Last September, the city’s Office of the City Auditor released an audit highly critical of the city’s animal shelter operations, saying there was a conflict between its priorities of providing humane care, operating as an open intake shelter and maintaining its live-release goals. On Wednesday, Assistant City Manager Stephanie Hayden-Howard and Animal Services Officer Don Bland told City Council’s Audit and Finance Committee about progress the department has made since last fall.

Hayden-Howard noted that she had hired Deven Desai last summer to organize cleanup and help reform the shelter’s policies and was grateful for Desai’s work on the project. Desai was recently tapped by interim City Manager Jesús Garza to be the city’s chief ethics officer after reading a report from auditors critical of how the city is handling ethics concerns.

Hayden-Howard pointed out that City Council approved changes to city code in January that included updating the impoundment period to include time spent with a person who found a lost animal, revising the bite scale and allowing for euthanizing dogs with a bite history of Level 4 or higher on the Dunbar Bite Scale. While there was support for some of the changes, some members of the public expressed concern that they would result in euthanizing more animals.

Hayden-Howard said the department would be working with both internal and external stakeholders to come up with a strategic plan for the department. She said the city will hire a third-party vendor who will focus on external stakeholders. The audit recommended hiring an independent facilitator to help restore the public’s trust in the department.

Bland told the committee that his department had been working with the city’s Real Estate Services to look for an additional location for an animal shelter, either within the city’s inventory or property that is for sale. He added, “ASO has been working with a national shelter planner to do an assessment of a site for those needs.”

The department is holding regular staff meetings that include educating employees on how to avoid being bitten, Bland said.

The audit was particularly critical of Austin Animal Services for its failure to keep the center clean and for housing dogs in temporary crates, which could lead to more infectious diseases in the shelter. Bland said they were no longer doing that. In addition, he said Building Services has been working to keep the shelter clean, saying they had been doing “a phenomenal job,” including steam cleaning all of the center’s air vents and cleaning up the grounds four times a month.

Bland said his department has also hired a new IT person who started work this week. That person will work to verify data to make sure that it is correct, complete and consistent, according to the audit recommendations.

Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool, who asked for the audit last year, said, “I just really appreciate the movement and the progress. I hope we can continue to get the reports. … I know our folks in the community are avidly active. It’s important for the clear lines of communication to be open and for accurate information to be shared with the public.”

Council Member Alison Alter, who chairs the committee, said she was “happy to see so much progress. … The community is really asking for it and I hope we will be able to deliver on it.”