Animal Care--Underfunded, Under Fire : Government: Los Angeles’ shelters are virtual deathtraps for stray and unwanted pets, critics say. Facilities are hampered by budget cuts, poorly staffed and a possible target of the grand jury.

The Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation has been seriously compromised by obsolete, overcrowded and poorly maintained animal care facilities and inadequate staffing in critical areas.

And that is what its biggest defender--General Manager Robert Rush--says.

Critics, including animal welfare activists and members of the Los Angeles City Council, say the city’s six animal shelters are virtual deathtraps for stray animals and have demanded a grand jury investigation.

There are other woes:

* City officials are considering closing the Harbor shelter in San Pedro, which needs $1.9 million in improvements the city cannot afford, and the South-Central shelter, which has been condemned as unsafe because the unreinforced brick building has a badly cracked roof.

* The department’s two remaining spay and neuter clinics, each able to sterilize 2,750 cats and dogs a year, are expected to close this year for lack of funding.

* Staff reductions ordered by the City Council could lead to more unwanted animals, meaning an even higher euthanasia rate for an agency that killed more than 67% of the 73,263 dogs and cats it impounded last year.

* At the South-Central shelter, kennels designed for 36 dogs hold an average of 100 a day. Four other shelters also reported overcrowded kennels and few vacancies for vicious strays, which must be confined alone to prevent injuries.

* Four shelters--East Valley, South-Central, West Los Angeles and Harbor--do not have hot water to hose down dog and cat runs, increasing the risk of infectious disease.

* A lawsuit charging that prospective pets are killed unnecessarily in city shelters has been filed by an animal activist organization and a Canoga Park man who said he was unable to adopt his chosen dog because it had been put to death.

Rush, under attack and accused of failing to manage the agency properly, blamed elected officials for not setting aside more funds: “The shelters are so . . . old the city doesn’t want to put money into them--we don’t have surplus money for spit.”

But City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who introduced the motion calling for the grand jury investigation, has accused Rush of failing to use and account for money properly.

She said Rush has misused a $300,000 animal trust fund donated to improve shelter animals.

But two years ago, Rush spent $40,000 of the money on chairs, tables and desks needed to augment department computers. Rush said the old chairs were in disrepair, adding: “I felt that if people are satisfied with their working conditions they are going to do a hell of a better job.”

The rest of the money was earmarked for improvements, including a new euthanasia room and stainless steel cages, at the East Valley shelter.

“The choice was whether to spend a little at each of the shelters or spend all of it at one,” said Eldridge Huntington, president of the five-member commission that advises the department. “We decided to spend it at East Valley and then use that facility as a showcase to show what could be done through donations.”

But even though that decision was made two years ago, no funds have been used to fix up the shelter.

Huntington said the face lift has been delayed because there is not enough money to fund the improvement plan’s other facets, which he said must come first.

Rush said it took almost two years for him to obtain additional private donations of $100,000 to supplement the trust fund money. Now, he said, “the package is complete . . . and work should begin in the next month or so.”

Still, the delay infuriated animal welfare activist Carole Ellis, who said the money could have been used immediately to alleviate conditions such as animals “shivering on cold concrete slabs at night without blankets or bedding.”

Rush has complained that his department’s budget--$7.3 million this fiscal year--has increased insufficiently over the $6.1 million in fiscal 1987-88. The increase represents a 14.4% hike during a period when all other city departments combined increased 40%, according to the city administrative office.

Also, the City Council--facing a $180-million budget deficit--has ordered Rush to reduce his staff from 204 to 191. Rush said the reduction will “restrict us to basic emergency operations throughout the city, and (cause us) to provide inadequate care for animals.”

Galanter said: “Every department in the city could use more resources. But just throwing money at something doesn’t solve problems. . . . We will have to manage this department in the most effective way. I don’t think we’re doing that now.”

The department offers adoption services, spay and neuter clinics and picks up unwanted, injured, vicious and distressed animals from city streets.

Department officials say the cutbacks will hit hardest in low-income communities served by the Harbor and South-Central shelters. Shelter officials and activists say the facilities have been inundated with animals dropped off by families no longer able to afford pets in a worsening economy.

No dates have been set for closing the shelters.

Last week, Councilman Nate Holden said he is considering introducing a motion that would develop a plan for the construction of a new South-Central facility.

City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie is urging closure of the Harbor facility, which impounded 4,840 animals in 1991.

“The closure of the Harbor shelter will have a horrendous impact on residents who will have to travel an average 20 miles round trip to use a county facility in Gardena,” Rush said. “Some of these families don’t have cars.”

As Rush wrestles with council members over money, animal activists are compiling a list of abuse cases that Galanter is expected to forward to the grand jury if it investigates the department.

In one case, Jay Tell of Canoga Park sought to adopt a stray dog he turned in to the West Valley shelter in 1990 but found that it had been destroyed before he could do so, according to a lawsuit filed last August.

Under city procedures, healthy shelter animals are kept at least seven days before being killed, in hopes their owners will claim them. After that, animals classified as adoptable are kept as long as the shelter has room for them.

Ten days after he brought in the stray, which he named Magic, Tell claimed that he spoke with shelter officials twice and made an appointment to pick up the dog. But officials called back the next day to say Magic had been accidentally killed the night before.

Rush declined to comment on the lawsuit, which seeks better safeguards to prevent accidental killings. He acknowledged, however: “We handle 87,000 animals a year and once in a while a mistake or two will occur. That’s human nature.”

Rush, who has headed the department for 22 years, is blamed by some animal welfare activists for many of the agency’s difficulties.

“In my opinion, the Department of Animal Regulation is as out of control as the Police Department,” Ellis said. “We need a countrywide search for a new manager and a state-of-the-art shelter system.”

Her remarks were echoed by Pat Purcell, who resigned March 7 as president of Volunteer Services to Animals, a 1,500-member support group organized 20 years ago to help the department. “The problems all start at the top of the department,” Purcell said. “There is no direction, management or supervision.”

But the group’s newly elected president said it is unfair to blame Rush. “I think it’s budgetary problems, and serious cutbacks,” said Jane Bronson. “The problem is not with the department. The problem is with pet owners who do not control the roaming or overbreeding of their animals.”