[Music]
all right good
good morning everybody it's 901 a.m on
thursday july 22nd
2021. i will call this meeting of the
animal service center or the messiah
valley board of directors meeting to
order
can we call or can we have a roll call
please
certainly board member chuck
mcmahon is not here board member eric
enriquez here
board member diana mario trujillo is
absent
board member yvonne flores here board
member lynn
ellins is absent
board member tessa aveda steve here
and board member manny sanchez president
and i will uh know for we also have i
believe uh mary lou
ward from the county sitting in for uh
mr mcmahon as a ex-official member from
the county
thank you okay we have a quorum
uh mr thank you are there any changes to
the agenda
does not look like any so can i get a
motion and a second to approve
the agenda second moved by
councillor flores and seconded by vice
chair beta stevie
are there any comments input seeing none
can we get a roll call on the approval
agenda sure
board member enriquez yes board member
flores
yes board member ward yes
board member beta study yes and barbara
sanchez
yes okay the approval the agenda is
approved
we're now on to agenda item number three
the meeting minutes the approval of the
minutes from the regular ascmv board
meeting held on june 24th
2021. can i get a motion in a second
so moved second moved by councillor
flores and
seconded by vice chair of victor stuffy
is there any
input on the minutes from the june 24th
meeting okay
seeing none can we get the roll call
please remember enriquez
yes for remember flores
yes for remember ward yes
remember betas duvet yes remember
sanchez
yes okay the minutes are approved
i'm sorry is there any way i can go back
and
take back my yay whatever
may i just make a go ahead council folks
what were you looking at on the meeting
minutes yeah i was i was looking at the
minutes
and on page six um line
six item two
the executive committee report
manuel sanchez committee chair and then
it says
chair vasquez stated so
that should state chair sanchez
i see yeah 20 line is it line 27 on page
six
no sir oh i see it okay i see it
actually i missed that
six yes it is line six and it's item
two
the number
does anybody else have this printed
version but you understand becky
okay yes ma'am i understand we'll get
that taken care of we will hand
take care of it so how do we undo the
vote
mr chair um i don't think you need to
undo the vote ma'am you can just
say that we've added an amendment and
this amendment will be to make that
change
and then vote on that i think you'll be
okay with that okay
mr ellens has arrived so is
uh do i move to there has to be a motion
to undo
what we just voted on so we will so we
need a motion to
uh really reconsider
the meeting minutes of june 24 2021.
so moved second all right the is moved
by
uh vice chairman suey seconded by
councillor flores
and i think can we get a roll call on
that certainly
foreign board member flores
yes board member ellen's yes i'm going
to need you on the microphone sir please
yes thank you
and you have to turn it back off again
because thank you
boy member ward foreign
yes board member sanchez yes okay so
we're now
so now we have a motion to we need a
motion to
approve the amendments as amended yes
so i move that we accept them the
minutes
uh as amended okay and that uh
second okay and just for clarification
that amendment
is to correct
the chair vasquez uh to
jar sanchez correct okay and it's been
uh
properly motioned in a second is there
any input on the
motion to approve the minutes as
amended okay seeing none okay
call the roll board member enriquez
i need your microphone on thank you
board member flores yes board member
ellen's
yes board member ward yes board member
beta steve
yes board member sanchez yes okay the
meeting minutes are approved as amended
and we're getting a workout here between
our roll calls
all right we're on to reports and
presentations agenda item
4a city and county aco reports
so all right we'll have uh with mary lou
coming down we'll have the county
up first
hmm
good morning mary lou are you doing how
do you pull double duty today
good morning um mary lou ward
animal control supervisor for donand
county
and i'm going to go ahead and start with
our june
statistical reports for the board
so as we've been we have been reporting
in the past
months and years we'll go ahead and do
our
monthly reports so looking at our
reported strays
for the month of june we had 346
reported stray animals
out of those 346 we picked up 132
animals 46 of those were cats and 86 of
those were dogs
in addition to those we also picked up
22 sick or injured animals
13 of those were cats and nine of those
were dogs
we also picked up six on our surrender
animals
and those out of those six of those were
all six of them were dogs
so as we do our yearly comparison we
have a four-year comparison chart
on our reported strays as you can see
our reported strays for
last month compared to the month before
has gone up tremendously i think that's
a lot of that's due to
the release of everybody being out in
the open
the quarantine everybody's out
everybody's reporting everything
so i think that apart a lot of that has
to do with that
so 346 compared to last
last month but you can also compare that
to the years before
of course 2 2020 is a special year
because we were all a lot of us were
inside and in quarantine
so going and looking into our return to
owner chart
in june we returned 26 animals to their
owners in the field
and then looking at the other
yearly comparisons you can see how that
compares throughout the year
going into the additional animals picked
up as we talked about earlier
on the owner surrenders we had six dogs
sick or injured animals we had 22
we also picked up one where welfare hold
and six shelter quarantines
i did go ahead and leave this part in
there as a reference guide and i'll
continue to do so
just so we can go back to it as a
reference
so dividing that further into our
districts
on our stray animals that were picked up
you can see what was picked up by each
district
district two had two district i mean
district one had two
district two had 16. district 3 had 29
district 4 had 47 5 had 13
six had four and seven had 21.
so you can see where hot areas are and
where we need to concentrate on our
districts
and then of course our reason for owner
release
all six of those were aggressive and for
one reason or another
they that's why they were on a release
and for that i'll stand for any
questions
okay board members are there any
questions for ms ward
all right thank you thank you miss word
okay
gino good morning good morning mr chair
members of the board
my name is gino jimenez i'm the animal
control supervisor for the city of las
cruces
i'm going to present to you our numbers
for june 2021
so our reported strays we responded to
stray animal complaints of those
303 were goa meaning the officer did not
have contact with that animal
we were able to apprehend a total of 314
of those 282 were impounded at the
animal service center
we were successful and filled rtoing 32
animals back to their owners and of
those
11 we had 11 unsuccessful attempts
meaning that those animals had some sort
of identification
however either the owner was not home
for some unknown reason they weren't
able to be returned to the owner
in the field so they were impounded at
the animal service center
so that gives us a total of 42
identifiable animals
[Music]
my next slide is our three-year
comparison our straight comparison
last month was an exceptional month for
us like you can see
numbers were very very high i don't
have a reason i cannot give an
explanation as to why that number was so
high
here is our three-year field rto
comparison
we stuck with 32 which is our average
throughout the years really really close
to
our normal numbers
here's a slide that i really really
had a hard time putting together
i don't like it but it is what it is and
it's i know it's of concern to clint as
well
so this is a reason for owner releasing
animals
so we had 10 dogs
one female 1 male 8 puppies
they were on a release because they were
moving and could not take them with them
this was a litter and a mom and a dog a
mama dog pop dog excuse me
seven adults uh seven dogs from one
residence they were two adult females
one adult male
with four puppies the reason given was
that they were being evicted
and they could not take them with them
next one is seven dogs
the owner said that they could not like
could no longer take care of them
and the rescue that they were working
with would not take them back
we had six dogs this is a combination
from different
owners aggressive towards people and or
pets
five dogs mama dog would not allow
puppies to feed
and the owner could not afford another
vet visit
that one it's kind of heartbreaking you
know she at least
this owner made at least the initial
attempt
to find out why the mom was not allowing
the puppies to feed
but she couldn't afford a follow-up
visit to the vet so she decided to own a
release some
um we had three dogs that were owner
released
because they were being destructive and
one owner was given an eviction notice
meaning that the property manager
property owner
told her you need to fix this or you
know get rid of your puppies
or you're evicted so she chose
to give up the animals three dogs were
on a release because they were sick
two dogs from the same owner were turned
over because they killed their own
chickens
two were turned in because they had they
were old with health issues
and they also requested euthanasia for
those two dogs a one
dog was on a release for because they
kept escaping from the property
and finally one was turned over because
the owner had no time for it
moving on to our next slide uh reasons
we were unable to field rto animals
eight because there was no contact or by
phone or at the residence
and you can see from my slide too those
chips were registered out of town one
from los alamos
and the second one from deming two
for microchips were not registered and
finally one microchip information was
not current
and finally my last slide gives you the
map of the city for our strays for the
month of june
let me minimize this so i can
bring up that slide
so with the help of it and the gis
department we were able to get this
on this computer where i know in the
past we were having some difficulty
because of
permissions at this this computer we
were able to work it out and
here is my slide for the month of june
that shows all of our impounds the area
of focus
that i wanted to really look at
is sorry my
mouse is going to make a lot of noise
is this area right here this is 1751
west hadley
and these are the number of cats
that we impounded just this last month
you can see that they're probably being
cared for
in one isolated area so that was a
tremendous number of cats for one month
and there was another one
sorry if i'm going too fast please let
me know i don't want to make anybody
dizzy
and you know what you're what you're
going through and trying to find where
you're at just
for clarification are each one of those
dots is that can that be multiple
animals or just one animal
sanchez that can be multiple animals so
let's say for example the officer gets a
call
for two dogs or two cats in a trap
so that one dot will represent two
impounds
so if you click on the dot
it will give you the actual information
so in this case
uh it was a black and orange cat that
was impounded
so this was a single impound but if you
click on any of the dots it will give
you
the exact um reason why we were there
for instance this is just a stray dog at
that intersection uh the description was
just given as a brown dog
and of course goa
and the reason i ask is i know that what
you were just showing within the uh
the with all the cats were identified
that could have been multiple
not just i mean even though that was
just a bunch of you had the bunch of
dots
there could have been the opportunity
that it actually represented more
animals than just the one dot absolutely
yes sir
it could be three kittens it could be
two adult cats
um we'd honestly if i were to do
every impound and every stray there
would be even more dots because there
would be stacks
on one property and i think that's why i
was one you know trying to get an
understanding not just because
when we're looking at this um you know
to line it up i think with what you had
as over 600 strays for this point
this past month but also um you know
when you say a hot spot
it could be even more than what you
actually see
that then the one dot or the however
many dots you see there
absolutely yes sir and just for
clarification on that as well because i
know that this question has come up
several times when you look at a
particular address
if you just pick out a dot
that necessarily that does not
necessarily mean
that that dog lives there it could have
been a
citizen passing by and saw a stray
animal
at that address and when they called it
into central dispatch they pinpointed
that address
so there was a little bit of concern
some privacy concerns there
and i was able to explain it to the
citizens that that doesn't necessarily
mean
they're complaining on you it just
happened to be that
there was a stray animal in front of
that address at that time
and thank you for the clarification
you're welcome
and i know i had a couple more hot spots
for cats um
but for some reason they're not popping
up right now but
um this map is available on the city's
web page
it's called a stray animal map
so if you go to the search engine on
www.lostdashcruises.org you'll be able
to find it there
the colors are a little bit different i
think for the public
map it shows a green orange and
red rather than blue
if there's a specific area that any of
the counselors would like me to look at
i will
zoom in on them if you'd like council
flores uh
it's not a particular area but thank you
so much for your presentation gino
and i'm really happy well not happy but
it's good to know that you take the
information regarding the reasons
as to why the pets are brought into the
center or
called call you insofar as evictions are
concerned and that's going to happen
more
and more because we don't have any laws
in the state of
new mexico we just have a supreme court
a new mexico supreme court case which
allows people to appeal an eviction but
of course there aren't enough attorneys
in the state to
take care of that so with that and then
we found out yesterday
that the magistrate courts here
in here locally are not respecting
eviction
the law the law that came down
they're just letting the eviction stand
which means that our pets are going to
be
affected even more here in our county so
that's something
that we we just learned yesterday
johanna
council green como and i are on that
housing committee and it was incidental
to
housing but then i think evictions and
then you're bringing up the fact that
the little
the doggies and the cats and all pets
have to go too
so it's very important when we do our
education
to alert to add that part that it's very
important to get at least
a lease that allows pets in the home of
the
residents that they are renting so
because i know that we've been talking
about
that education uh educating the
community so if we could
add that to our uh
just an awareness thing for
pet owners thank you gina absolutely
uh chair sanchez councilor frodis and i
i agree with you 100 i think this
information is important as well to
clint so that
once these animals come into his
facility he has a little bit of a
history as to why
they were brought in to begin with and
he can either
have that staff work with them because
the majority of them
of these owner releases with the
exception of the ones that were
destructive
or killing the chickens may have an
opportunity to be
placed in a different home you know so
that information i believe is helpful
for him
yes thank you gino thank you mr chair
thank you council flores are there any
other questions for
gino
okay thank you you're welcome
okay we're on to agenda item 4b which is
shelter statistics and activities by mr
thacker
good morning how are you all this
morning
very well thank you how are you doing
excellent glenn thacker with the animal
uh one of my animal services center in
the sea valley executive director
talk to you today about our numbers from
june 2021
currently in the facility we have 570
animals
that is higher than it was in 2020 of
course with the pandemic numbers and
then 2019 we threw in there just so you
could see
the pre-dead pre-pandemic numbers
so a good spread of numbers there so
we're not as high as we could be and
we're not going to get that high
again this has been conversations we've
had about the quality of care
that animals receive and we want to keep
it lower 570 is actually
we're finding too high especially with
the staff that we have now
so we are working to get that animal
lower which we can talk about in a
little bit
so our intakes again far lower than 2019
but in 2021 we had 785
break that down in 2021 of 420 dogs
360 cats and five others
this slide is showing what rescues are
taking from us
what rescues and how much and what type
we appreciate
every single rescue here in las cruces
and also regionally every single rescue
out there
we would not be able to do save lives
without them
i i want to give a special shout out to
action programs for animals apa always
worked really well with us
to get animals out broken promises is a
high one car at a puppy rescue
they continue to to help us with our
puppies
thank goodness to our medical department
who keeps these puppies healthy
thank goodness to our fosters who
actually take these animals these
puppies into their homes so they don't
have to stay in the shelter with a
higher chance of getting sick
so we are so appreciative of them
unfortunately we have
a lot of puppies that can go
and that will continue to go and that's
something that we're going to be working
on in years to come as well
some other ones especially the safe
haven humane society that's an
oregon safe haven not the one that's
here locally
but they were part of our flight that we
had with dog as my co-pilot so we're
grateful for them
uh a new hope rescue they're up there
with 17 dogs and nine cats
we appreciate them they're located in
colorado and
uh i've actually driven there with on
myself with
a bunch of animals to deliver to them so
we're grateful for their partnership as
well
a lot of a lot of rescues in july you're
going to see a little bit lower numbers
when we present next month because
everybody is kind of freezing intake
they're doing their best but
again well they they have highs and lows
as well so
uh rescues are starting or they are full
so we're struggling in july to find
places for these animals
in june we had five animals returned
zero cats five dogs
as you can see four behavior trap
problems one lifestyle change and the
behavior problems we always ask we
always present
would you like a free visit with the dog
trainer
sometimes they say yes and we can avoid
that surrender
um oftentimes like in these four cases
they say no
um i think that sometimes people i just
don't want to do what it takes
to to overcome that issue you know like
a puppy chewing or
a dog chasing cats kind of a thing so it
takes a lot of work and a lot of
responsibility to have an animal
and some people just aren't up for it
and i can respect them for that
here are outcomes uh 2020 versus 2021 13
of our animals were actually adopted in
june of 2021.
the big number we like to see there is
is rescued 31
our reclaims were down nine percent from
in 2020 and euthanasia of course was
increased
to that 20 percent we did a lot more
euthanasias trying to keep our
care now the way we do euthanasia is we
don't walk through and just say
you you and you we have a system of
first doing the very ill
and then we do uh the ones that are not
responding to treatment
after the first time and then it goes to
the aggression so we're doing these
animals that we're going to be
most likely done anyways so we're not
euthanizing perfectly healthy animals
that are perfectly adoptable
these are animals that have issues now
it may be that they have treatable
issues
like for instance an animal is not
responding to medical treatment
if that animals might be in a foster
home then it might
recover from that but at this point we
just don't have
those capabilities so euthanasia is the
best alternative
for that animal and for us in that
situation unfortunately
we ended the year with the or i'm sorry
the month of june with the
75 live release rate that means 75
of the animals that came in the center
left alive
so people often ask well why do you
euthanize them
and these are our main reasons red is
dog yellow is cat
so behavior feral is all cats over 30
animals were there
medical is a mixture of dog and cats
behavior aggressive
dog of course is only dog but you can
see how
this is how we do our euthanasia
selections medical ringworm medical
respiratory signs
medical failure to thrive those are
usually small kittens
that have that and it continues to
decrease from there
we actually topped our highest visitor
amount that's contributing to
one summer time so we're very busy in
two things
vaccines getting done pandemic is coming
uh
downswing so we're seeing more people
coming to the center 842
for the record on that so we're excited
to see more people coming out
i was really excited to see this one too
i think this is the highest percentage
we've had
june adoption appointments so we we are
no longer offering individuals just the
free reign of coming into our kennels
and walking through it's for a variety
of reasons
first and foremost is the health of the
animals when people walk through
i don't know about you but i have to
have the dog lick my fingers
and and to pet them and say you know to
say i love you you're so cute why are
you in here
problem is you do that with every single
dog
so that passes on that sickness that one
may have somewhere in there
passes it on also another big one is
i've walked into a kennel where it's
completely quiet as soon as that dog
associates that door opening with
something's going to happen whether it's
a walk
whether it's treats whether it's food
time and so they just go nuts
the stress level goes high and there's
this thing called environmental
where empathy environmental empathy
where somebody else is barking i have to
bark i don't know why i'm barking but
i'm barking and this is fun this is
exciting
and so the stress level goes up for all
the animals and it's harder
on a high stressed animal to respond
with that hell or with the treatments
then it is
a not fear anxiety stress
animal so those are reasons why
just some of them of why we're keeping
appointments
[Applause]
the appointments kept 81 of our
appointments were kept in june
and then 56 of those
ended in finalized adoptions and i think
that's believe i i believe that's our
highest percentage yet
and we're happy for them
now this is interesting we had a lot of
adoptions
but our page views were down um
down almost the lowest that they've ever
been for the whole year
year to day i'm sorry for august 2020 to
june 2021
and i'm contributing this to a more
quality search
um individuals we may have more
adoptions but that's because they vetted
the animals that they wanted
and they committed to those and so it's
not a repeated
repeated and repeated search for the
ones they see
now our facebook views were the highest
we've ever had and that's great we had a
lot of
stuff going on facebook we have our
freedom to choose this month we're
constantly hitting that out
though that's in july this is june
number so in june we had a father's day
event
and we continue to have events each
month that push people to facebook
and hopefully push them to our website
that's our presentation our week are our
pets of the week are robin and karina
karina is a repeat
we're really trying to get her adopted
she's a sweetheart of a pooch
which we love very much so with that
i'll take any questions
counselor flores thank you mr chair and
thank you so much clint
clint thacker for
your thorough presentation and thank you
for your services as well
um insofar as the um
oh slide seven would you just can we
just focus on that
or please thank you
so i noticed that um
we'll get there there it is there it was
thank you clint so i noticed that
wildlife is uh in the
uh euthanasia reports isn't wildlife in
the jurisdiction of the usda
yes it is and right now i bet our
medical director dr hadden is just
cheering for you right now
so we're trying really hard um and
talking with animal control officers
i've yet to talk with
gina and bernice about i'm sorry gino
and mary lou about this
but we we no longer want to accept
wildlife
again this is from speaking with
wildlife officials that
we need to be the absolute very much
last resort
for for that wildlife provides those
services of euthanasia
just about i think it was monday
we had a fox that came into us from an
animal control officer
and it was injured and we asked the
young control officer if it was a city
call
and we said did you call wildlife and
she said no and she says well you need
to call wildlife and she said well it's
injured and we said have you called
wildlife to see
what their response is like their
response time
and she says no i'll do it right now so
she's able to call wildlife
and i it was within 10 minutes they were
there
so we really need that to be done first
rather than the animal
being brought to the center especially
if wildlife can meet you somewhere
you know and do it even quicker so
and thank you for that information
and i was wondering clint if it would be
possible for you to have
a i don't know if you have a regular
column
in the sun use or in the bulletin
where you can be sharing all this
information
so that the public is aware i don't
you know i don't see anything regularly
there used to be a very regular
submission of articles but we don't have
that and i don't know why
but just to cover the various issues
that we cover
here that you deal with every day
in terms of keeping our community um
enlightened or educated thank you
council i think that's a that's a great
idea and we're already on it
we have our grant writer who i failed to
introduce the very beginning
i'll do that at the when all questions
are done but she has already come up
with
topics for every month to be able to
discuss
and she's having talks with the sun news
right lane sun news to have that
completed
and she's actually going to do it
instead of me
and so it's going to be a lot better
yeah it'll be a lot better
having a professional do it so uh we're
excited for those but that is exactly
what we are going to be doing is passing
along information
great so thank you very much thank you
thank you mr chair thank you councillor
flores
are there any questions for clint vice
chair
thank you chair and thank you clint um
i just wanted to comment about the
appointments this was one area
that at first i was a little concerned
with because sometimes the spur of the
moment
having people go over there might
increase your chances
but after looking at everything i really
do think this is a great way to proceed
not only for the health of the shelter
but also because i think it gives people
a little bit more pause to make sure
that they really are considering all the
elements for the
animal and as we're seeing
you know a lot of individuals got
animals during the pandemic
and now there's a few people that want
to go out and
live a different type of lifestyle and
unfortunately they're not considering
those animals back with them
and so having this appointment system i
think gives people just that that step
to pause and make sure that it's really
what they
they want um for their a long-term
companion so i do appreciate that
thank you and i absolutely agree it
gives like huskies with games of thrones
went absolutely crazy wild we couldn't
keep them in for the first
couple years and so it gives somebody a
chance when they see a husky to maybe
google husky
and see that maybe it's not the best
place in southern new mexico
to have a dog that likes cold and is
very very very active
so a simple google some a little bit of
research might persuade somebody to get
something else
so i i completely agree thank you thank
you and thank you chair
okay any other questions for mr thacker
all right i would like to take a moment
now mr chair fame and introduce our
grant writer
absolutely thank you elaine will you
join me
so elaine is coming from us from
actually here locally in las cruces
she is a member of multiple animal
rescues
works really well with is it kitty
glitter
katy glitter she's a big important part
of so i'm going to let her talk about
herself
and some experience she has and also if
you could mention some of the things
you've already done and are working on
for the center
good morning everybody it's a pleasure
to be here um
let me first say that i've been at um
i'm sorry simon would you uh say your
name for the record i'm so sorry elaine
stakera simon
thank you so thank you um i've been with
the center since july 6th
and it has been eye-opening and exciting
and just
sort of a pleasure to get to know people
and watch the hard work
that everybody is putting in um
i have been in las cruces since 2005
i've been involved with
a number of different animal welfare
efforts i don't know
that i've ever belonged to one
organization i started off with
there was animal control reserve that's
how mary lou and i met way back in the
day
going back quite a while right now i'm
involved with kitty glitter which is an
annual jewelry sale
which benefits the cat rescues in town
and we couldn't last year obviously
because of the pandemic
but we're on for october so save the
dates i think it's october 8th and 9th
so
save the dates i had a
bad i was with the new mexico state
university foundation for about 10 years
did a lot of grant writing i worked with
a lot of institutional donors
corporate sponsorships a lot of
individual donors as well
so my background is fundraising i've
been a professional writer
for 25 plus years
and thank you for mentioning having
information
getting out into the community through
the newspapers
i am scheduled to be meeting with sun
news next week to talk about that very
thing and
as clint mentioned we have there's a
whole long list of topics but you know
we're going to start where we're going
to start at the beginning
we are i've reached out to some of our
corporate community residents to talk
about
helping out with things like helping
people who can't afford
spay neuters when they when they um
their animals are returned to them when
they're coming to reclaim
we have a lot of august is going to be a
big month
for grant submissions so i have my work
cut out for me so you won't see me
around very much
because my nose will be to the
grindstone
have i taken up too much time i think
that's it all right thank you very much
it was a pleasure
pleasure to be here this morning
[Applause]
what lane failed to mention uh is that
she has already had
a parakeet in her office and a couple
kittens
and currently has a little puppy in her
office right now so she's fitting in
perfectly to the family there the ascmv
we are so grateful to have her there
she's going to make such
such a big difference in getting funds
for specific projects
that we have uh one thing that i forgot
to mention
is we did a big announcement yesterday
on facebook about our drive-through
clinic that's going to be vaccines and
microchips
we're ecstatic for this it's at a new
location called field of dreams
we're going to be utilizing both parking
lots so entire
field of dreams location there's a road
that loops around the top of it
so it's going to be it's going to be a
big production we're excited for that
thankful for the grant that we received
for purchasing the vaccines for that
so and microchip so we're excited for
that that's going to be august 22nd from
9 a.m to 2 p.m
and we are going to be closing the
center on that day
we'll have a minimum staff there to do
what we call holiday cleaning it's just
to feed and clean and then
everybody's going to be reporting to the
to the field of dreams location because
we'll need all hands on deck
for that so thank you
mr chairman commissioner owens
clint michelle from apa sent out a
rather lengthy statement concerning
the fact that we are referring people
who bring a found animal
to the rescues and then the rescues turn
them down because they're
overloaded and she sees this as
a misleading practice on
behalf of the center to have you
responded to her or do you have any
response in mind
we do actually i actually have a
presentation and a topic discussion
on that topic later in the board meeting
all right
thank you thank you one other question
mr chairman
have you done anything about trying to
bring on board different rescues at each
meeting to fill the void that we
currently have with the resignation
and commissioner allen's that was going
to be also part of that rescue
engagement so i appreciate you
uh bringing that up because those are
actually part of the topics on
uh discussion item five b
for rescue engagement okay
thank you
thank you clint
okay we're on to now agenda item 4c
committee reports
we'll start with the finance committee
mr enriquez
yes good morning chair sanchez and board
members
on june 15th the finance committee met
it was
city staff only at that point
josh that phil informed us there was no
significant issues or concerns
and so with that today he'll give the
finance presentation
thank you good morning mr chair members
of the board my name is josh saffel
and on behalf of the finance department
of the city of las cruces
i'd like to present the unaudited
financial statements as of june 30th
i would like to state these numbers are
preliminary we've been we're still
working on closing the month of june
so these numbers were good as of
probably july 9th which was our first
close
so starting off if we look at our
statement of net positions
uh looking at the general fund we had
cash of one million
four thousand one hundred and eleven
dollars and receivables of eighty nine
thousand four hundred and one dollars
giving us total assets in the general
fund of one million ninety three
thousand
five hundred and twelve dollars uh we
had liabilities of eighty four thousand
seven hundred and fourteen
uh dollars and revenues collected in
advance of a hundred and seventy nine
thousand
eight hundred and sixty nine dollars
leaving us an unassigned
unassigned fund balance of eight hundred
twenty eight thousand
nine hundred and twenty nine i wanted to
highlight the revenue collected in
advance
i was actually excited this month
because i thought we would see a nice
drop in that because we were finally
able to
uh expend some grant funds and so
therefore we could recognize that
revenue
and then we went and got 150 000 to add
to it so
you don't really see that drop but it
did change
in our capital projects fund uh we had
cash of twenty nine thousand seven
hundred and ninety eight dollars
and an a and a restricted excuse me fund
balance of twenty nine thousand
seven hundred and ninety eight uh then
looking at our capital assets
we had capital assets net of accumulated
depreciation
in the amount of one hundred eighty one
thousand seven hundred and fifty nine
dollars
with an unassigned fund balance of one
hundred eighty one thousand seven
hundred and fifty nine dollars
looking at our change in net position
total revenues for the period
were three million two hundred sixty
seven thousand
three hundred and thirty six dollars
total expenditures were two million
six hundred and ten thousand one hundred
and fifty five dollars
so overall for the year we had a
positive net change to fund balance of
six hundred fifty seven thousand one
hundred and eighty one dollars
uh in our capital projects fund we did
have expenditure throughout the year
of one thousand seven hundred and sixty
seven dollars
and in our capital assets fund we
recognize depreciation
on assets of forty two thousand two
hundred and thirty dollars
and mr stafford what hold a second uh
commissioner allen did you have a
question
yeah could you go could you go back to
the previous slide
please i
still don't understand why revenue
collected and advanced
liability as opposed to
money in the general fund yes and the
reason
uh for that is that uh when we're when
we collect the revenue in advance
basically it's for a grant and so uh
usually with grants there's stipulations
on how that money is to be spent
so when they give us the money in
advance we have to expend it for
specific purposes so if we don't
actually spend it for those purposes
then the grantor can ask for that money
back so until we've
actually spent it on what it's required
to be spent on
it's considered the liability because we
may have to return those funds
thank you commissioner okay
so returning uh to uh budget to actual
uh change in net position
our total revenue of three million two
hundred and sixty seven thousand
was ninety four percent of budget and
our total expenditures of two million
six hundred and ten thousand
was three point four percent of budget
our budget parameter this being the end
of the fiscal year was a hundred percent
uh revenue was close ninety four percent
is not bad
uh our expenditures at seventy three
point four percent were um
fairly low but that's good you don't
want to expend too greatly so
that is good to see looking at revenues
and expenditures throughout the year per
month
we can see that we had of course the way
that we
receive the money we receive 20 percent
of
the contribution from city and county at
the beginning so that's why we see that
huge amount received at the very
beginning of july
but then we see that the revenues tend
to kind of settle down and
and we basically have a straight line
for the rest of the year as the revenues
come in and
and sort of straighten out we see the
expenditures for the most part
generally tended to be under the revenue
we were collecting which is good and
that
explains why we had that six hundred
thousand dollar
increase to fund balance
uh finally looking at the percentage of
total expenditures
again our total expenditures were two
million six hundred and ten thousand
uh 155 dollars of that 73 percent were
personnel expenses
15 were services six percent were
supplies
two percent insurance and two percent
repairs and maintenance
and then finally one percent was capital
and one percent was
other expenses mr chairman
commissioner what are services what does
that consist
of uh services of course would be
anything any kind of service that is
provided to the animal services center
one of the large probably largest things
that you'll see in services is the
advertising
the money that's spent on the
advertising campaigns and things like
that would be considered in the services
section
other things would be like utilities
things that telephones other things
that help the center to operate but that
are not tangible goods
so again why uh one of the biggest ones
would be that advertising expense
and making use of any other service that
was provided
and that will conclude my presentation i
stand for any other questions
any other questions for mr seffel yes
sure man advice sir
thank you thank you mr sample um do we
expect a lot of
carry-overs or changes for the fiscal
year so far
i don't believe so but we will have
um once everything gets done and we have
audited we will present the audited
financial statements um
probably hopefully in march of next year
if not before then we're not expect i'm
not expecting
huge changes no from what we've seen
already okay thank you
and thank you chair thank you bye
sherbet stewie is there any other
questions for mr staffel
okay thank you sir you
okay we're now on to the executive
committee
uh report which uh
myself viceroy beth stewie and mr
thacker met two times this month we met
on tuesday or sorry was it wednesday
the 14th of july and then we also met
on tuesday the 20th of july and
uh mainly along with the discussion
for the agenda we we did discuss on
um i think one of the highlights of with
that we just kind of one of things was
mentioning was how ms simon joined
the asemv but there were also four other
new employees that started
over the last month with the ascmp there
were some updates with the new facility
which
may be coming here with the facilities
committee and but the big discussion
item which will be
was was which we'll also discuss here as
a whole the board was going to be around
rescue engagement given some of the
input we've been having from
our partners in the community and then
also as
as commissioner ellens had mentioned the
um
the gap that we have with not having the
coalition for pets and people on our
agenda this month so um but that was it
um it was just made more a lot of
discussion around that and i think
i did want to make a note to mr thacker
appreciated and i've seen
more of the presence that you've had um
on facebook
and doing the facebook lives and uh for
the public to see
not just updates for the new facility
coming on but also just
what's going on because i think one of
the things that i get especially
and probably the rest of the public when
you go live
we get that nice notification that the
asmv is live right now and we can click
it
and and we go see what's going on and so
i've um
you know we've been appreciative of that
and having that additional visibility
so that way the public sees everything
that's going on with you with the
organization and the facility as a whole
so
i did want to say that thank you for
doing that mr thacker but
that's all i have on the executive
committee meeting
all right and uh i will move on to the
facility
committee which uh mayor pro tem
gandhara is not here but
uh clint will be giving a quick update i
can give a quick update on that yes
we did meet um had a good discussion
concerning
the ascmv as a whole i know that we
discussed the new center being built
they're moving a significant amount of
dirt if you've seen the corner on
rinkenata and baton memorial west you'll
know
that there's some big changes
something's going on that large hill
that was there on the corner is almost
gone
uh and they are compacting the dirt
as we speak we're excited to see that
move forward
uh completion day is again around the
third
fourth quarter of 2022 for the building
um at the existing center we're having
some
issues with some windows that we had
replaced that are leaking
it's not the actual window it's actually
the window frame
that needs to be replaced and the
problem is is the area they're located
in is the surgery suite
so we can't just go in at any time
and and these these metal frame windows
frames
are filled with cement so we just can't
it's not a simple swap in and out
there has to be some considerable demo
work so that's got to be planned ahead
in the temporary we have
um or we're going to have the company
common deuce do some basic caulking
so that can be secured and
no longer get wet through and
as far as positions are filled we have
five
no i'm sorry i think it's seven
positions five full time two part time
they're going to be joining us
could be as early as next week one of
those is our volunteer coordinator which
we're very excited about
to have them come on board and
others are front office personnel and
the
animal caregiver personnel we have
started recruitment on
more animal caregiver personnel and
bernice has started the process
for our animal care specialist now if
you remember we talked about this
position
in the budget time where we're taking m2
animal caregiver positions
and turning them into an animal care
specialist where their main
or a primary duty is going to be to be
an animal caregiver
but when a transport comes up that they
have the training and the ability and
the desire to drive these transports
so that's going to be advantageous for
our rescue
coordinators which a rescue coordinator
started on the 18th
so we're excited for that as well
so we're back to full staff on there so
here's a quick update for the facilities
great thank you mr stacker there any
questions for mr thacker before you
okay uh councilwork counselor florida is
and then we'll go vice chairman
uh thank you mr chair and thank you
again uh mr thacker
so um clint um i know that
we've discussed arpa money that has come
in
and the projects that have been impact
impacted because of kovid
and for example our
animal our new center that's going up
had to be redesigned something had to be
taken away
because the you know certain aspects of
the design
had to be revisited re-designed
with arpa money week we have
we've had discussions about
going back to the drawing board perhaps
going back with a contract
the businesses we've contracted with
the price of wood went up incredibly
high because of covid
um it had that impact so that's why the
center was
uh the new center had to be redesigned
to accommodate
the um the impact on on the price and
what could be done in so far as the go
bond money
so um have have you had any discussions
with uh
city personnel about that yes there's an
email chain going back and forth
counselor stewie advised me to contact
them
and let them know the things that i
wanted back into the center
so i expressed in in detail order of
of what i would like most important to
be put back together
so there's there's an email chain go
back and forth on that
good yeah that did bring up but i i
couldn't remember the names
i think there's a port that was going to
be sally port
yeah and i don't know the exact names or
anything but i do remember
that there was supposed to be like two
axis
uh areas anyway at any rate i'm glad
that you're
involved with that um and thank you
um vice chair uh aveda stoovey for
doing that thank you thank you very much
thank you clint thank you mr chair
thank you councilor flores vice chairman
stewie
thank you chair and thank you clint i
was going to ask how you all fared after
the storm that we had
just a week and a half ago and um how
that all looks
we did suffer some casualties beyond the
blowing around of kennels
and and you know the plastic
transportation kennels they got blown
around pretty good
the the the temporary awning that covers
our impound
area got thrashed to shreds it looked
like even though it's tied down it looks
like it got lifted up
and somebody in the wind dismantled it
and we had a pole
hit our the transfer van window
the the windshield so it had a good
crack in it
it's pretty amazing to watch how that
all took place
in the wind and then our gate
it looked like where it stops it's kind
of hard to explain but where it stops on
the
the coming forward or the coming across
it acted as a hinge
and it blew in and bent the gate so it
took
two days to get that fixed but the
company we worked with was
was on it it took two days because they
had to take it
to the shop the gate and they had to cut
out the ben bent piece and then weld it
back on so it took a day to do that and
then another day to
install it back but a special thanks to
the acos i know i kept
mary lou and gino in the loop on that so
they were aware that
the the area wasn't secure because we
like to have a secure area in case
animals get out and run around
during impounds from either them or us
so that was notified there so we had
good communication but
that was that was primarily it we didn't
nothing
incredibly major like roof leaks or
anything like that
okay great and for those other items
everything's been
fixed and assessed yeah gate is
completed
the the van has not yet been fixed
however it's been reported and we're
just waiting for an appointment to
take it in to get replaced okay great
thank you thank you chair
okay counselor photos
your microphone yes and thank you mr
chair and i thank you again vice chair
beta stewie
for asking about the condition was that
all covered is will all of the damage be
covered by
insurance or is that going to impact our
budget i don't i don't think we filed or
it doesn't pack the budget but we did
not file any towards our insurance no
why not
you don't have coverage or i believe
well come on we'll have bernice talk to
it because she's the one that's handled
the insurance for it oh
bernice navarro yes
right now we were in transition with the
different
insurances the last insurance company
they no longer
handle shelters so we're moving into a
new one
um our deductible on that insurance is a
thousand dollars
so like the damage to the window that's
only going to be
like four or five hundred dollars so um
things like that the um
the only one that i hadn't considered
and thought about was for the gate
but we can look into that one and just
to see you know if that one is but the
other ones the other damages to the
awnings and things like that they're
well below um
the costs that you know in order not to
meet the
deductible so i see well that's good to
know because i was thinking
they might be considered acts of god and
some acts of god are not covered and
it's like well i have the insurance
right
so well thank you very much bernice miss
navarro thank you mr
thacker thank you mr chairman
thank you councillor flores okay
any other questions
thank you clint thank you
all right okay we're uh
on to the uh discussion items
on the agenda we'll discuss in item 5a
which is our audit entrance conference
with
patillo brown and hill
mr seffel
yes good morning mr chair members aboard
once again i'm josh saffel
and hopefully i'll be able to introduce
to you chris garner our
external auditor i know that he was
going to come on
uh digitally or through another way so
hopefully he is on
are you here chris
well it would appear that
chris garner is not
available to join us today i apologize
for that take full responsibility for
that not being
prepared going from zoom meetings to
live meetings did kind of set us back on
that
so i will make sure that we are able to
present as soon
as possible but it may not be today so i
apologize for that
why don't we if it's a case and maybe
there's a chance that we can get him
connected why don't we move on to
agenda item 5b the rest engagement and
then we can
come back in the case we get him on
you know that way we can get the audit
entrance review or the entrance
in conference done and over with if
that's okay or if there's no
objections from the board
okay all right
all right so we'll uh on to 5b
and then we'll come back to 5a which was
this one was a rescue engagement and
this was what
the commissioner allen's you alluded to
um the two items that we were looking to
discuss was around
the presentations and how we feel that
the uh
agenda item from the coalition for pets
the for pets and people
and still have some engagement with our
community members the rescue community
and then the second piece of it was
around the emails we received i i know
i've received
three emails one was from uh michelle uh
one was from kathy miss kathy stark and
then one from mr
emil bourdai discussing
the process that the asmv does
with owner surrenders and
um and that piece of it so um
i know i wanted to we've talked about it
as mr thacker already has this up so
we'll let you present and then we can
continue on with further discussion
thank you sir so it's requested me that
we talk a little bit about
why the ascmv is doing what policies we
are currently doing and what that means
is
is why are why are we telling
individuals who
owners surrender an animal to first try
to find a home for it
and we give them and i'll show you a
little later in the presentation
that we give them uh resources
to do and then also why are we telling
individuals who find an animal and come
to the center why are we telling them or
urging them to please hold on to that
animal
try to find the owner themselves so i
first i want to let you show you in 2000
or in all years i only did the last
three
this kind of cycle roller coaster that
happens with intakes
starting in may and ending around august
september
we go up really high and then we come
back
down and it's important to note that
because over the years as you can see
it comes it goes april may is low and it
goes
up and then comes back down and the next
year in 2021
you can see that it started low
and it's going back up so it's following
the same pattern and what this means is
we
are continuing to have a lot of impounds
we are at the height of our impound
season and this isn't just for the ascm
this is every place i've worked
summertime more people are out the more
animals are out in the summer time
animals are being born summertime
people are active and they see these
animals that are coming in the summer
time there's more acos hopefully that
are out working
and seeing it so we have everything is
heightened
in the summertime so i want you to know
these two
policies that i mentioned they're not
new centers have been doing this since
the early 2017s and it's just been
pushed and pushed
a lot of the changes were forced upon
animal centers
in the pandemic to make these types of
changes that i just mentioned
and then a lot of places best friends
animal society
maddie's fund aspca
american pets alive all these big names
in the industry
are telling you there's some programs
that happen during covid
that should continue and these are these
are most are these are some of them
that we are currently doing appointment
based owner surrenders
that's a management intake method where
if you want to surrender your animal
that's fine first we would like you to
have some alternatives
and we give them a paper that lists
those options
and yes rescues are listed on there as
resources
but i'm going to show you the handout
and you'll see at the bottom it says
ascmv will take your animal
another one is is for and this happened
during the pandemic
is suspend low priority non-emergency
activities or calls
for animal control officers to do and
that's we've talked
about that we've talked with acos and
also with this board
concerning that as well so this is page
two of the handout
again you see endorsements down below
this is the website where i got it from
is from bestfriends.org
appointment systems for adoptions that
continues to be
a big plus that they want us to do under
client services
divert in person to online portals what
that means is instead of having people
walk through the center
looking for adoptions go to the website
and look for the animal you want to
adopt and make an appointment
and then appointment system for intakes
meaning
if you find an animal or if you want to
adopt
let's make an appointment and let's talk
about it and talk it through because
there may be some individuals
that are willing to take that animal
and take that upon themselves to try to
find the owner for it and that's
i mean we're at the point right now
where one or two people
makes a big difference for us and i know
there's members on this board
who have had that opportunity and have
been called the center and have been
told we
are high intake right now please keep
this animal
or are you able to keep it let's try to
find the owner and
we're given a handout for that so this
is the handout that we given
to individuals who are asking or
want to come to us and say i can no
longer own my pant
i want you guys to take it so we give
them listings humane society of southern
new mexico
dona county humane society action
program for animals broken promises
rescues
cool crucial cool cats we give them
facebook pages they can go to and list
their animals
available for adoption we give them
other websites they can go to
to list their animals for adoptions
re-home your pets is a big one
that people should be checking out
rather to adopt or also to
re-home but there's always the one on
the bottom that says
always use ascmv as your last option
so if individ like rescues are getting
these calls
all they have to say is is no we we
don't have room right now
when the individual has re has used all
the resources
exhausted them all then bring the may
call us
make an appointment and we'll be able to
we will take the animal
if at any time the owner ever says
i'm just going to take and drop or drop
it off at the desert or i'm just going
to let it go
we will take the animal if at any time
the animal is injured or sick
then we will take the animal
now if you find an animal same thing we
ask if they're willing to hold on to the
animal
the all the studies are showing that
these animals are especially dogs are
being found
fairly close to the areas where they
live dallas animals
animal services just did a big study for
the whole area of dallas and it was
within a quarter mile
of where the animal or where the dog was
impounded
is where the animal lives so we're
talking
go two houses down on each side across
the street and behind
does it take extra 5-10 minutes yes it
does
does it keep an animal if you find
somebody willing to hold on to the
animal
or the actual owner or somebody who
knows and gives you another follow-up oh
yeah i've seen that dog here
i think they got i think it got left
here you have more information right
there
and you can put that into the note so
it's useful either way
for that to happen for
the individuals who find an animal they
too
can go for a walk and somebody and ask
people
because there's people who walk every
single morning or every single night and
they can probably tell you
every single dog that they hear bark and
where it lives and
and how long it barks for and you can
talk to those individuals
we'll scan for a microchip we give them
this option and again
if they say no i can't hold on to it or
they say we've tried
we can't find the owner then we will
take the animal
for sure and that's my presentation for
that
just to give you an idea of who we are
what we're doing and why we're doing it
again we are this is not something that
we're pulling out from underneath our
hats this is something that's
is published and supported by major
groups in the industry any questions for
me
madam advisor thank you chair and thank
you clint for this i know that we've
been talking a lot about
um this kind of new policy and new ways
i think
especially coming out of kova that we
can adapt um for hopefully
better for different ways i myself
have used this system and i like to do
it anonymously
just to see how it plays out but we had
that opportunity
actually as we found a dog
while trying to do a litter cleanup
and so we we called we asked
what can we do we walked it around the
neighborhood we did end up going to
a a vet apa to get it
scanned and we decided um we were
advised
um if we can keep it to keep it um
and so we tried that process however it
did a
180 after it saw our other animals at
the house
and so we called the animal service
center we said this
dog has become quite aggressive and we
were advised to bring it in right away
and so that i do appreciate because
there are safety issues and concerns
sometimes when you you're trying to do
the right thing and it's just not going
to work out
um one of the items that you have here
is that resource list
i am curious how did we ask any of these
agencies if they wanted to be included
on this list since they are
kind of private partners and perhaps
that is one way
you know that we can work together to to
foster good relationships and if they
don't want to be included on something
like this
then we might be able to remove that
so two-part two-part answer on that to
the best of my knowledge
no we did not ask if individuals would
be like to be on this list
however these are these are options that
are on
other publications that we have there at
the center so i felt it was fine to list
them
and then the second part is we are
working on another
edition of this where we're calling the
area or the
the rescue and asking what they can
offer so instead of just saying stray
animal
humane societies that are new mexico we
could put on there we'll
we'll scan for microchip we'll do this
and we'll do this
and so it gives it more specific than
just uh
contact them thank you i think that's
great to
you know to reach out to each one put
what they're willing to participate with
as we give out this information to the
public and if they're not then
we can respect those wishes
with that thanks to and thank you
clinton
thank you madam vice chair are there any
other questions
uh commissioner allen clint
have you responded to these um
emails that we got that i raised earlier
like from apa
and kathy stark i have not responded to
this specific email
but i've already talked to those
individuals before the emails were sent
i didn't feel like i should respond to
them because it was sent to everybody
it was a long list of recipients for
that so i didn't know
if i would be the one to respond or if
it would be a board member but again
i've spoken to them before the email
and what was their reaction they didn't
agree
it's the same as as the email stated
so do we have an intractable problem on
our hands with them
as far as relation-wise yes i don't
think so apa has always been
very professional in all that they do
they they know that they're in it for
the animals
they're not in it for friends in no way
and i appreciate that with them and
about them especially working with
michelle she's not afraid to tell me
what she thinks is right and what she
thinks is wrong i mean we had a facebook
not a facebook but a messenger
discussion discussion just last night
about vaccines
and she agreed with where we were coming
from whereas before
she was unsure so i don't think our
relationships
is hurting at all okay
what about kathy stark
uh with kathy she is
she's a great member of the society that
works hard for the animals and she
i know she is part of several of the
of the rescue programs that are here in
the area
i i had lunch at her house with some
friends
last week i don't think that friendship
or that dialogue is injured whatsoever
with that okay thank you
ex-officer minimal ward
thank you chair this isn't a question
this is just a comment
in regards to the owner release of
animals
um donaiana county animal control
has not been taken just recently we have
stopped on a release seen picking up on
our release animals
um at this time unless of course it's
due to exigent circumstances
that is partly and it's a two-part
reason
partly because of the email that came
from the shelter
as a request for help on lowering the
number of intakes
so that was one of the reasons we
thought we could help
lower those numbers of course we were
seeing our
911 screen blow up with calls and a lot
of it was
owner releasing of just animals like
crazy for no reason
and you saw our reasons in the past
and then part of it is because we're
short very short-handed right now we are
we're down to five animal control
officers and that's part of
the reason is trying to figure out what
services we can provide to the
constituents
and owner releasing unless there's
accident circumstances of course is one
that we're going to
halt at this time so that was sent over
to the
911 dispatcher and since then we really
haven't seen
a high number of those come in so
hopefully our numbers will decrease
by that and we'll also look at our stray
to see what happens in that time frame
great thank you miss ward appreciate
that update
um clint and i had i know i i did
respond to
michelle's email and and understandings
i think there is
um the way i like to
i try to refer to is the community
members because i think it is a
community right the animal community
here and
um the asmv plays a central role
in you know with within that community
um
one of the things that i'm i she
clarified for me was
you know i think for at least her email
is
around the strays piece of fix i think
there's been a couple of emails or at
least some some discussion that i've
that
from community members that uh they
are their stories or there's
examples where someone felt that they
could not bring them to the ascmv
and then chose to just release them out
wherever in the along you know in the
desert or along a busy road
um so i guess my question
and i'll before i get to the question
piece of it i did want to add you know i
had seen and this was
not not so much on a stray but an owner
surrender where
um i had seen where a owner had was
looking
because they they were moving um due to
i don't know if it was a deployment or
what specifically but they weren't able
to
care for their two dogs they were trying
to
go through the list or at least they
they had a couple of names i don't know
whether
if somebody calls to the ascmv do they
get
the talk that shows this or do they have
to actually
show up in person to even see this page
where they say the ascmv
will take those animals all phone calls
and walk-ins are handled the same if
they have an email address this is also
available electronically
and we send it to them okay because i
know when i it just happened that i was
at one of the rescues they showed up
said
this is where i was told to go they
weren't this it happened to be apa
um they were they were full and you know
i think
they were advised you know try try again
if not call back
you know a little bit later maybe if
they'd had some
adoptions that they would have room to
take the animals but um
it i didn't ask and i think maybe i
should have
if they had knew that that the asmv was
their last option
they seemed to be under the the
understanding that
the asmv would not take the animal and i
don't know why that is i don't know if
it's just you know the initial
thought or at least they because they
were asked to go somewhere else and find
a home
um that they didn't get that message so
i i don't know if that if that might be
something missing
but i i think as vice chairman stevie
said or recommended maybe there's an
opportunity
to work or at least identify which of
the community members
or organizations will be willing or to
participate or at least the options or
the services they provide
mr chair if i could just for for two
things one
is nowhere or i'm sorry we're talking
about two separate things
straight animal and an owner surrender
on a stray animal
when they get this form that's on the
screen now nowhere on that does it say
to go to a rescue for a stray animal
they should they're that's not that's
not their job the rescue's job is to
hold on to a stray animal and try to
find it
now whether the individuals where they
get that information
i don't know but it's not from us we're
not telling them to go to a rescue on a
stray animal
we're asking the individual to hold on
to it and try to find the owner
now on the on the options for us owner
surrender that yes we are asking reach
out to other areas but in no means are
we saying
ever that they will take them we're
saying
this is your responsibility
don't just push it over on us why don't
you work and try to find
a place for that animal okay thank you
for clarifying the
between the two processes and i know i
mixed up the two um
now is there a requirement on a stray
the previous slide
is there a requirement at all that they
have to keep them for so many hours
no there's not there is uh
that's why it's on there to fill out the
lost animal report
so we do that at the center if the
person is willing
if they don't if they if they say okay
i'm fine i'll keep the animal and they
leave
then we tell them with this paper you
need to fill out a lost animal report
and what that serves is that's the same
thing as being
impounded at the center and our policy
says three days for animals that
don't have any id or sign of ownership
and five days for ones that do
and it's just more time for the owners
to come and get them so that's that
found report
serves as that wait time okay
because we've had we've had individuals
that go out in the
that have re-homed an animal and we give
them this form they sit in the parking
lot and they call
and they're told no on all of them they
come back in and say i called nobody can
take it and we'll take the animal
if that's the best that you can do
that's the best they can do okay
and the reason i ask is because i think
i've heard at least that feedback was
that the ascmv was making a requirement
that that people had to hold an animal
for
72 hours before on a stray before you
would take them
no we have we have a piece of paper for
adoptions that says
you need to have an animal for at least
three days three weeks three months i
don't know if they're getting that
confused with it but
as far as my knowledge we have not been
telling people to keep it for at least
three days
okay and one last question or at least
that
because of the numbers i know in during
your previous report
of how many how many animals the rescues
are taking
from the ascmv would there be any
could you see a process in which rather
than going like when you're talking i
know
this is probably more directly to the
owner surrendered more than the straight
but
if there was a process in which they
went direct you know all all animals
went to the ascmv
and then ascmv coordinated with the
rescues
to determine where they were where these
animals could go
so um if there was a coordinator within
the ascmv that could say okay you know
i've got this
we have this much so that way i guess
the idea was is that
they're not bombarding everybody at once
they come to the asmv
and then it comes up you know kind of
spreads out from there rather than
them coming to the asmv not being able
to go there now they're going to go to
all these other partners to see if they
can take it so they're not getting
i guess what i'm asking or trying to
clarify here at auto
those rescues are not getting animals
not just from the ascv
and also people you know they're not
getting hit from multiple directions
they're only coming from
the asmb yeah and i understand what
you're saying is that we would kind of
act as a hub
and so the rescues would all come to us
instead of getting phone calls from
individuals
and the issue i see with that are some
several
is that one or the whole reason to do
this is population control
is to keep the center population down
and the quality of care
that would be given if we're housing
we're taking animals hand over fist
and the ones that would have gone into a
rescue and it takes rescues several days
to come in and take more
that would just be more animals that
we're holding on to sickness would go
up our numbers would would skyrocket
and also i know it sounds silly but
rescues
they choose what animals that they can
take
and and i know michelle with apa will
tell you right off the a big pit bull
will not move nearly as fast as a cute
little fluffy
shih tzu dog and also the
size you know it's a lot easier to hold
onto that shitsy fluffy dog
be and not as nice or not as easy to
hold on to a large
breed dog so what i'm getting at is that
rescues would come in
and they would take all the easily
adoptable ones and leave the bigger ones
because they know they can move them
faster
whereas that means that they can come
and get more from us
but in the long run that leaves us with
large breed animals
and this way when when people are
calling them they're cutting
us out and less work has to be done okay
i appreciate that and i appreciate you
pulling together this presentation
because i know they said that as
commissioner allen said noted
we've been getting emails from
the rescues and i just want to make sure
that we're
have the opportunity to understand what
is the process that is followed by the
ascmv and
and i and i absolutely welcome these
emails because i think that's been one
of the discussion items that we've had
is having that direct
input or engagement from the rescues
making sure that the board understands
the issues that they're seeing so that
not only are we aware but
if there's any decisions that we can
make and discuss with
the asemv with you um
to make sure we're making the best
decisions for not you know not just the
asmv but also the community as a whole
absolutely and i want you to know that i
don't mind these emails or phone calls
at all either in fact i got a phone call
from frank bryce with
humane society southern new mexico
several weeks ago
and one of the things he said is i don't
even know if these have a found animal
report done how do i know
they're coming and mind you that's on
stray animals and they shouldn't be
receiving stray animals
but i took that back to a manager's
meeting and we incorporated that as part
of our intake process
for the stray animals that are coming in
so yeah we got something from it
from from these questions and phone
calls and emails are coming in so
i completely 100 concur okay
if there's no other questions right on
this specific topic i did want to move
to the second part which was around
the presentation and how we want to move
forward
i know when during the previous meeting
[Music]
there was i'll say lukewarm or just
mixed
input in terms of trying to create a
subcommittee specifically for
community or rescue engagement
after kind of thinking back and taking
the input and just the thought
and i just want to make sure that the
board agrees
or might have input on this where
what you know i think as we had in was
it may where we had
um safe haven that had provided us a
presentation
we can move forward maybe in that
in that vein and where we can allow to
have a different
organization come and present to us
directly
and then you know so we would come up
with a
i guess what i foresee is this is that
we would have a month a calendar over
the year where
we can identify a different organization
to come every month to the asmv board
meeting
and present and one of the options to
look at what might be
you know those that take um the numbers
based off of what
mr thak represented uh maybe you know
using
those numbers to i guess identify kind
of you know the
the top 12 or something of that nature
in terms of those that take
or engage the most with the asmv
or at least give them priority like say
for example um
you know i you know i know like for
example best friends
broken promises apa i think those are
just some of the ones that i had seen
but that was just the thought was trying
to figure out how do we
figure out who gets on the list or how
we present was to look at
those that take specifically from the
asmv are you requesting
input from us at this point yes yes
correct i want to see if that would be a
plan that seems
feasible or would you all right
are you you really haven't presented a
plan well so the plan the plan is this
is that we we
have so the plan is this is that we come
up with a calendar for the next year or
at least a schedule
where we have a rescue
every month that comes and presents how
to determine which pre
how to come up with the list would be my
thought was is that we use the numbers
that mr thacker had provided showing
those organizations that see that engage
the most or take the most
from the asemv in terms of analysis if
we're going to do it over
a calendar year that would be 12
meetings because we meet once a month
and that would be 12 organizations
and i don't know how many there are uh
do you know clint or there's more
there's okay there's more than 12. and
um
and we can limit the presentation i know
that when uh
gene was doing them gene gilbert she was
covering
all of them but
so the presentations would necessarily
just
have they would be less than the time
that gene was taking
and we can limit the presentation to 10
minutes perhaps how many
organizations are there do you know
clint or frank
do you know how many organizations you
know
but say there were 24 we would we could
have two organizations i
i agree with the concept totally i think
it's wonderful i think it's good to have
those organizations
and we could limit the amount of time
you know many presentations we do that
for council meetings uh
people are told they have 10 minutes and
then they'll go 15 minutes which is okay
sometimes it's not no um
but i i think it's crucial and then uh
with
is it elaine or eileen elaine yeah
that's what i thought
um and then with elaine doing um that
write-up because the the
some of the emails we received were um
frankly um all of them i think were
well intentioned but i don't think they
were accurate as to how the center
functions
and it's and i didn't respond to them
only because
i don't have all the information and i
don't think
it's my position to be responding to
individuals
um and then clint thought well a lot of
people are on there
and and so there's a uh you know when we
get
we're barraged with things and and we
really do i mean i don't have the
precise answer
and i can't when they're saying that the
center doesn't do this
you know why isn't it doing it and it's
very demanding and it's very it's kind
of like
well maybe i should just delete it and
then i don't i let it sit there
um and but i don't reply to it because i
i don't feel that i'm
i'm the appropriate person i can't speak
for the board i can't speak for the
center i can't speak for the city
so um i think it's it's good to
um have i i think keeping the
public constantly
constantly educated as to
uh the processes at the center
regarding uh owner surrenders versus
strays
i mean it's going to be a message just
goes out all the time
all the time but definitely having
organized rescue
organizations come to present absolutely
but i
i think we could do that
our meetings are scheduled for two hours
right
or sometimes we've gone till after noon
yeah and so i think and so i appreciate
that so i think having the multiple
organizations and just provide them a
time limit like you're saying i think
would be a good idea
do you think we have more than 24 clint
yeah so we can do two and then limit
each presentation to 10
it won't be as because i mean gene did a
fantastic job
presenting on behalf of all of them and
she didn't take up
an hour and a half to present so i i
think it's doable
that's my humble opinion well i
appreciate that that input thank you
council for this
mad advisor thank you chair um
i also agree uh between the new
information that we're getting from
clint with the
um actual numbers that each rescue is
taking
um and providing um an inclusive
type of policy to invite the rescues i
think that takes care of most of what
was presented
i believe from the coalition the only
area that i would say we'll need to
think about if we are considering policy
changes
to be direct with perhaps seeking out
input from those rescues
if it does affect those areas and then
the second portion is
i think counselor florida mentioned it
is that
when we have information that is
disseminated between
different parties we have members of the
public we have
rescues and we have the center and
sometimes with members of the public
it is an educational piece so if they're
in a moment where they're having to take
an animal in
obviously it's going to be stressful if
they're not getting a
natural just yes answer here's the
animal i know it can heighten emotions
and how they feel that they've been
treated or
that customer service is and so having
those public
process type news articles
and just to walk through those things i
think would be very helpful
i think it shows good faith for our
rescues on these are our processes that
we are telling people
and then hopefully the public will be a
little bit more aware
of what to do as well in those
situations
thank you chair thank you madam vice
chair
so whatever i guess i based off that
input then we'll just look to
i guess in the next meeting in august
then we'll look to schedule
two meeting two organizations to come in
present if they're able to
and then we'll limit that um
so clint i think can we work on that one
piece of it
maybe we can we can work offline maybe
and try to figure out
you know give it a shot and see which
which organizations might be able to
make it
um i know that that some of the groups
are
not always able to make the middle of
the work day as as it is but
you know maybe we can try that out and
see how it works yeah that's exactly
what i was going to bring up a
majority of these rescue groups they all
have full-time jobs i can only think of
one maybe two
that actually have hired individuals
that work for them
apa and humane society southern new
mexico are the only two i can think of
that would be able to do that
what we can do though is i have the
ascmv created
a rescue facebook page that's private so
we can just put on there if anybody
would be interested in signing up
that way those that honestly want to
come and present
can do so i'll do two spots per
period and whatever fills up we can see
what fills up and then have hopefully a
whole calendar year out there
and then send reminders as it gets
closer for that
i don't see i look forward to it to see
what specifically
these rescue groups are doing to not
only help the ascmv
but also to help the animals in our area
i think it's a great idea
okay my wish here
thank you i was going to suggest that
perhaps
[Music]
if the rescues are not able to attend if
they also wanted to make just a
slide or two uh just explaining what
they wanted and
submit that it's something that probably
could be read
obviously we wouldn't be able to ask
many questions specific
but if they did want to have inclusion
that could potentially be another way
to do it and just keeping it brief
i think this is an excellent
an excellent time to bring up zoom
meetings
a lot of these a lot of these
individuals like i said work full time
but they would be
able to get off during the day during
early morning lunch break break and
we're talking 15-minute break at work
isn't that hard to obtain
jump on zoom and then present it
i i i'm a big supporter
of zoom meetings and i wish that the
board would
continue to look forward to this
possibly continuing as a zoom meeting
it's much more comfortable for all of us
to be able to
present or be wherever we're at i know
um mayor pro tem gander was going
thought this was a zoom meeting and so
had made plans to attend
via zoom meeting much more flexible
capable
talking to the city media department
they love zoom because when we do this
in person i don't know if you all know
but they have to zoom in on each person
that's talking so they're constantly
changing screens or changing
cameras to make sure those individuals
are covered um
i i would request that we go back to
zoom meetings
so that that's just me but thank you
thanks clint and uh and i'll say you
know one of the options might be is that
there's an
opportunity to go hybrid that's
something that i know we've done
in the county where um those that
attend in person you know we're still
doing
the with the cameras here in the
chambers or in the commission chambers
um
but then if someone joins remotely we
can see them
on our screens um in the chambers
as well so you know i don't know if
there's an opportunity to do something
of that nature where it's a hybrid and
that way like you're saying clint
if somebody had to join remotely they
could and then we can still see them
and they can be part of that webcast as
well
so council flores yes mr chair i know
that
here at city council if we are um
[Music]
we i have participated in meetings when
i've been
out of town when i've been in new york
when i've been other parts of you know
whatever
and the participation has been a call-in
so we do have that capability here at
city hall to do
call-ins and so far as your request
um i um i'm i'm a firm believer in in
meeting in person
i think that um like i can see you
nodding but if we were
um in zoom then i think maybe you're
frowning or saying oh i hate that
counselor
but seriously um just meeting in person
i mean like it was so good to see mary
lou and
it was because i'd seen the other uh you
know other people but i hadn't seen like
i saw becky yesterday and that was
wonderful
you know i've seen eric because he's
just down the hall for me
and it's just a good feeling you know i
i think that
there's a human factor i mean you go
home to a wonderful family of
seven kids and a wife and dogs and and i
go home to a needy
dog who just when i'm on zoom
all of a sudden she's you know barks at
anything she hears outside and
um but but the human factor
you know that interaction in person um
if we were if we if for example this is
open to the public
frank is here it's wonderful to see
frank
and and then we get to meet elaine in
person
and we hadn't met her so i
i think there's a lot to be said about
meeting in person
in many ways yes it's more convenient to
be sitting there
um you know i wear shorts and and then
maybe a nice
top for those meetings but i
i would i would definitely encourage
our meetings to be in person
with the option of calling in and i know
that in our housing
committee prc yesterday uh councilor
gandara
did have the option of uh actually she
did
she did join us but then she lost
connectivity
so that's going to happen and that we've
had too many fiascos in terms of
you know this not working or that not
working or pi you know whatever
so enough said thank you mr chair thank
you counselor flotus
pleasure mr uh thank you chair
while i'm awful at technology i do love
it
um one of the items i do think during
this time um
i chair other committees that have
actually
thrived off being on zoom especially
when we're asking for an occlusion from
members of the public or members from
even santa fe
this week i did specifically ask those
same questions if we could stay on
zoom from our city clerk i did pull it
up
that they haven't heard anything from
the ag's office
regarding the open meetings act so all
meetings should now be public due to the
state restrictions being lifted
with that in mind though i do think it
would be great for us to
look to see what
i think a new future might be and if the
ag has any
modifying items for the inclusion of
kind of a hybrid mode
that we could include zoom with maybe
public meetings
uh and i think of this for two reasons
one is accessibility
and um as we've seen there are a lot of
different reasons why
one person may not be accessible to a
public meeting and so we can have a more
inclusive
environment if we're able to do a hybrid
mode
and so i would suggest i know i'm going
to be pushing forward
into seeing if there's any way we can do
those adaptations
and i would encourage you all as well
thank you madam vice chair okay so
[Music]
clint at least for now we'll go ahead
and look at this for the august meeting
try to include two uh you know
organizations and then we can work
and see how you know if they can we'll
figure out the logistics of it
um you know and one last thing at least
until we can get like if we do
have the ability to maybe do a hybrid
but in the meantime the one other option
would be
if they want to record a video with
their presentation just like they do
with zoom
they can redu you know have them it may
not be like so the interaction might not
be there but they can
also submit a video record it while
they're talking all through their slides
and at least you know we could have that
piece of it as well so that might be
another option but
we'll move forward and we'll have two
organizations next month
okay thank you all right um we'll go
back to
a discussion item 5a mrs hafel were you
able to get
in touch with mr garner
yes i
[Music]
yes i was so once again
mr chair members of the board my name is
josh saffel
and i would like to present mr
chris garner as he presents the audit
entrance conference
i will get this open on our screens
hopefully all right mr garner anytime
you're ready
okay can you hear me yes okay i
i apologize i was actually waiting to be
let in zoom
and didn't realize that um this wasn't
uh
on zoom anymore so
what i have here is the presentation
that auditing standards require that we
make during the planning phase of the
audit
and so josh you could take it down to
the third slide
the introduction
i have listed myself and then heather
lucero
who will be the two in charge of your
audit
this year um it's the same there are the
same folks that did it last year
and so we both will be repeating on your
audit
um there is going to be a section a
little bit later
uh when we go over some of the um
what we call the development of the risk
assessment and this might not be
the correct form for some of those items
that i'm going to bring
up to be
talked about at this meeting and so josh
and or josie with the city finance
department
both have our contact information
both the cell phone numbers and email
addresses for us
so if anybody has any um questions or
comments that they want to discuss after
the presentation
feel free to give us a call
josh if you go to the fifth slide
so the first thing that we're going to
go over is the audit timing
that is that we're required to talk
about so
at this point in time we're in the
middle of the planning phase of the
audit
which has at this point in time happened
remotely
and what we're doing during this phase
of the audit is gaining an
understanding of internal control
testing those are
internal controls and also walking
through
transactions and so um
we will go through and continue that
part of the audit
through the end of july and maybe a
little bit into office
additionally the new mexico state
auditor
requires that we test certain compliance
issues
for example we're required to look at
avalon per diem
our procurement the use of
ecards and travel cards and
there's a list of quite a few items that
we are required to
expand our testing on based on the state
audit rule
and so we're in the process again of
also testing code
the other thing we're doing right now
which really shouldn't have effect
on your organization is we are planning
for any
um single audits that need to be
completed what that relates to with
federal grants
uh certain federal grants have to be
looked at
a little bit differently than our
regular audit procedures it's a
compliance on it
but again um that most likely will not
affect
organizations the last
bullet point under planning is risk
assessment
and that's where the board has the
potential to
be involved and help us develop our
auditors
with the risk assessment based upon
the internal control testing and also
other testing during the planning phase
we go through and we develop our risk
assessments to determine
what are the audit procedures that we're
going to complete
to to get the audit done
and so how you can play a role in this
is
if you have any concerns or things and
again we'll
finish the presentation today with some
of the items that you could give us
input on and contact us so once we get
that information
based on you know any information you
give us any information based upon
succession
management and then our testing of
internal control
we will complete our risk assessment and
determine you know
what audit steps will be performed so
that again that part is happening now
and will
probably be completed during the audit
uh i'm sorry during august the next
phase of the audit is field work and
this
timing is very similar to the prior year
we will come back in september and
october and complete
our field work testing and test the
extending balances
and test all of the accounts based upon
our risk assessments
and complete all those audit procedures
with the end goal
of getting the financial statements to
the state auditor
by the end of november your financial
statements are actually
due december 1st um
and so it's that probably the october
november time frame
management will give us the drafted
financial statement
and we will review them and kind of go
over any changes that we might have
again with looking at having the exit
conference
middle to late november so that we can
get the audits committed to the state
officer
the next section that the auditing
standards require we talk about
is auditor responsibility and also your
responsibility so
the the first slide that i have here is
talking about
our responsibilities under auditing
standards well as you can see in that
left-hand
box what we've been hired to do is
express an opinion on your financial
statement
and what that means is in the right box
because we're giving what we call
reasonable assurance we're not giving
after the assurance
so what that means is that we're not
looking at every transaction
um we're testing controls we're doing
statistical
samples um you know we're looking at
various things but we're definitely not
doing
um procedures and looking at every
transaction
therefore our audit could have
some errors in the numbers that are in
the financial statement
however those errors will not be big
enough to change the opinion
of the readers of the financial
statement so as you can see in that
right box
we talked about our opinions that states
that the financial statements
are free of material statements
and what that means is if you were to
take your financial statement
to a banker and those errors will not be
big enough to change the banker's
opinion of the financial status of the
organization
the next slide talks about our
responsibilities under government
auditing standards
and this is more commonly referred to as
the yellow book
and with a yellow book audit which is
required to be performed
by the new mexico state auditor every
audit that's
done in our state have to follow these
standards
and with these standards we have to look
at internal control
a little bit differently what we have to
do actually in a regular audit is just
gain an
understanding of internal controls and
then we only have to walk through
one transaction for all the various
cycles
and and that's all that's required with
a yellow book
audit we actually have to take samples
and test those internal controls
but what the yellow book audit does we
issue
a report that's included in your audit
that report just spells out how we're
testing
items a little bit differently than are
required under audited standards and as
you can see
um in that left box those procedures
we do not issue an opinion on internal
control
the only thing that happens in that
particular report is we spell out what
we do
a little bit differently and what our
responsibilities are
in the right box is to communicate any
significant difficult material
weaknesses
those have to be included as findings in
your report
in new mexico the state auditors
actually
taken that threshold and said that
even if findings don't rise to the level
of a significant matter
you still are required to report those
in your
office so during our audit procedures
if we come across anything basically the
level for that is the ground floor if we
have any exception repeating
issues in accordance with the new mexico
state audit rule
those have to be included in your report
as a finding
and so again new mexico state art rules
a little bit more stringent
than the yellow book standards
the next slide josh if you can go next
to that
this one talks about your
responsibilities for your auditing
commitment
and so it's it's probably been a good 10
years since the standards have changed
and really
emphasized that the financial numbers
are management's responsibilities and so
as you can see in that left-hand box
management is responsible for providing
us
trial balance and numbers that
meet our standards that we have to
follow um
it's what we more commonly refer to as
yes
so management has to make sure that all
adjustments
all entries um and all the postings have
been done
so that the numbers are in accordance
with gaps
and so this includes that management
leaks
all the management functions or takes
responsibility for all those numbers
and then also takes responsibility for
all those adjustments that have to be
recorded in your your trial balance and
the numbers that we get to audit
as a part of that management's also
responsible for
implementing internal controls to ensure
that
those controls are properly safeguarding
access
and so again that is your responsibility
as an organization to ensure that all
that is happening
josh if we go a couple more slides down
auditing standards require that we talk
about what what is the scope of our
audit
and as you can see here there are six
different entities or
six different things that we have to we
will be testing as a part of our audit
first of all we're auditing the city of
las cruces
we'll be doing south central solid waste
authority
we'll be doing the town uh downtown kid
the animal service center of your
organization
and then we'll also be doing messiah
valley regional dispatch authorities
and metro next process
[Music]
during our audit of all these different
organizations and jpas
we will be issuing five separate options
um the animal service center will have a
separate
report and a separate audit will be
completed and submitted to the state
auditor
the only one that doesn't have a
separate office list will be the town
downtown kid which is a component and
it's a separate fund
reported in the city of las cruces audit
other than that all the other five
entities including yours will have
separately issued financial statements
so josh if we go down to the next
section two more slides down
you just want to talk about
communication
in order to have a successful audit it's
really important that we have open
communication not only during the audit
time but also throughout the year
and one of the tools that we use during
the audit
during the audit time is what we call a
status update
and what that does is that allows us to
have open communication with management
which will show them the items that
we're still sending and waiting on
will kind of show the status of items
that we have completed
for our testing um and then
more importantly and one of the most
important functions of this is
just to communicate potential findings
and the reason i say potential findings
is sometimes when our staff completes
their work
they have gone through you know and may
be visited with one employee
who might not have all relevant
information
so therefore what happens is we make
sure that
we're on the same page that management
is aware of any finding
so that they can let us know if maybe
there's another control
that has been established that we
weren't aware of
that might deal with the issue that um
we have
and so again this just gives the
opportunity to make sure
that we're on the same page and that
we're
all in agreement that um if we do have a
finding
that it is a valid finding and make sure
that
again we don't agree josh if you go to
the next
slide the one thing i do want to
point out that's very important
is in accordance with the new mexico
state audit school and i've got a couple
of citations here
we the the board or management
cannot publicly talk about the status
of the audit as far as you know whether
we're going to have a clean opinion
um you can't talk about any potential
findings
none of that can be made public until
the audit has been
completely accepted by the new mexico
state auditor
so what happens is is the new mexico
state auditor
we submit the audit report in draft form
they go through and review that graph
and then they give us any feedback
and once they give us that feedback it's
called an ok to print letter
we will address any concerns that they
might have
and then there's a few more documents
that we have to submit to them at that
time
and then they go through and review the
final report
and then once that's done they will
issue a release letter
and then five days after that release
letter and it is a public document
and those items can be talked about so
as we use the status update i really
just like to
emphasize that even though it's a tool
that we use throughout the audit
it can't it has to stay within
management it has to stay within the
city
and those items cannot be made public
until once the audit is completed
josh if you'll go down two more slides
we've got a few slides to talk about
product rule change this year
really there's nothing that's very
significant that's happened
in the audit rule for 2021. um those
first two bullet points there's
there was a lot of clarification and
added wording
um just to make things a little bit more
clear
but really didn't have an effect on what
we as
auditors have to do to complete your
audit
that second bullet point just talks
about how payments are
able to be made to um firms
they did change rules where now um
higher percentage can now be paid
once the audit has been the draft has
been submitted
to the state auditor's office so again
there's a little bit of a change there
and then josh if you go to the next
slide we'll talk about
two we'll start talking about the two
left bullet points and so
in the rule the new mexico state auditor
now allows us to hear auditor for eight
years instead of
fifth and so um again this is just a
a change that really is going to affect
how the audit's completed it just has
the ability to retain officers for two
more years
than was allowed in the past
we go to the next slide
the state auditor did change testing
accordance with the retiree health care
contributions
that have to be made by your
organization
and so last year the new mexico state
auditor
changed what we had to test your
retirement contributions is to para
and so what this rule does is just
matches
the retiree healthcare with those para
contributions
and so last year the state auditor
determined that
one of the things that they felt was
more risky
is when we don't make payments for
certain employees
and those contributions or employees for
certain employees
are not getting and you know there are
actually lots of valid reasons
why the each employee would not have to
make a contribution
but what the state officer wants us to
do is make sure that those
that have been excluded are properly
excluded so
we will test the sample of excluded
employees
to ensure that they meet the criteria
for those exclusions
and the reason the auditor feels that
this is a little bit more risky
is that your organization uh if they're
an employee that's been excluded and
doesn't make the contribution
um what happens if it gets found out
maybe 10 years down the road
you would be responsible for not only
the employee's portion
i'm sorry not only your portion the
employers but also the employees
and so that would be an additional cost
that you would have to incur
if later on you found out that employees
were
improperly excluded from making
contributions
and so they've determined that's the
risk they want us to address
you know in the past the risks that they
felt was
contributions like being properly made
and so we've tested that for quite
quite a few years and i think their
exemptions have
been pretty minimal over the last
several years so they wanted to change
the focus on what we're looking at
so that's really all the changes that
are
as a result of the changes to the state
article
josh if we go down a couple more slides
we have one new standard that has to be
but the standard relates to the
acquisition
of an organization where you would have
a hundred percent control
in that organization and so that type of
transaction
as far as i know has not happened this
year and so therefore
this really won't have an effect on your
organization for any audit
so there won't be um there's not a big
effect that's going to happen with this
new standard
um as a result of the type of operation
that your organization has next year
there are a couple of significant
transactions and we've actually
already started having a little bit of
talk with the finance department on the
effects of those new standards but
this year the accounting standards that
happen today
are fairly minimal
so josh if we go down a couple more
slides
you know i talked about the risk
assessment
and how the board can have an influence
on that
and we'll talk about that um here in
just a few moments
but before we get into that i just want
to make sure
and let you know that you know if
anybody gives a call
or bring us brings up any concerns
that that information will be kept
confidential
and will only be used to complete our
risk assessment
and to develop our actual audit steps
that we will perform during the aud so
in the last section that i'm going to
bring up some of these items
um this is probably not the right if you
have certain concerns
so please contact either myself or
heather
and just know that that information will
be kept confidential
josh we go down two more slides
and these items again
are items that we would take into
consideration while performing our
assessment so if anybody is aware
management before of any of these items
we would like
you to contact us so again we can find
out specifics and we can adjust our
audit plan
but the first item is material latest
transactions
so if there were transactions that
happened with any of the board members
maybe a board member has a business that
the organization
has some transactions with we would want
to be made aware of those items
just because those type of transactions
happen doesn't mean there's an
issue but we have to get an
understanding of what those transactions
are
how they were approved and just make
sure that you know that there's
transparency
and that the individual that has that
conflict of interest
has refrained from any involvement with
the approval of that particular
transaction
the other thing that potentially could
happen is if there are material
transactions
in accordance with gas we would have to
disclose those
in the footnotes to the financial state
so again if anybody has any concerns
with any related party transactions
please let us know
[Music]
the next item is fraud or concerns of
fraud so
even even if you don't um know that
fraud happens but you might
have a gut feeling that maybe
something's just not quite right
and if you have some concerns with fraud
again please let us know
so that we can incorporate those
concerns and look at the internal
controls regarding those transactions
where your concern is so that we can
follow up and again
address our audit plan related to those
items
if there have been any special audits
either by
any state agency or any federal
government agency we need to be aware of
those audits and we'll have to get cops
with those um you know i know
the uh internal audit department
has been um you know getting some
reports and
testing them this year we won't go we
will automatically be talking with them
but if there are any outside parties
that are not a part of
the city or any of the jca that comes
and does a performance audit or special
please let us know so that we can get
copies of those again
incorporate that to our risk assessment
the last bullet point is just kind of a
catch-all i mean if there's
a transaction type or an internal
control process
like maybe such as cash fees
that causes any of you any concerns
again please bring those up to us
we will look at those and take those
into consideration
and so again any type of concern you
have
we want you to contact us and we will
adjust our audit plan and make sure that
we address those issues
with that i'll open up to any question
hey thank you mr garner are there any
questions for mr garner
counselor flotis thank you mr chair
thank you chris this is councillor
flores from
the city of las vegas and my question is
if we have any questions at all we go
directly to you
because this board does not have its own
attorney
or would it be um there would would
there still be that confidentiality if
we went to our respective attorneys
either for the city or for the county
or do we just go directly to you
thank you councillor flores you can come
directly to us
we did have um in the prior audit
um and maybe not necessarily related to
this jpa
but we did have folks that came directly
to us and that
information remain confidential so you
can contact
myself or heather either one of us
direct
thank you chris sure thank you mr
chairman
thank you councillor flores any
additional questions for mr garner
commissioner allens just as a matter of
this is commissioner ellen's
from the county as a matter of curiosity
do you represent the south central
uh waste authority
do we are the auditors for the south
central waste authority
but um we don't represent them
all right you've answered my question
because i knew i'd heard this
presentation recently because i'm on the
board of the south central
solid waste yes sir we did present the
same
um required communications to that board
i think it was last week
frankly two weeks in a row is withering
sorry about that thank you commissioner
allen
okay any additional questions i am not
seeing anything
so mr garner thank you i appreciate the
presentation
and uh mr saffield thank you very much
for guiding the presentation
thank you
okay we're now on to the agenda for
action items section 6a which is
resolution
2021-06 for fiscal year 22
grant funds carry over and budget
adjustment
uh before we get discussion can i get a
motion in a second
second i moved by commissioner ellen
seconded by councillor flores
okay and good morning chair
members of the board william blanchard
budget analyst city of las cruces and
before i get into the presentation i
have to let you know that i am making an
amendment to this resolution
i handed the new resolution out to the
secretary earlier this morning and she
gave each of you a copy
in the first go around i had increased
some grants when i should have decreased
them so i have to
to um say sorry for that but i fixed it
and now we are moving on
so the resolution before you
is to carry over some ascmv grants and
to adjust
two other grants to actuals
we are increasing the budget for the
carol petrie
general operating support grant this
grant came in
after the fiscal year 22 budget was
already
come was already come was already
completed
and we are increasing both revenue and
expense by one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars we are decreasing
the budget for the carol
for the carol petrie foundation kovid 19
grant
by six thousand ten dollars this
reflects spending that occurred after
the
after the fiscal year 22 budget was
finished
and we are also decreasing revenue and
expense for the maddie's fund pet foster
care grant by 3
888 once again because this is spending
that occurred after the fiscal year 22
budget
was already complete
and with that here here are your board
options and i will stand for questions
and if you have
more in-depth questions about the grants
i will defer them to mr clint thacker
okay thank you mr blanchard
are there any questions on what's
presented
commissioner allen see your microphone
do you have any questions
okay good um all right
there's no questions i think what we'll
need to do is um
have an amendment to update
the resolution as per the pac or the
resolution as
uh presented here so
can i get an emotion to amend
resolution 2021-06
as presented so moved moved by
uh vice chairmaid stewie i will second
the motion so we have an amendment on
the floor to
adjust as presented are there any
questions on the amendment
okay can i get a roll call on the
amendment please foreign
yes board member ellen's yes board
member ward
yes board member betas duvet yes and
board member
sanchez yes okay the amendment is
approved
so we're now back to the resolution
2021-06 as
amended are there any questions on the
resolution
okay can we get a roll call the
resolution 2021-06 as amended
former enriquez yes board member flores
yes board member ellen's yes
board member ward yes when we repeat
this duvet
yes sanchez yes okay the resolution is
approved
okay we're on to public input
are there any members of the public that
would like to provide input
mr price come forward
and if you would state your name for the
right frank bryce president humane
society of southern mexico
you probably noticed i was jumping at
the bit to get up there and talk a
minute ago
i've got two items i'd like have a
little extra time on
one is on particularly on the issue of
stray referrals
when people go to the shelter and
they're given that piece of paper
what i would like to recommend and i've
tried to make an appointment with mr
thacker and talk about it
we haven't quite accomplished that yet
is when they come in
get somebody from the staff volunteer
that's qualified
to at least evaluate the animal see
where it needs to go
whether it's a big dog go to a big dog
organization a little dog organization
cat and not just hand that piece of
paper out and send them out the door
they do go out with quite often when we
get to them we hear that they've been
told that they have to do this we have
been told that they have to hold the
animal 72 hours
at their home i'm not sure that's even a
legal thing to require
of a of a good samaritan so we need to
do
we need to make a new another protocol
for when animals come to the shelter
if they can do a very quick evaluation
personality health
what what is the direction we want to go
with that animal
that would be a big help it is very
difficult for all of our organizations
on the field
to get a call and say we're full we're
full we're full
full then they have to take it back to
the shelter and the shelter says they'll
take it after you do all this
we need we need that little transition
from the shelter
and the good samaritan to the
organizations that
we don't all get blamed for not being
able to respond
and believe it or not even if the person
calls
on all of those little numbers people
don't answer the phone
they're not there not all the
organizations are as available
as some of the others we have we have a
system where we take calls
24 7 and we do a lot of
rescues at night when there's really not
a place to take the animal
and we help them do that but we need
that little transition
from your organization to the good
samaritan
to us so that we all don't get kind of
get blackballed in a way
we're not responding because a lot of
people when they talk to me they say
nobody answered nobody answered and then
they got to go back into the shelter if
they're still there
or they take the dog and a cat and maybe
do something else with it
that's on the straight and i think we
can come up with a protocol
that says hey the shelter can do a very
quick evaluation
figure out which organization is best
suited or is even appropriately suited
to for them the person to call if you
want them to do that
or they call i personally would prefer
the suggestion that they take the animal
in at the shelter do the evaluation
call the ship the organization and say
do you have room for it
if they don't then they have to keep it
at the shelter you don't take a chance
on the person walking out the door with
that animal
and turning it loose on the street cause
the animal to get hurt because that
person to get hurt
even causing an accident by turning it
back loose on the street
um and then the other one is on the
display and neuter
uh there was a big article i hope you
all all read it
on spay neuter we'd like to really
commend
that effort we've been trying to get
that effort started for quite some time
i will i will say this and i'd say this
in all honesty
i'm very pleased with the way the board
your board is working
the the things that are happening in
this shelter are positive
we've got a ways to go but we need to
get that spinning neuter
up to speed and right now most of the
organizations
are taking their dogs to other to
private organizations
at i mean private clinics we take our
stu to anthony actually
because it's so much more cost effective
but that's a long ways for us cost us
money
if the shelter would consider how we
could do it legally for them to get the
dog
in to cat in display neuter and then
give it to the organizations to do
whatever they need to do
they take responsibility for the
maintenance of the animal it's a
whatever health issues are associated
that they can't handle
and do it that way but we need we need
to have a little bit different
program on spay neuter although this is
a is a great
start with what's going on and i
apologize for being kind of anxious
about getting up here
i've i've been waiting for two weeks to
have some meetings with people
and apparently some things have happened
that i
was not told about that probably has a
good weight on
moving this forward and i appreciate
your patience with me but
we we we need to keep doing this uh
spanish
and then straighten out the stray
release issue
so that people don't walk out of that
shelter with a dog in their car
and know what the heck do i do with it
now
and just to give you a good example even
if we did all of that
we still have some issues with hours of
availability
i got a call the other night a young
woman
taking charge of a dog on her bicycle
she was traveling through this and and
we met over at mayfield high school
i loaded their bicycle in the back of my
truck put the dog in there
we couldn't get it we couldn't get an
answer out with the micro it had a
microchip so we scanned it
we couldn't get a call we actually drove
to the home beat on the door next door
that's where the people were at we got
the dog returned
but after hours is still an issue and
hopefully we can
continue to manage it like we do and
just so you know
and give us a little bit of credit i
think we have just passed 15 000
microchips
that our organization is responsible for
and we're doing between 100 and 150
a month that all gets them back
home quickly don't even go to the
shelter hopefully if we can
if we can find it but anyway i
appreciate your patience with me
um i would like to to have a little
results on our conversations for spay
neuter
and for strays thank you thank you mr
price
mr chairman mr owens frank
what is that article on spain neuter
that you
showed us it it's in the sun news
is it today's sunday no it's it's sunday
is last sundays
okay uh it's the issue of homeless
animals uh attributed to lack of spay
and neuter
that's not a big big secret folks
i'm a little irritated about this about
this development but it's a development
in the right direction
so you have to look at the the good
parts and the bad parts we've been
working on this
our organization has been working on
this for over 20 years here
it started out with the free spay and
neuter program
and it morphed into where we are now
with hsss m
but we still need to get it done we need
to get a cheaper
cost effective way to do it and and on
the straight the ttnr
i found two places last night
with 60 cats each i knew one
and i thought they had told me they had
30. it's actually 60
and then i found another place that had
60 cats and they're not doing anything
about it
we've got to figure out a better way to
reach out and pull those people in
to get them to get the cats taken care
of
and the shelters have been doing a great
job you can't i
cannot commend them enough on what
they're doing with the stray cats
with the tnr
we need to have a little bit more
availability of services right now i
think it's two days a week
and they're kind of irregularly
scheduled so it's a little bit difficult
but there the shelter has really
improved
let me say this and this sounds kind of
funny in a way but it's not
the board has improved over the 20 years
that i've been coming to this board
and the shelter has certainly improved
we've got some improvement to make
and we're going to help make it the best
we can and i appreciate your tolerance
of
of us coming up here thank you thank you
mr price
all okay i don't see any additional
public input
all right we're on to chair and board
comments
and i'll start by saying we have a
birthday girl in our midst
the counselor flores happy birthday
thank you very much i'm a year older
today
thank you so wish you a happy birthday
are there any other comments from the
board
[Music]
how's your float is uh thank you mr
chair i want to thank
frank bryce for coming to my house um
well for your comments uh i they're well
taken
and for coming to my house to change the
contact information on edie's chip
and uh he does house calls so
so the word's out frank you're going to
be barraged
seriously thank you very much frank
thank you thank you mr chair
thank you councillor flores anyone else
okay all right uh we're on now to
the adjournment uh can i get a motion to
adjourn
so moved second all right do we have a
motion and a second
can i get a roll call on the adjournment
board by martin ricas yes board member
flores
yes board member ellen absolutely for
remember ward
yes former beta steve yes board member
sanchez
yes thank you very much and before we i
just want to add that our next meeting
is august 26
2021 at 9am so we will see you all there
thank you very much
and this meeting is adjourned at 11 29
am
so