Profits or pets?
Volunteers and veterinarians are upset about the S.F./SPCA's ambitious and ethically questionable expansion plans.

By Corbett Miller

THE CATS AND dogs of the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are victims in a controversy that pits the nonprofit's board of directors and senior staff members against its legions of volunteers and a large portion of the city's veterinary community over the nonprofit's role in the for-profit veterinary world.

Critics charge that despite recent staff layoffs and program cuts – 14 employees were laid off May 2, and programs such as Law and Advocacy, Doggy Day Care, and Feral Cat Outreach have been drastically cut – the board of directors is using its fundraising skills, and the management team is using staff energies, in a way that veers from the famous institution's mission statement, "dedicated to saving homeless dogs and cats."

At the heart of the dispute is the S.F./SPCA's highly touted $15 million Roberts Medical Center, a state-of-the-art 24-hour vet hospital slated to open in January 2005. For the city's pets, Roberts sounds great, but there is a catch: Roberts is being built by a nonprofit to house for-profit veterinarians.

According to Dr. Jeffrey Proulx, S.F./SPCA director of veterinary services, the Roberts center will be run similar to nonprofit human hospitals: for-profit veterinarians will pay the S.F./SPCA rent and utility and overhead bills based on their initial investment.

Bennett Weiner, chief operating officer of nonprofit-watchdog group Wise Giving Alliance, said the blueprint for Roberts is neither new nor problematic, as long as the S.F./SPCA follows some basic guidelines. "The revenue-generating program cannot become the main purpose of the organization, but other than that, there is certainly nothing wrong with charities engaged in creating revenue."

But even if it's legal, some say the arrangement is a mistake.

New mission?

As a nonprofit dedicated to saving as many pet lives as possible, the S.F./SPCA under president Richard Avanzino, who served from 1976 to 1999, was the recognized world leader in the "no-kill" movement, forging a reliable working agreement with the city's Animal Care and Control (ACC) to save as many treatable cats and dogs as possible and to find them homes. During Avanzino's tenure, San Francisco became the safest city in the country for homeless pets, with an 80 percent save rate.

Toward the end of Avanzino's term, and with the financial help of PeopleSoft founder David Duffeld, the S.F./SPCA took its adoption program to another level and built Maddie's Pet Adoption Center. Maddie's is a wildly luxurious pet shelter, where most critters get their own "condo," often replete with a TV, furniture, and window viewing perches.

But according to many longtime volunteers (who only agreed to speak with the Bay Guardian on the condition of anonymity), when Avanzino left, so did many of the great things the S.F./SPCA had worked so hard to establish. "The administration thinks the SPCA got it's reputation from Maddie's, but that's simply not true. The SPCA got it's reputation from Avanzino and the no-kill movement," said one volunteer who has clashed with management in recent years.

"I've watched the S.F./SPCA fall apart over the last three or four years," said another volunteer who's been with the organization for more than 17 years. "I don't think this hospital is the way to go. It's not going to be for low-income people and treatable homeless pets."

Roberts Medical Center is the brainchild of former S.F./SPCA president Ed Sayres – who left in May to head New York City's American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – and his replacement, Daniel Crain. "Roberts will be an elite hospital, offering revenue streams to be diverted into free programs," Crain told the Bay Guardian. He also said the for-profit vets working at Roberts will be required to dish out services for the city's poor and indigent pet owners, but this agreement has not been made official with any contract.

The new facility may sound like a great way to restore some of the S.F./SPCA's diminished funding, but volunteers say the fundraising campaign for Roberts has done nothing but hurt the animal population by sucking money out of already cash-strapped programs. "Bottom line is its starting to impact the animals," said a volunteer who's been with the feral cat program for more than five years. "The feral cat program is not a moneymaker, and we're worried that it's next on the chopping block."

Outside concerns

Concerns with the economic state of the S.F./SPCA and the decision to build a high-end, for-profit hospital are not restricted to the volunteers. Prompted by local vets, the California Veterinary Medical Association is looking into the legality of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization building a for-profit facility, as well as questioning the need for another 24-hour vet hospital.

Contrary to information in the S.F./SPCA's expensive advertising campaign for Roberts, according to CVMA executive director Dick Schumacher, the most rapidly growing segment of veterinary care are the specialists the S.F./SPCA claims cannot be found in the Bay Area. "To say that pet owners have to go to UC Davis to get this kind of care is disingenuous at best," Schumacher said. "There are many, many specialists in the Bay Area."

In fact, San Francisco Vet Specialists, a group of specialty veterinarians ranging from oncologists to acupuncturists, is preparing to open its own 24-hour animal hospital this August at 18th and Alabama Streets, just blocks away from the future site of Roberts.

John Gruntfest of San Francisco Vet Specialists said the S.F./SPCA has been anything but forthcoming with the rest of the vet community about the Roberts center and the jump to the for-profit world. "That's great if they want to build a new hospital, but they're using the non-profit tax shelter for a for-profit operation," Gruntfest said. "Our main concern is that the S.F./SPCA is not fulfilling their mandate, specifically to save indigent pets."

This air of ambiguity toward the Roberts's business model is apparent in a letter from the CVMA to Proulx obtained by the Bay Guardian. In the letter, the CVMA asks Proulx for "a further description of the specific nonprofit and for-profit activities that will be carried out by and within the Roberts Center, as well as a further description of the nature of the partnership between the Roberts Center and for-profit individuals/entities." This could be difficult for Proulx to produce, since according to Crain, there has been no written agreement between the S.F./SPCA and the for-profit vets concerning services.

While the S.F./SPCA's internal strife intensifies, Pets Unlimited, an independent nonprofit animal shelter and hospital, has been picking up its slack, most notably taking over the after-hour veterinary contract with ACC. Actually, Pets Unlimited, with the largest vet hospital in the Bay Area, adopts out more cats and dogs than any other local organization, its executive director Scott Anderson told the Bay Guardian. With Maddie's having opened in 1998, this is no small feat for the considerably lesser-known Pets Unlimited.

Dog-eat-dog world

Heated competition between vets in a declining economy may explain some of the animosity toward the Roberts center coming from local vets, but it fails to explain the fear that many S.F./SPCA volunteers feel about speaking out against alleged mismanagement.

Recently, some volunteers have been trying to organize a volunteer council, giving the more than 900 devoted animal lovers a voice to present their concerns to the board of directors and Crain. But according to the Bay Guardian's sources, volunteer coordinator Tina High has generally sided with management over the volunteers.

High told the Bay Guardian she hopes the volunteers don't leave over the Roberts center, but she sounds more like a board of directors spokesperson than a volunteer coordinator when it comes to the formation of a volunteer council. "We have a fabulous board of directors," High said. "I love the volunteers and would do this for free, but I don't see why we need a volunteer council."

Regardless of how the volunteers feel they are treated, business competition between veterinarians, management egos, and tax breaks, the bottom line of the S.F./SPCA controversy is what's best for the animals. "My one hope is that they make good use of every donated dollar," Pets Unlimited's Anderson said.

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