Michael Karlis
San Antonio Animal Care Services is seeking a 13.6% budget increase for fiscal year 2025.
Even though ACS landed a 33% budget increase last year — the largest of any city department — it failed to meet its targeted critical-call response rate along with its goals for number of animals spayed and neutered, number of animals impounded, number of rescues and number of adoptions.
The report of the missed targets came during Tuesday's City Council budget work session. During that meeting, interim ACS Director Michael Shannon tried to sell council members on giving the struggling department another 13.6% budget bump.
Shannon replaced previous ACS Director Shannon Sims after he left in May, ahead of a planned retirement. Sims' abrupt exodus came after he delivered a speech lambasting local animal-rights advocates as "social media terrorists."
The city has been on the hunt for a new ACS director since January. However, despite signing a $30,000 contract with executive search firm Affion Public to help with the search, City Manager Erik Walsh opted not to hire anyone from the existing pool of applicants — at least not yet.
Although ACS failed to meet the majority of its performance goals, the overall trends in Shannon's presentation Tuesday showed the department has made some progress in combating San Antonio's stray- and dangerous-dog problems.
The critical-call response rate jumped from 44% in 2023 to 59% this year — still short of the 64% goal. Shannon said the department needs an additional $1.4 million to hire 14 new first-responders.
"We need to get to 100% of critical calls," Shannon told council on Tuesday. "These 14 first responders will get us to 100% by January 2026."
Moreover, the number of dogs spayed and neutered by ACS jumped from 23,644 last year to 33,080. However, Shannon admitted that's still nowhere near where ACS officials hoped to be at this time.
"It's not as much as we wanted to get to and anticipated," Shannon said. "We're still working through some challenges with our vet community and stuff like that, but we have to get that up higher."
To fix ACS's spay and neuter numbers, Shannon said he wants to use $2.7 million of the proposed budget increase to hire 21 new people to operate spay and neuter clinics. The money also would be used to open new clinics in the Denver Heights and Las Palmas neighborhoods on the East and West sides — areas that have long struggled with roaming dogs.
Although ACS fell short of the majority of its goals, the department handed out 2,000 more citations this year than last year, met its dangerous-dog complaint rate goal of 80% and exceeded its live-release rate goal, Shannon said.
Council is expected to vote sometime next month on the city's multi-billion dollar budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
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