’re condemning helpless animals to death to line your pockets.”

Another commenter accused the City Council of negligence for not being more on top of the budget. A commenter named Julie said, “You weren’t lied to for two years. It’s your job to verify that the information that you’re getting is correct.” She then called for the City Council to return their raises. “You’re asking everybody else to give back.”

The City Council took a 6.5% pay cut in September in response to the budget, at the same time Appointed Officers and Executive positions took a 4% cut. The City Council pay increases amount to less than 1% of the City’s current deficit.

What Could Happen If Staff Are Cut

According to multiple volunteers and staff at the Hayward Animal Shelter, the Shelter is primarily operated by volunteers and part-time staff. As one commenter pointed out, “The City of Hayward wants to eliminate all Part Time per-diem staff at the Shelter. This amounts to almost half of the shelter staff.” The impact to Shelter programming and operations was outlined in detail by multiple speakers.

Commenters highlighted the fact that there is only one Full-Time Animal Control Officer when there should be three and it already affects Animal Control response times. If per-diem staff were eliminated, there would be an even bigger impact to Animal Control calls for service. “[Per diem staff] fill decades of under allocation of Full-Time employees at the Hayward Animal Shelter,” one commenter said.

It would also heavily impact the TNR (Trap-Neuter/Spay-Release) program for stray cats. A volunteer named Kathy said that the program involves volunteers catching the cats before taking them to regional centers where they are sterilized, given vaccines, flea medication, chipped, and returned to the area where they were found. The Shelter regularly processed 750-800 cats per year and was on track for over 1,000 this year, according to Kathy.

She went on to say that the service has no impact on the General Fund beyond the per diem staffer at the Shelter who coordinates the process. The rest of the process is paid for by both the trapper and donations to the Animal Shelter—each of which covers half of the cost.

But most crucially, many commenters pointed out that eliminating part-time staff would mean hundreds of animals being euthanized. According to Helena B, the shelter has gone for 15 years without euthanizing animals, because there has been staff to give specialized care, behavioral assessments, spay and neuter them, give clinical assessments, socialize them, and support the foster program. She worried about the Shelter “killing animals because of staffing needs” and worried volunteers would “refuse to be part of a kill shelter.”

According to multiple speakers, Mayor Mark Salinas hinted that the City may shift to a regional shelter model like many other local cities in his email response to concerns about cuts. Speakers said that regional models were a step downward and would lead to a reduction in care and use of the programs.

But many, it was clear, loved the Hayward Animal Shelter and the work they do there. One speaker named Edith said, “I hope and pray you are good with your word with [not cutting per diem staff at the shelter]. Hayward Animal Shelter is the best.”

Animal Shelter Staff Express Real Concerns

Jennie Comstock, Animal Service Administrator, acknowledged the difficulty of the budget deficit, but expressed concern about cuts to part time staff. “47% of animal services’ current workforce are temporary per diem employees,” she said.

She expressed frustration with the ambiguous communication from the City around cutting the temporary employees. “Sometimes described as ‘the end of temporary assignments’ sometimes as ‘the end of most temporary assignments’ and sometimes ‘the end of some temporary assignments,’” she said. “[The lack of clarity has] only compounded the fear and uncertainty among our staff, our volunteers, and our community.”

Ms. Comstock pointed out that Animal Services is an essential service and takes no holidays while being short-staffed with a stagnant budget. “Our budget has remained stagnant. Year after year we are given a no-growth budget,” she said. She highlighted how essential community donations are to the Shelter’s functioning.

“I stand before you not to point blame, but to speak of the consequences the elimination of our temporary per diem employees within our animal services division will have on public safety and animal welfare.” She said that hours would have to be cut and euthanasia would increase, and reversing progress on dog and cat intake and the use of euthanasia—both of which have decreased by over 45% in the last 10 years.

A per diem employee, Tracy, who has been with the City of Hayward for 22 years pointed out the important role that the part time employees play at the Shelter. “Our employee classification does not define who we are as employees or the significance that our role plays for the departments that we work for,” she said. “We are employees that are always needed.”

Tracy said that, in many cases, per diem Staff have been with the City for over 20 years and often wear multiple hats: one per diem is officially a Police Records Clerk, but also performs animal behavioral evaluations, and are a fully trained Animal Control Officer. “It would actually cost the City more to get rid of some of your per diems because you’re going to be paying your full-time staff and in some cases your supervisors to work overtime to fulfill the duties,” she said.

Tracy encouraged the City to look carefully at how to make cuts to per diem staff across the City. “Look deeper into the per diems and not just look at us as a line item on a budget report that’s so easily stricken off,” she said.

Angela Andrews Called It

Councilmember Angela Andrews made a public comment from the dais to respond to the gathered supporters of the Animal Shelter. She said that she has visited the shelter to better understand the budget impacts and implied that things weren’t settled yet. “Staff has been looking at cost saving measures and will be revisiting the budget,” she said. She also said she had drafted a plan with Councilmember Julie Roche around the budget, including selling surplus property, grants, and revisiting cuts to Council salaries.

Councilmember Andrews said, “We need to revisit our salaries as the concerns I raised when we approved our salaries are coming to fruition… Even if it’s minimal pressure on the General Fund, we need to cut our salaries.”

Clarification And Taking Accountability

Councilmember Roche also spoke to clarify the situation that the City’s budget is in. “All positions are being looked at because, I just want to be clear, our General Fund is 80—almost 90% salaries and compensation. To the point of ‘Where did the money go?’ everybody got pretty nice raises these last few years,” she said.

She then asked Police Chief Bryan Matthews to confirm that there are no impending cuts to the Animal Shelter, which is technically a part of the Police Department. “We are looking at every full-time and per diem position and balancing that against the need to provide essential services,” he said. “There is not a target on the shelter right now,” Councilmember Roche said.

Councilmember George Syrop again said that the City Council is taking responsibility for the budget issues. “There’s no desire here to abdicate any kind of responsibility,” he said. “The buck does stop with us.” He also said that the City Council is trying to be as transparent about the budget process as possible and still save jobs. “We are in active conversations with our labor partners to try to reduce this deficit as much as possible and protect as many jobs as possible.”

Council Asks For Much During Budget Update

The City Council has added a standing budget item to every agenda in response to the dire fiscal crisis. However, given that City Hall was closed the week of Thanksgiving, there was very little new to report. Finance Director DeAnna Hilbrants said that the finance department has “basically reset the budget.” One of the biggest changes was reducing expected revenue by $6,400,000.

The Finance Department also transferred $9,750,000 of Measure C money—a $50,000 increase from November 18th—and will be preparing a report in on December 16th to raise the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and do outreach to local hotels. All the other things were what had been reported on during the November 18th meeting, which we outlined in a previous article. Mostly Director Hilbrants reiterated that December and January would be spent implementing the plans approved in November, with new revenue strategies coming sometime in February.

Andrews Asks For Reports

Councilmember Angela Andrews had a number of requests for the Finance Department, including: staff reports to review before every meeting, 10 year budget projections, the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budget, 10 year projections for the CIP, 5 year projections for all funds, and outreach plan for the TOT increase, a plan to cut red tape for permitting, work with HARD on La Vista Park to reduce the burden on Measure C, and monthly 10-year projections to the Council Budget and Finance Committee and quarterly 10-year projections to the full City Council.

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“We should be getting 10-year projections as a report,” she said. Assistant City Manager Mary Thomas and Director Hilbrants took note of the requests, while also pointing out that it may take time to get them together and that the Finance Department is doing a lot right now to wrangle the current financial issues.

Councilmember Ray Bonilla Jr. asked if there was some kind of dashboard or barometer for the City Council comparing where the budget should be and where it is at that time. His aim appeared to be an early warning system to get ahead of any issues. This idea resonated with Councilmember Dan Goldstein and Mayor Salinas.

Councilmember George Syrop asked what report was actually reasonable and useful. “I don’t want to be in a position where I’m giving a bunch of direction here that isn’t feasible,” he said. Acting City Manager Addleman said that the Staff will discuss that and report back. Mayor Salinas agreed, requesting a “30,000 mile level” report.

Raising Revenue

Councilmember Francisco Zermeño asked which areas the City is thinking about selling. Assistant City Manager Thomas avoided mentioning any specific parcels, but said that the City is currently getting appraisals but they won’t be ready until Spring. He then pivoted to street vendors—a regular concern of his. “[This is] an area where we’re leaking dollars pretty badly,” he said. Staff said they’d provide him an update in the future.

This past year, Development Services Director Sara Buizer explained some of the issues around street vendor enforcement, primarily around a lack of staff. You can read more about it in our previous report.

Councilmember Ray Bonilla Jr. recalled that Oakland and San Francisco had recently implemented speed cameras and suggested the City explore that as a way to increase revenue. Councilmember George Syrop pointed out that this was a pilot program that the State was allowing a certain number of cities to implement—of which Hayward was not one. However, Staff reiterated that other revenue strategies will be presented in February.

Clarification On Per Diem Plan

Councilmember Julie Roche asked what the strategy was for the City around per diem staff. Staff said that each department is looking at staffing, but that a lot of things are dictated by the Memoranda of Understanding (MOUS or union contracts). “We’re not going to be cutting off our nose to spite our face,” Councilmember Roche said. “We’re not going to get rid of a per diem employee that’s actually going to cost us more money in the back end somewhere.”

However, Acting City Manager Jayanti Addleman clarified. “We haven’t targeted any specific group but we don’t want to guarantee that there won’t be cuts in a specific area,” she said.

Communication Continues To Be Key

Multiple Councilmembers asked for improved communication from Staff around the budget—both to the Council and, more importantly, to the public. “I feel like [the Animal Shelter conversation] could have been prevented with better communications,” Councilmember Bonilla said.

Mayor Salinas agreed with that idea. “Tonight could have been easily avoided if we had a very cogent message,” he said. Assistant City Manager Thomas stressed that there hadn’t been much time for that, despite two weeks having passed. “It’s only been five working days since we presented the budget work session,” she said.

In closing, Mayor Salinas congratulated the City on its transparency. “Transparency is clear, honest open information,” he said. “And I think since this issue has occurred… we have been open, as clear as possible, and we have been honest.” He thanked Staff for enabling the City Council to have those open discussions.