[Music]
do
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good morning it's thursday october 28th
2021 at 905 a.m
we will call this meeting of the animal
service center the messiah valley board
of directors meeting to order
if you wouldn't mind joining me in us
the saying of the pledge of allegiance
all right can we get a roll call please
foreign man is absent boar member
enriquez
president board member gundara
not yet hopefully we'll have her later
board member trujillo is absent board
member flores
here for member beta steve here
and chairman sanchez
president we have quorum
thank you mr thacker are there any
changes to the agenda
yes mr chair also uh councilor ganda
said that she could be available by
phone if needed to make quorum otherwise
she would not be in so would you like me
to make the necessary steps to have her
on the phone or is your current quorum
satisfactory
i think if the board members that are
present can are going to be able to
attend the rest of the meeting i think
we'll be all right without her okay i'll
let her know
the only change to the agenda that i
have is i'm actually here to do the
presentation i apologize um it's not
going to be dr
trina haddam we didn't know with my
surgery if i was gonna be able to make
it but here i am
welcome back sir thank you
okay very good then
we'll move on to the approval of the
minute so if i can get a motion to
approve the minutes of the as
oh i'm sorry thank you okay then i need
a motion to approve the agenda please so
moved
moved by vice chairman suvi second by
flores and the second by councillor
flores
enriquez
yes for member flores
yes board member beta steve yes and
chairman sanchez yes thank you
thank you we do have an agenda now
all right now we're on move on to agenda
item number four which is the approval
of the minutes from the ascmv board
meeting held on september 23rd 2021 if i
can get a motion and a second to approve
so moved
second by flores
moved by vice chairman stevie uh
seconded by councillor flores
can i get a roll call please board
member enriquez yes for member flores
yes board member beta steve yes
chairperson sanchez yes thank you all
right we're moving on now to reports and
presentations um i don't know if mr han
i don't see him here and i will have to
take responsibility for this i had
asked that the cfpp be added onto the
agenda so that we can have some time for
our community partners
i
failed and to directly contact mr han so
if
that will be something i need to do and
so we'll be looking at making sure we
have
either one of our community
partners or rescues
presenting during our november and
december agendas
or and or the ecfpp so that way we can
ensure we're getting some more
additional feedback from our community
members so
then we'll move on to agenda item 5b
which is city and county aco reports
so miss ward good morning
good morning
mary lou ward supervisor for dona ana
county animal control
let me pull up ours
is it not going into a slideshow motor
yeah i'm trying to find it right now
on the bottom i know on the bottom right
there it is yeah
there we go
okay
um for dona ana county
for the month of september of 2021 we'll
go ahead and start with our reported
stray animals
so for
our reported stray animals we had 276
reported stray animals out of those 276
161 animals were picked up
um
dividing those up a little bit further
45 of those were stray cats and 116 of
those were straight up stray dogs
in addition to those we had
20 sick or injured animals that were
picked up seven of those were cats and
13 of those were dogs
we also had 15
owner surrender dogs
here's a chart of our four-year
comparison of our stray animals
so that you can compare the years from
to
and you can see the difference of course
2020 was our
coved year and then you can see up to
this year
looking at our four-year comparison as a
return to owner
september we returned 35 animals in the
field to their owner
again you can
see the numbers at the bottom as a
comparison
compared to last month was 23 this
september was
and then looking at the additional
animals that we picked up we discussed
the ones in red already
and then we also had four animals that
were picked up for
welfare hoads
that could be something like animal
cruelty or something like that
shelter quarantines were three we had
home quarantines were not picked up but
they were done home at their homes so
there was two quarantines and then of
course one was picked up at the
courthole facility
for a quarantine there
this is left in here
as a reference
to give you an example of
what the geodesics are
and then dividing those up by the strays
that were picked up in the geo districts
district one
commissioner sanchez you'll be happy
with this one
which is zero
district two is 32
district three was 28
district 4 was 41
5 was 24 6 was 7 and 7 was 29 that gives
us that 161 total
and then this is just dividing this
getting a little bit further into our
our stats
looking at what we picked up
these were the cats that were picked up
by the districts
if you could look at that you could see
and get the further
numbers of what cats were picked up in
what districts
so we can know what our hot spot areas
are
and then again the same thing we're
looking at our dogs where are the dogs
coming from and these are the strays
these aren't animals that were owner
released or anything like that these are
only the strays
that we're looking at
and then these are the owner release
animals these are the reasons for owner
release we had five that were aggressive
two that were killing livestock one that
was
deemed vicious and they're dangerous
one that was sick
three of them they were unable to care
for the animals
and then three of them they were unable
to keep in their home or their apartment
and for that i'll stand for any
questions
thank you miss ward are there any
questions for miss ward
okay
thank you
officer jimenez good morning good
morning mr chairman members of the board
my name is gino jimenez i'm the animal
control supervisor for city of las
cruces
and i will present to you
our numbers for
september
so i reported strays we had a total of
480 reported strays for that last month
out of those 224 were goa meaning the
officer did not have contact with that
animal
we were able to apprehend a total of 256
animals
216 of those were impounded at the
animal service center 115 of those were
dogs and 101 were cats
we were successful in field rtoing
40 animals back to their owner and we
had and we had 18 that we attempted to
fill rto but were unsuccessful so you'll
see that those numbers are included in
that 256. so that gave us a total of 58
identifiable animals
next slide is our
graph for our three-year comparison
and you can see that we are still in
that trend that
our average
with uh
480.
our low was last year at 370 again as
our coveted year so those numbers are
kind of an exception to the rule we're
getting back on our trend now that some
of the restrictions have been lifted
here is our three-year field rto
comparison
again we're staying within our trend
this year or this month was a little
high at 40 so hopefully those numbers
continue to go in that direction
next is our reasons for owner releasing
animals seven
dogs for aggression
one was actually fighting with the
owners other dogs
excuse me
five the owners chose to
released them because they could not
keep them confined they continually
escaped
one was a bite case a bit of pedestrian
as they were walking by
and one was a dog that was the owner was
unable to control and it was destroying
their home
next is our reasons we were unable to
fill rto 13 there was no contact by
phone or at the residence
one the microchip was not registered one
the registered person was not the owner
meaning that that microchip information
was not updated with the correct
information
next is a the registered person gave the
dog away but he could not remember who
he gave the dog to and again that
microchip information was never updated
next one is no one the officer did not
make contact with anyone at home
the brother of the registered person
answered the phone and he would relay
the message that his dog
the owner's dog was at the asc
mv
and finally
the officer was able to call the
registered owner who hung up on them
he went to the residence to
let them know that he had picked up
their dog and a female
resident slammed the door in his face
telling him that's not my dog
so again we were unable to field rto
that animal
and i will stand for any questions
thank you are there any questions for
officer jimenez
all right
we're all quiet today
thank you sir thank you
all right we're moving on to agenda item
5c which is shelter to statistics and
activities
getting around pretty well with that
thing there
i'm glad that it has wheels that's all i
can say
hi clint thacker executive director of
the animal service center mercedes
valley thank you very much for this
opportunity to report today to the board
of directors
um
and let's hope
i get as many questions as
the others
before i begin though i want to give a
shout out to the ascmv staff
not only
did they put together
pretty much on a month notice
a spectacular drive-through clinic that
was on the 24th of october last sunday
but they did it
with style i mean it was we had
volunteers in mass there we had
mass mass not mask
they were in masks too i'm sure
but between the hours of nine and two
is when it officially started but when
we got there i should say one staff
i was not able to attend
but when staff got there at seven
o'clock to start setting up there were
already people in line
wanting to to get into the
snake line as we like to call it
just a phenomenal job from all from
everybody there was nobody saying this
this isn't my job you know about holding
animals or or getting names it was we
basically said if you have certain
skills we'd like you to be here
in these tents otherwise
just go fill spots and they were excited
to do so in doing that we had 499 rabie
vaccines administered
432 dhpp vaccines
158 bordetella
68 feline vaccines and
236 microchips
all done between the hours of nine and
two pm so special thanks to them if you
see our facebook page you go to there we
do have quite a bit of photos that you
can look at
we had a
photographer
come and donate their time as well as
somebody with a drone
that took pictures for us of the setup
so it was great to have that community
involvement
so at the ascmv currently we have 478
animals this is as of yesterday 297 dogs
181 cats
there at the center
our intake 505 dogs in 2019 in 2021 we
had 406.
again i'm not going to review 2020 that
much it was really a fluke here however
much i would love to have those numbers
back
it doesn't look like that it's going to
happen right now
but as we continue to make changes and
educate we hope that those numbers will
come back down to there
315 cats in 2021
so a total of 725 versus the 888 in
2019.
our transfers continue to
really be how we're getting animals out
of the ascm via live
special thanks to our local action
program for animals for all they're
doing six dogs and 28 cats is phenomenal
for us
especially here locally because there's
no cost for us to transport them whereas
you see on the other column there the
very top new hope rescues located in
colorado
colorado city 44 dogs and four cats that
costs
gas money and
stay for the individual going up and
so we just appreciate all these
individuals that are taking or these
individual rescue organizations that are
taking these animals or total 158
animals
so we did have a little bit of an
increase in returns and the biggest one
was
you know adding the cats to it so
behavior problem we had four dogs come
back
two the landlord doesn't allow and three
has some life changing
lifestyle changes now again these are
not within the month they didn't
it's not like they adopted them and then
brought them back two weeks later these
we report as far as how many
returns that we get
cats we had one that was allergy and
lifestyle changes there was five
this is the one that really tells the
story of how things are going on at the
ascmv
we included the percentage there if this
is your first time watching reviewing
these numbers
we go a lot by percentage uh because of
the high numbers and also the low
numbers of 2020.
so the first one uh is a good example
2019 we had 30 percent whereas of our
outcomes was adoptions
and then we had uh 20 in 2021 which was
reclaims
uh we were at 58
for uh 2021
rescues at 21 almost 22
community cats
16.7 and that's really the one with the
implementation of the program tnr
program
with
the city that has really helped us with
our live release numbers and us and
getting animals out alive cats out alive
so that reduced our euthanasia number
eighteen point six percent
uh was our outcome percentage so it's
turned out to be a 78.3 percent
three-year high
for
that for this time period
so if you remember usually it's feral
cats is the number one reason for
euthanasia and that significantly
changed now we're into medical
so what does that mean for the ascmv
what that means is we
need to
work on reducing the number of animals
in the center so we have the adequate
quality of care that we've spoken of
our veterinarians and our vet
our vet staff is working really hard
the care that we give them
is the best that we can adequately do at
this time
and i hope that comes across as is what
i'm trying to say meaning
that it's it's harder to care for 700
dogs than it is for 500 dogs
and so we give them the the adequate
care
the the minimum care that's needed
um but obviously if we had 300 versus
500 it would be even better
so we are continuing to look at we have
dr hadden is incredible at looking at
continually to look at new ways to treat
and trying those
also changing intake procedures i mean
we're looking at everything to help the
medical side how animals flow through
the center
because we've got to
never be able to put a stop to but we've
got to really limit how these diseases
are being transferred on
the biggest challenge is the ascmv is
just not set up
for correct cleaning in other words
where the animal is out of the cage
and we're able to
scrub and clean
every single time
with the animal out
right now what they're doing is we
usually have them separated with the
corunda bed that's there
or will shift kennels down but that
means every animal needs to go down like
a snake method
down to each kennel it's incredibly time
consuming but we're working on it we're
looking forward to the new center being
built where those
it doesn't have to happen that way
mr chairman
mr owens
would you go back to that slide thank
you
it looks to me like all of the
euthanasia
included cats only
that all of them do well
the yellow bar is for cats correct there
is no bar for dogs
the green one you see the green one
there
that's very i can't see it on this chart
uh
okay maybe the glare is coming off
it wasn't tilted enough now i see it
thank you
there we go okay
total number of visitors is up quite a
bit from august 816 and that's the
number that we really like to be about
may june september really kept us at
that number
appointments we had 90 percent of our
appointments that were made
were kept and then 58 of those were
finalized as adoptions
our web page view is still hovering
around that 30 35 to 40 000 mark
with 37
436 and again for those who are watching
for the first time that's not original
views
that is
every time you click on a page
so if you look at an animal and it pops
up their page that's one hit and you go
back to the main page that's a hit and
then you click on another animal that's
a hit so
facebook views 2548.
we've had kudos to our
grant writer and also our rescue or
rescue coordinators
and also our volunteer coordinator doing
tremendous job on keeping things fresh
and new on facebook we appreciate that
so this is a new slide if you remember
we have
um
the
wilson binkley included instagram and
snapchat
into the media plan for this year
so if you look at these numbers um
i hate to
admit this but i don't i don't know what
impressions are i think it's smiley face
or like or
whatever it is but it's a high number
and i'm impressed by it
uh most importantly though those clicks
on the ad is really what we're looking
at
so when we say we have a presence on
instagram and snapchat wilson binkley
puts an ad
on both
on both of those it's just an ad that
says adoption you know save lives
something cute and fluffy that keeps
people interested
so that click is the one that clicks on
the ad is what takes them to our web our
webpage
and instantly they're
flooded with images of our animals and
they fall in love and come and adopt and
that's what we're looking at
now
this is separate from what we have we
have our own instagram
page or instagram account we have our
own snapchat that we're working on as
well so content will continually come
out on both of those
and those are our pets of the week
so i'll entertain any questions you
might have
okay
let's see we'll start with uh counselor
flores and then we'll go to commissioner
allen's if he
thank you
mr chair
thank you for presentation uh
clint
um
as to adoptions
uh
is there any education prior to the um
the adoption i i think that
i asked before whether
um
there was any way
well no that was a different thing
but education for prospective uh adopt
adopters
do you have any
uh
like a video they can watch or
where you sit and speak with them in
order in order to
minimize any returns do you have
anything like that
yeah as part as when i first came on we
had this questionnaire it was it was
very lengthy questionnaire asks us
questions like do you rent
um how many people in your family
and this big long questionnaire and the
trainings and everything that i've been
taught that's new says why are we asking
these questions when one we're not an
enforcement agency
and two we don't have the manpower to go
out and verify these things and three
why are we asking them let's make this
as painless as possible to do an
adoption so we changed our questionnaire
significantly
to the base information we need and
moved more into a conversation with the
individual that's adopting
so what that means is we'll have a
conversation with them
you know thank you for coming in today
we appreciate looking at this animal
what brought you what brought you here
to look at this animal and they'll
answer the question so that's one piece
of information
and then then we can go into once we
know their situation oh you live in an
apartment you do know that saint bernard
thrives on space
and activities is do you think this is
really the best fit for your confined
situation so that's where the education
part comes in
we also do quite a bit of information or
give them quite a bit of information and
review it with them in a packet that we
give them talks about
the power of three we have it says three
days three weeks three months
is what we suggest and we tell the
individual what each step
provides
what the animal to it what to expect the
first three days in the first three
weeks in the first three months
we go over basic care of the animal of
what's going to be needed vaccines that
are mandatory
we would go over licensing that's
required so yeah there's quite a bit of
information that
that is given an education done there at
the beginning
and do you keep any data on um
on
on these adoptions and so far as then
going back to look
when they're
when they're returned
do you go back and look at that data to
see
where maybe the questions or the
interview didn't fit the match i mean is
there any way of measuring that or
probably there is a way to measuring it
but do you take that data do you review
it when
when the animal is returned
we look at it really when the animals
return more than once um is what we look
at we we ask the reason why
different families different adopter
yeah so if a person brings an animal
back
and then it gets adopted again and that
they bring the animal back
and our computer software is able to
track the reason for surrender
so we can pull that up at any time what
they say so if we get an animal that's
been adopted twice and been returned
twice that's when we start looking at
that data and find out why is it a
behavior issue okay maybe we need to
contact and get the animal into some
behavior
courses
or we at the very least need to tell the
new adopter this guy has been or this
lady has been returned twice
so
this is the reason why what are you
going to do to prevent that or this is
the challenge you have ahead
so thank you
i'm sorry no i was done thank you i'm
sorry
so and and do you um anyway um
have questions that elicit uh or instill
or give you any kind of impression
as to whether a feeling
for lack of a better word but i mean you
have to get that information draw that
information out from a prospective adopt
or
do you
do you do you ask any questions like
that um
and i can't
think specifically but
do you do anything like that to draw out
a person's uh personality and how that's
going to adapt to having a
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an animal in the home
not that i can recall we don't we don't
try to match personalities with the
animals we we consider that match
when the animal and the person have
their
the get acquainted series
or the appointment that the person makes
they're the ones that say it's a good
match
we do step in like i said if
the situation isn't the best like if the
lifestyle doesn't match the animal
if it's an old chihuahua and you like to
jog
let's get you something else
that's where more we step in but if if
there's a connection and they're
insisting on it then we do it because we
we've had to do a lot of
re-education of of our of our co-workers
because the return adoption isn't a
failure
we look at it as an opportunity to get
information out or to get information
about the animal even if that animal's
gone for 24 hours
and the person come back and said oh man
the dog freaked out on us when we went
to sleep that night
like all right well this animal has
anxiety issues that's something that we
can work with
or this or we put it in the backyard and
i chased our chickens around
well that's information that we now have
that we're able to tell the next person
and also how we can combat it in any
training that we can have for that
animal
so we really look at it as an
opportunity to gather information right
you gather the information and then so
when your prospective adopt or you ask
about their home conditions do you have
chickens
and then are they also educated as to
how to feed them and
and that sort of stuff because some of
that i mean one night for an animal to
be in someone's home a new home they're
just as you know i mean i i i could
expect i mean i
i mean it seems like it would take a
while for the animals you'd expect some
issues right yeah you expect that to
happen but
yeah they're also given through our
shelter program with science diet
they're given the same food that the
animal has been eating
for the whole time so there's no gi
stress issues going on there
as far as food or diet
but um as far as is education yeah we
tell them as according to the age look
on the on the how much we're supposed to
feed them a lot of people think the
empty dish is a bad thing for dogs and
cats and
it's not
i know that um when i when i um got my
jack russell terriers i was going to get
one
and then fell in love with the litter so
i had i took two
and but
um i was told to read up on them
and read up thoroughly on them because
we had a lab before that and they said
this is going to be a totally different
game
and
so
my younger son and i sat down he was 10
he was 10 at the time
and we sat down and read everything we
could on jack russell terriers
but
you know he wanted a dog like wishbone
on the pbs series
so
but they were a lot different and there
were times i was you know crying just
crying because they were just so dif
there was high energy and but we kept
them you know they lived to be about 14
or 16 years old
but um so you do it do you do anything
like that clint do you recommend that
they research the particular breed they
want to have
if there's i mean the obvious one like
they're a jogger and they want an old
chihuahua yeah if there's if there's a
situation where
the animal doesn't fit their lifestyle
then absolutely we do
um
so
yes i guess would be to answer your
question is yes okay then my other
question is the same question or the
same concern
that gene gilbert brought up when she
was here at the last meeting about
having more accessibility at the center
to make sure that it's open and
and i you know i really think that um i
agree with her and she wasn't saying it
you know to go back to the old way she
was just saying it make it more
available so that you can see if you
have that chemistry
with a particular pup or cat or you know
animal
do you think you're going to be doing
anything like that opening it up to more
visitors on a drop drop-in basis clint
uh not
with the current pandemic
with with us now no there's no changes
looking at right now
okay none none at all no
modification we haven't discussed it
that's a decision for our management
team
and we have not discussed any changes
as of yet
and you haven't discussed it because
it's something you don't want to do now
or you just haven't thought about it or
you just
i mean i understand the safety aspect
totally but is it something that you
would consider
if a plan was presented that made sense
for
both the my citizens my staff and the
animals we care for
um that made sense then yes we would
entertain something a suggestion like
that
great well thank you very much clinton
thank you for all your work and thank
you to your staff as well thank you and
in answer though also to your question
counselor is that we it's it's not like
the only opportunity is to make an
appointment we do off-sites every single
saturday
uh there are people can come and visit
no appointment necessary come and visit
animals we just had one a couple weeks
ago right before
my surgery
we were at the ascmv with dogs out in
the parking lot
and it was all over we had a bunch of
people come in and stop by dogs were in
the parking lot cats were out in the in
the vestibule the main opening foyer
and
people came in
was that advertised yes okay because i i
well it wasn't advertised on the radio
but it was on facebook okay because um
the bulletin has distribution every week
to every household and i think the
greater las cruces area do you get the
bulletin money and
i i don't i don't get it
you don't well you should move into the
city now
i well i i know there's a wide
distribution and there's been uh great
ads in there but i don't think i saw
anything about um that uh drop-in or
whatever it was all facebook-driven yeah
if you could put that in there because
not everybody accesses facebook not
everybody in the world has or not
everybody in las cruces
everybody else in the world has
computers no
not every household has a computer or
online access so
maybe you can consider that and let
people know that there is that
that option
and thank you again
thank you mr chair thank you councillor
flores
is there any other questions for mr
thacker
commissioner
the food that we give to the dogs
is it grain free
uh no but that option i mean we can
special order something if an animal has
an allergy reaction
then we can do that
what's the typical
percentage of grain in the feed
i would have to look at that let you
know sir
is grain the first item in the menu no
it is not
all right well that's a plus yeah as far
as science diet goes it's in the
mid-range
for the quality of the food
on could you bring up the slate
the slide on the
visitations and the number of adoptions
is that the one you wanted yeah it looks
like there were 170 appointments kept
and
adoptions were
110.
do you know why
60 of those didn't go through
uh they did not like or didn't make a
connection with the animal they were
visiting
did they choose the animal on the line
before they came in yes
they they're allowed to do
as long as many
we like to do no more than three because
it gets really fast but if they
they're allowed to do multiple animals
in one visit
and
within the their time frame
so it's not just one and done if they
want to say oh this one looks cute and
this one and this one
they're more than welcome to do that
how long is the time frame
30 minutes
it just seems to me that that's a huge
number given the fact that they
came in in the first place
because i mean there are some cute dogs
there are
thank you
but you know what those numbers don't
add up because a finalized adoption is
when an animal is
finally signed over or from us or the
person's signs for it
so we may have animals that overlap from
the last month like they need surgery
and it may maybe they come in on the
27th of september
and they have surgery and they finalize
the adoption in november
so that might be the um those couple
days of the give and take for those
numbers yeah
or if it's if it's an uh
an animal that can't have surgery yet
for any reason injured or sick or
that they'll take the animal home but it
still belongs to the ascmv and when the
surgery is performed and they sign to
finalize it then it's counted as a
finalized adoption
thank you
uh commissioner ellens and council
forest is there any other
questions i was
i i just had a couple and it's and sorry
clint i on the presentation on slide six
when you're going over the september
numbers comparing the last three years
is it at all possible i know if you go
to slide three
the color rate the coloring throws me
off on on that slide
because you have the the different
the years um
like you know you have three different
this makes sense because you're you're
you're uh trying to segregate dogs cats
another but if you go to slide six
my i and it's just maybe maybe just me
i'm the only one but i i got totally
thrown off like wondering
like 20 20 numbers
it took me a minute to realize that
green and the those were put together
versus
um and not too too separate because i
kept looking like where the where are
the tables here what am i looking at yes
this bernice navarro and that was
pointed out yesterday by dr haddon
and i went and i fixed it on
my copy that i have in our file and i
forgot to fix it on this one for the
presentation so i apologize for the
problem so it has been addressed and yes
so i will make sure that that is correct
no pr appreciate it because i think what
when clint was going through i kept
looking at this and trying to my mind
was trying to make sense of and i
finally
i mean it's pretty straightforward if
you just look at the numbers but yeah so
you're saying is the year 2020
and is green but the numbers are the
same color as 2021 percentage the
percentages i can see the confusion
there and then the only thing on slide
seven
um i was going to ask and i i don't know
i know
you know we've discussed particularly
when we're looking at the euthanization
rates of
you know the high the high ones tend to
be the the medical the respiratory signs
that are transmissible and i know you
had indicated that
you know a lot of that is is related to
the high population that that's at the
service center at the asmv right now
just more of a suggestion and i don't
know if i'd be curious to maybe have a
discussion offline on this but if you
took kind of like what what the highest
say the high 20 percent reasons for
uh
euthanasia at the service at the animal
service center
for say a year to date
and if we looked at it is there anything
that we could do to bring that down in
the future so i mean it and i know you
mentioned that dr hadden had been
working on trying to treat as many
animals as she could
but
i'd just be curious to have that
discussion to be like okay here's here's
where are most of our animals are being
euthanized for
here's some of the things our ideas we
have is there any i think we can look at
that might in the future other than
other than reducing the population is
there anything else we can do
within the animal service center that
might reduce that the
euthanasia rate
within the facility for those kind of
top items and the reason i say i mean we
you could go down and nitpick every
little thing
but if we could look at maybe just those
high reasons and see if there's anything
else we could look at
to do if there are any suggestions that
may be something
you know is there something that would
take additional investment is there any
just small changes we could do
maybe that's something we could identify
or approve or consider as a board okay
yeah we can do that that's kind of what
we were doing before
the board has all but changed over
except for gondola
and we had a general reason for that and
then they wanted more specifics so
that's why we changed to this no and
this is this is perfect i i really
appreciate looking at that because i
think it really breaks down
why you're doing it like i think the the
slide itself i'm just curious like i
said go in in the
to having a maybe having a quick
discussion or understanding hey this is
these are the two three four reasons why
the highest uh
reasons that that have led to euthanasia
you know and is there anything else we
can do
uh
within with that that's reasonable
within within your power the staff's
power to try to bring that down okay
yeah you bet
so
and that's i think that's all i had so i
appreciate it glenn
okay we'll move on to committee reports
so the first is our finance committee
mr enriquez
yes thank you chair and good morning
everyone
we did have a meeting of eric enriquez
finance committee chair we did have a
meeting on october 21st it was attended
by
by staff only from the city and the
animal service center
we did have some discussion on employee
salaries but since that's a discussion
item we can provide input at that time
and so right now mr josh sashaville will
present the report
good morning mr che sorry good morning
mr chair members of the board my name is
josh saffel on behalf of the finance
department of the city of las cruces i
would like to present the unaudited
financials as of september thirtieth
twenty twenty one
so looking first at our statement of net
position we see in the general fund cash
of one million three hundred eleven
thousand eight hundred and twenty six
dollars
and receivables of three hundred and
nineteen thousand which give us total
assets for the period of one million six
hundred and thirty thousand eight
hundred and twenty six
we see two liabilities of seventy
thousand six hundred and forty nine
dollars
revenue collected in advance of a
hundred and seventy nine thousand eight
hundred and sixty nine dollars which
left us an unassigned fund balance of
one million three hundred and eighty
thousand three hundred and eight
dollars the capital projects fund showed
cash of twenty nine thousand seven
hundred and ninety eight dollars
and revenue and uh restricted uh
restricted fund balance of twenty nine
thousand seven hundred and ninety eight
dollars
we also see capital assets we have
capital assets net of accumulated
depreciation of two hundred and seven
thousand six hundred and one dollars and
an unassigned fund balance of two
hundred and seven thousand six hundred
and one dollars
looking at our change in net position
uh for the period we see total revenues
of one million two hundred and forty one
thousand
two hundred and thirty six dollars
and total expenditures of six hundred
seventy six thousand two hundred and
fifty two dollars
so for the period there was a total net
change in the positive of five hundred
sixty four thousand nine hundred and
eighty four dollars
looking at the budget to actual the
change in that position that total
revenue of
1.2 million is 32.6
of the budget
the total expenditures of 676 000 were
17.8 percent of the budget
of course our budget parameter is 25
this being the first quarter of the
of the year
um
we'll notice in expenditures that
everything was under that 25 expense
except for the other expenditures the
reason for that is of course insurance
premiums
we pay those in advance so that amount
is actually higher
and so it makes that budget look a
little off
looking at our revenues versus
expenditures of course we see that first
month of july that's when um both the
county and the city um provide the the
20 some percent of what they've uh
budgeted
and so we have a large amount of uh
revenue in that first month and we see
of course that that drops afterwards and
we see that as the expenditures go up
they start to increase over
uh that revenue
looking at our percentage of total
expenditures again the total
expenditures were 676 252
of that 73 percent of that amount was
personnel expenses
uh 15 percent was services
six percent supplies
five percent insurance
and one percent other
and uh that will conclude the
presentation uh and i stand for any
questions
thank you mr safal are there any
questions on the finance report
okay
it doesn't look like it thank you mr
saffield thank you
all right we're moving on to the
executive committee meeting i know this
was uh
with uh myself well last time we met um
really there wasn't a whole lot of
discussion a lot of our discussion
really centered around the special
meeting that was held around the jpa
trying to plan on that
and that was really about the the all
that we discussed at that time um just i
think we were trying to get better idea
of
where we wanted to go and make sure we
as a board knew where we were going so
but that that's kind of my quick update
for the executive committee i don't know
if there's any questions
all right let me move on to facilities i
don't know with mayor pro tem out i
don't know if there's any updates
by clint i'm sorry to make you get up
again with
clint thacker executive director ascmv
uh just a quick update for that we had
the new center is looking great
they're currently working on
underground plumbing and electrical work
you see coming up out of the ground
land leveling is all done now you can
start seeing where the dog park is going
to be located you can see where the
buildings are
so we're excited to see that moving
forward
every thursday
we have a picture goes up of the
progress from the roof of our existing
center and it goes on facebook so you
can
look at that and see the progress that
is being made
the only things
i remember on the top of my head we
discussed there
we have some preventive maintenance
occurring on a lot of our
drains
in the area and that's again it's
preventive maintenance keeping them from
because dogs do get slipped some
blankets that might have stuffing in
them or rawhides are notorious for
swelling up
when they get wet going down a drain so
it's just preventive maintenance for
that they come out once a month bernice
once a month
every quarter thank you come at a
recorder and that seems to be helping as
well
um
i believe that's all
as far as any major issues that are
occurring right now
hey
vice
versa
thank you thank you clint uh when do you
start your winterization of the center
i don't think we really have a
winterization
at the center the reason why i say that
is our hvac units on top of the center
are are hvac so the heat as well as they
cool
i know that some portions of the
machines
might be turned off but that's all up to
our building maintenance supervisor he
does a phenomenal job of keeping those
up to date and working with the city of
getting those done
around the grounds we'll tidy up a
little bit
some things but it's i mean that is a
place that is always moving always
working
so
anything gets done it's we
i don't think we're at the point yet
where we need to get our heaters out
things like that but
we are they're definitely on standby
okay thank you thank you chair
all right was there any other questions
on the facilities update
i did just want to say thank you to
our colleagues here with the city for
approving the
uh financing or the the the funds for
the
art
uh
yeah that's gonna be uh actually
installed as part of the go bonds at the
new animal service center in the park
there behind itself but thank you all
for
continuing on with the with that uh
process
yeah the so are you speaking of the art
installation
the front of the sculpture
yeah it's going to be beautiful we're
looking forward to it
so
all right
and so i think with that uh we're on to
agenda i know number six under
discussion items uh which is a cmv
employee salaries you can
and really the reason why this is on
the agenda is just to update you
on where we're at we had i just want to
get to my notes here
uh
i sent out just yesterday and apologize
for the lightness because i thought i
did it before
my surgery but it looks like i didn't
but an answer to a lot of the questions
that came in our special meeting
like we got we sent the medians and the
salary in the wages or on that paper so
and that was a councillor flores
question for that
commissioner allen's had a questions
regarding fringe benefits and that's on
there to review
uh one one that i really liked that
counselor gonda mayor pro
said is what is the average time why
don't we start tracking
with hr involved of how much it takes
each step
so i went right back that same day made
a spreadsheet
and i sent it to
bernice and also to our budget analysis
michael
fascini and they're able to both of them
put just put dates of when
each of these are being met
and then we can start to get data back
about how
how well that's that's going so we look
forward to getting that data
for that some
some of the items we're tracking is
improve employee retention salary wage
increase
um
so we're i'm sorry i'm looking at the
wrong notes but anyways we're tracking
when it takes
for those to be filled and we're excited
to see that data
mr enriquez suggested that we meet with
hr we did so we had a great discussion
with them about the salary increase
it looks like we have a first part of
december implementation that we're
working towards
we also had mike puccini
working really closely with the budget
department and validating his
spreadsheet
and the the department said that
they were unable to look at it last week
but hope to look at it this week
for that so we're looking forward to
their feedback
on that validation
and then we got from hr we got a current
list that matches up fairly well with
what we have for some reason they have
somebody
marked as working with us twice
the same person listed twice and i
checked with her and she's not getting
two paychecks just
thank goodness
she said she'd like to but i told her no
and
so we're just getting some things
cleaned up in that area but things are
moving forward
as far as the the increased
salary increase and again if there are
any questions regarding that
i would love to answer the best of my
abilities but you guys you got the
down the weeds kind of thing when we
talked about it
a couple weeks ago
and my staff is i haven't laid it out
exactly to co-workers yet
about what it all entails i can tell you
that i was a very popular person when i
went back to work
after that meeting
seeing what we wanted to do and morale
was higher than it's been
for a while
just them knowing that this
this is going to happen and help them
out and it
not to get mushy but it made my heart
feel good
knowing that i was helping them and
was something that they wanted to see
done as well
councilor flores thank you mr chair uh
clint um how soon do you think you'll
get something definitive from the uh
from hr
you said they didn't have a chance to
look at well that was the budgeting
department
so the budgeting department we're
waiting all we're waiting on is the
budgeting to look at mike's spreadsheet
and say yes this this looks good because
that was a caution that i'd like to have
um for that so so you know they're going
to say yes
you say well
yes i'm just waiting for him to say yes
you bet i'm very happy to hear you
we've we've reviewed that thing left and
right top and bottom
mike is very comfortable with the
numbers
especially with
the contributions that
you know are going to be held with the
county in the city
we've done spreadsheets showing that we
have b plans in place in case the city
comes back and or the county comes back
and says we don't want to do this much
or the city comes back and says well
we're only going to do
we're only going to do this much so we
have some some some b plans in place
that we'd rather not go to
uh but because we're willing where we
know that this a plan is going to go
through and we're excited for it
so you're also talking to uh the
counterparts over at the county
or just to our
people here at the city we're only
talking to the budget department because
they're our financial your financial
yeah
people fiscal agent fiscal agent there
you go
thank you clint thank you mr chair thank
you councillor flores bye sherbet stewie
thank you chair um i do see that we have
leanne damouche from our finance
department and mr enriquez you're here
too so if there's any extra information
that the city would like to provide at
this time
i think we'd be happy to hear it
yes thank you
chair and board member stewie
as mr thacker stated there was a meeting
with hr one of the concerns were that if
there was any increase in
in wages salaries if that would affect
the city as a whole
hr said there would be no problem there
so that was the
the good news so we can move forward
with that the concerns were that if
there was enough salary savings and if
the numbers were
were indeed correct so they're being
reviewed by budget i don't know if this
time if leanne has anything else she
would like to add
to the finances
board chair chair uh chairman
we um for the record my name is leanne
demoosh i'm the finance director i
apologize the budget analyst for
animal service center has been on fmla
he came back
just yesterday
off of fmla
we had one of our other analysts who's
not very familiar with the animal
service center reviewing it i did meet
with them
some of our concerns i will
mention is that as you
know we're actually bringing a
resolution to council on monday
because we're moving off of being
self-insured
to the state
it is lowering the
premiums however
also in this resolution we're going to
be bringing to the council that we are
moving from 60 40
to 80 20
on the insurance so that will also
affect because if our jpas are picking
up any of our jpas are picking up
on the health insurance dental
then that 80 20 will actually be carried
on to the jpas so that is one of the
other things that we need to look at
with the animal service center to make
sure that we have that 80 20 coverage
for staff
that are with the animal service center
i know that
i have not personally met with clint or
with
michael
to look over this budget one of our
other concerns that budget has conveyed
to me
is that they want to use salary savings
well in the next fiscal year you're
increasing their salaries correct and if
let's
you know go for the max and say you have
all positions filled
hopefully keep your fingers crossed
knuckle and it is possible right so
you've given all these salary increases
and what have you done you've increased
your budget
so we just need to make sure that
that while you know the first thing that
we do budget is salaries and benefits in
a when we do our budget process
we just need to make sure that we have
the funds available
to cover all those salaries and benefits
and then also make sure that we have the
funds available
for clint and his staff to do the
operations
and to cover for the new building that
will be hopefully opening in about
six months or so
september and september as well so that
is one of the things that i've asked my
staff to review
um for this fiscal year the city adopted
a budget for the animal service center
for
1.75 million
my understanding i tried to get on the
county website to see what they actually
approved in their 22 budget it is not up
on the website i could not see it but
it's my understanding when we reached
out to them that their budget is only
1.425
and maybe the commissioners know
a little bit more than me but
it's
in the jpa i am unsure i need to go and
read it again it's but i think it's a i
don't think there's actually any
particular number split
but typically we try to do 50 50 in the
past
but since there's nothing definite in
the jpa the city can always be higher or
the county can always be higher than us
but right now those are the two things
because
if
we
don't have the budget to cover
you know after words the salaries and
the benefits for operations
then at the new
fiscal year 23 then i'm sure animal
service center will need to come back to
this board to ask for additional
coverage for that so those are our
concerns and we need to i apologize but
we just need to spend a little bit
more time and we'll meet with clint and
the finance committee and mr enriquez as
soon as possible
thank you so much ann i appreciate that
and i think
of course we want to see staff paid
fairly and justly for all the work that
they do and they give so much but we
also want to make sure it's sustainable
and so
by doing it thoroughly and looking at
all those factors i think that we'll be
able to give
proper recommendations and thank you
chair
and mr mish i i just wanted to at least
provide
what what the response i got from our
finance department on tuesday um which i
forwarded to to clint is that um we
approved 1.45 million
um
at least that's the email that i read
here is that that was what the amount is
or at least that's what's in the budget
so okay and for for the budget for
animal service center that is what we
have right now okay okay
council flores thank you mr chairman
thank you uh mr moosh
um so
i always have a question about
salary savings
um
what happens with
those savings i you know i think of
savings and i think of a savings account
and you get three per you know like
three
like a point zero zero zero one interest
and you know honest you know unless you
have a cd which is that wow like a three
or four percent
what do you do with that money
i mean what is done with i don't mean
you but how is this
how is it considered a you know savings
when we have vacancies and then we're
still
you know
this whole thing just blows me away and
i've come to understand it a lot better
by
because of your tutelage after four
years and i'm still like scratching my
head a lot and but i'm understanding a
lot more but the part i just don't get
or just don't understand the rhyme or
the reason
as to why we would call it
a savings or whatever when
when we we have
vacancies
and it seems to and yes it's true that
that
health care package
you know it's wonderful uh but it seems
to me if we've had like the city's had
like a five million dollar savings type
of thing is it does it just stay at 5
million or do we put it into something
like a cd at least or
what
what do we do with that and and
and for the life of me i can't
understand how we can't project
uh salary increases as part of that
quote savings and then and then to deal
with vacancies can you explain that to
us i sure can or to me maybe i'm the
only dense one no no i i sure can
counsel it's it's actually
it's it's in the budgeting so what
happens is i'll give you
we'll just we'll use animal service
center as an example so maybe clint has
a total of how many
62 staff members
okay
so what happens is when we get ready to
start budgeting which we have we kicked
it off actually today we're
we're doing budget training um today for
staff
okay so we're going to be kicking off
the
budget next week i think we have
individual meetings with the counselors
the budget team does along with
uh some you know david sedillo from
public works so we'll we've we're
kicking ours off it's like one ends
and a new one begins for us so we never
stop so let's say clint has 62 employees
when he's budgeting his budget
he may have some vacant positions
and and he's strategizing you know he
and mike and i'm sure bernice are
sitting down saying okay we're going to
fill this position and it's probably
going to take us
about three months
four months to fill that position you
know because they've got to put the
position out there people have to apply
uh people you know they have to
interview these people and there's a
process there's a process that takes
some time to to get them filled so
there's so there's four months okay that
nobody has been in that position
and so when we budget if we have an open
position when we're getting ready to do
our budget
typically
what we will do is we will say hey this
position is
vacant right now
so what we're going to do is we're only
going to budget
three-fourths of the year
for that position right there but
however you may have somebody that's in
a position the new budget season starts
and one month later
they resign or they
you know they terminate they move or or
they retire
so now we have this open position that
is budgeted for the full year's salary
for this this person this person and
let's say this person is also and i
apologize for being so long on this but
let's say this person has been in that
position for a while and they've grown
in salary so now clint may be looking
for somebody at entry level and so and
he's not going to probably be able to
fill it for three or four months so he's
going to have three or four months of
this vacant position which has a budget
tied to it
so that's where that savings
comes from we call it position savings
or salary savings so there wasn't
somebody in this position so you have
those funds and they're sitting there in
the budget do you see
and so if for some reason he may need to
say hey i want to go out and buy
something i need a new
washing machine
i need a new washing machine and i have
four months of salary savings over here
for
this position i want to move it down
into operations or capital and buy
something so that's re that's what we do
it's not a savings account anywhere it's
money that's that's budgeted for that
position however if it's vacant we can
move it and put it somewhere else and
use it for something else
leanne is that then um
but well that money is while it's not
being used it's been allocated but not
being used
i i understand that
thank you
and um the part i don't understand is
the money's been allocated and where is
that money that isn't being used it
seems to me
that i mean because we're one of the top
rated uh cities in in the us in in terms
of thanks to you and
and and uh our finance department and
all that
and budgeting um but
is that money growing somewhere yes i
would expect it was growing so is that
is that allocation then also increase as
a result of that growth
so it should be so we have of course we
have money in the bank with our bank u.s
bank that the council approved several
years ago
and we do have four other
agencies that we well not agencies but
we do invest our funds
we have cds we have money markets we
have treasury bonds i mean we have a you
know you here in economics don't put all
your eggs in one basket we don't put all
our eggs in one basket we have
four different financial
management firms that we use to make our
investments and so
yes the money is invested now
it's our
does that growth is that growth
factored into
those unfilled positions so for example
say say you're
say you're just keep it simple for my so
so what we do is is in each and every
place but let me give you how i'd like
to understand this so say someone's
getting paid 15 an hour
okay they just leave it at 15 an hour
and let's make it 20 an hour let's make
it so i could at least have a hamburger
once a week
away from home when you're busy okay
twenty dollars an hour that position
isn't filled
that money stays there at infinitum
okay
that twenty dollars has been already
allocated into the budget but that
twenty dollars if it's set into a cd
money market whatever
is growing
does that
increment attached to that unfilled
position and that's why i'm saying
uh that's it seems to me that that money
could be used
to fill that position and then some
did
does that make sense
do i make sense
yes and no so in a so in a nutshell i'll
put this in a nutshell so we do have all
the money that we have invested so what
we do is as you know we have
god too many funds but we have hundreds
of funds
so every fund we look at what that
balance of that fund is and we look at
what is it our investment is every
single fund every quarter
gets a certain portion of that
investment income and you you will see
when you look at the books of each of
the funds there is an object code in
there remember our object codes there's
an object code in there for that says
investment income and every month the
treasury's department that takes care of
all the investments
they take you know here's the big number
of what we got for investments for the
quarter and they trickled that
revenue
into each of the funds showing that as
investment income does that make sense
counselor
yes and that's what i would imagine
that's why
that's why basi that's what i expected
the answer to be
so why isn't there more money available
for each department
so the investment income is put into
each of the funds
so the revenue that comes in for let's
say for the general fund which is most
of our operating departments
it is when i give you a presentation
just like i recently did for the finance
select committee there is part of the
other revenue is investment income and
so it is it is part of the revenue yes
ma'am so that 20 an hour that wasn't
used has grown which means there's no
there's more
funds in that kitty right and no pun
intended an animal service center does
have an have an object code in their
revenue for investment income okay so
there is money in there that we can um
that can be utilized
yes but then you have to remember
investments are not very good right now
our investment ratio right now is about
1.27
so it's it's very very low very low but
it's still there it is still there yes
ma'am thank you very much thank you
leanne and thank you mr chair
thank you councillor flores
is there any other questions from mr
moosh or
mr thacker
okay
thank you thank you man
okay um
then we'll move on i think we're on to
public input portion of our agenda here
so if there's any members of the public
that are present that would like to come
up and speak
they're more than welcome to come up to
the podium
good morning mr bryce
good morning
frank bryce humane society of southern
new mexico
these
meetings are getting smoother and easier
and more pleasant every time we come
down here but i'm always coming down
with sort of a complaint and i apologize
for that to make it shorter
we got an email
from animal control for the city
and for the shelter
about microchipping
being registered at the
shelter
i've got
17 000 sheets
i'm willing to take to the shelter
if they want to sort through them and do
all that
they're already registered with the
company
that does that this is double duty
i
i was told
uh that the
shelter is not an enforcing nation
uh and if the if the
animal control for the city
i wants to do this that's kind of up to
them but it's a double duty that's a
waste of time
we've been doing this for a long time
and like i say we've done 17 000 for our
organization
and right now we're actually paying
three dollars
to the vet that does it to supplement
their income and make it still
reasonable for the public
somehow we need to re-think that
policy
how the shelter supports it with animal
control for las cruces
uh could be ironed out
uh but um that's
really the big issue right now i just
don't i hate to see this double duty
on these on these chips
we
purchased microchip scanners for for all
types of people
the issue that i have
primarily is if we register with the
city
and
and the city says they're going to look
it up animal control essentially is only
on duty from 8 til
10 i believe 8 in the morning till 10 at
night the rest of the time we get the
calls after hours i got a call
sometimes we get them in the middle of
the night like 4 a.m we can still look
it up
but
that's not restaurant at the city is not
going to be of any value
outside the hours that
the
ship is registered at the shelter
the shelter has to be there to look it
up i'm not quite sure how this is
supposed to work but it's really
irritating to me to see us double duty
and i am more than willing to haul all
17 000 of those sheets of paper
to animal control for las cruces if they
want to enter them in their books
but i don't see why we're punishing the
shelter to do that
when when it's not necessary because
they're already registered with the
company that we
we do it with we've been pretty
successful
there's some flaws in it
but even if it's not registered by the
by the
owner
we register ours for the owner and we
tell them to check it in 10 days make
sure we did it
it's working very well for us
i haven't had any problem
to speak of at all to track an animal
down regardless it's this extra work
that you're committing the shelter to to
some degree
this seems like
a waste
and that's the only thing i have really
discussed this morning thank you
thank you mr
price okay are there any other members
of the public that like to
provide input thing
a very short introduction my name is
nancy sharp and i live in the pardon me
in the county
and i am here representing a group that
formed this summer called animal
companions
and we're attempting to
come up with a solution for the lack of
emergency animal care here
you may have seen the article in the
bulletin
don duncan was interviewed
and this is our first representation or
attendance at this meeting as an
organization so i just wanted to take
time to introduce us
and to let you know that we're actually
determining whether we want to
incorporate as a 501c3 so thank you very
much thank you
okay is there any other public input at
this time
all right seeing none we'll move on to
chair and board comments are there any
comments on the board commissioner
ellens i see your light on did you care
to comment yeah i noticed
i noticed that we did not get a
presentation from one of the rescue
groups
this month
why is that
that i and and that falls on me uh
commissioner allen's uh i had asked that
uh the
we have the the coalition for pets and
people be added on the agenda but i did
not uh
reach out to uh mr hahn
and so we'll get that corrected in in
november and december okay thank you
okay uh madam advisor
thank you chair um it is almost november
so i believe that's about the time that
we need to do
the evaluations for our ascmp director
and so i
would request if we could uh hand out
those evaluation forms to the members of
the board so that we can set up a
meeting to facilitate all that
thank you madam by sure we'll make sure
we'll get on that so that way we get on
our timeline or we're set for that
okay any additional board comments
okay then uh we'll move on to the
adjournment if i can get a motion in a
second to adjourn
wait a minute next meeting oh i
the next meeting will be scheduled on
wednesday november 17th uh 2021 which is
not in our normal uh
the the normal uh routine of the month
because of the the thanksgiving holiday
so again that's wednesday november 17
2021 at 9 00 am here at the city council
chambers or if you
log in tune in through uh the webcast
you can find it at the usual channel so
thank you for that counselor florida's
you're welcome thank you
okay like i said i'll get uh internet
and i'll entertain a motion uh and a
second to adjourn so moved by flores
second avedas
all right we have a motion in a second
and there's no objections we'll call
this meeting adjourned at 10 27 am thank
you all for attending thank you all for
watching and we'll see you next month
november 17th
you