Alternative Funds Sought to Save Animal Control Posts : Finances: The county is asked to find the money to keep five veterinary assistants. If it doesn’t, officials fear a significant increase in unwanted dogs and cats.

Animal rights groups and county officials warn that a tide of unwanted dogs and cats will be born and more lost pets will be put to death unless Los Angeles County administrators today come up with alternative funds to spare five positions in the county Department of Animal Care and Control.

“This will just result in more unwanted animals which are going to be put in the shelter and be put to sleep,” said Dr. Nicanor Lopez, the veterinarian who performs about 25 spay and neuter operations a day at the department’s Baldwin Park clinic.

The Board of Supervisors has asked the county administrative office to search for possible funding for the five veterinary assistants, and the office is scheduled to report back to the board today.

“This is one of those cuts where the sum total is greater than the parts of it,” said Frank R. Andrews, director of the Department of Animal Control.

At issue is $728,000 the county trimmed from the Department of Animal Care and Control’s budget, reducing it to $10 million.

About $148,000 of those cuts come from the elimination of the full-time veterinary assistant positions at the county’s six spay and neuter clinics, located in Agoura, Castaic, Lancaster, Baldwin Park, Downey and Carson.

The veterinary assistants prepare animals for surgery at the clinics and monitor their health afterward, freeing veterinarians to perform surgeries. Under the proposed cuts, the positions will be replaced on a half-time basis with animal health technicians from the animal shelters next to the clinics.

But some county officials and animal welfare groups are concerned that the animal technicians will not work as swiftly as the veterinary assistants, and perhaps reduce the number of operations by about 30%. Last year the six clinics performed more than 18,000 surgeries.

“We’re breaking up surgical teams who have known each other four or five years. They know each other, they know how to prepare,” said Bob Ballenger, an executive assistant with the Animal Care and Control department.

“On the surface, it certainly doesn’t look good,” added Edward C. Cubrda, president of the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In six years, an unaltered female dog and her offspring could generate 67,000 puppies, according to the Los Angeles SPCA. In 10 years, the SPCA adds, the cumulative offspring from an unaltered female cat could number more than 80 million.

Not all county clinics expect to be affected as much as the Baldwin Park location. Officials at the Agoura clinic hope that the slack will be taken up by volunteers. County officials also anticipate a minimal impact at the Castaic clinic, which generally has a light caseload and only performs surgeries once a week.

Private animal clinics, including two supported by the Los Angeles SPCA, also provide spay and neuter services. But Cubrda said it is uncertain whether these clinics can accommodate the overflow from county clinics or if people will turn to these organizations or just let the animals breed.

“It’s going to depend on budgets,” he said.

Animal Care and Control officials also fear the transfer of the animal health technicians from the shelter to the clinic for four-hour stretches ultimately will increase the spread of disease because the technicians medically screen and inoculate the stray dogs, cats and other animals that are taken to the shelter.

“That is dangerous in the sense that the animal health technician is a good preventive person,” said Frank R. Andrews, director of the Department of Animal Care and Control.

“If the animal health technician is not able to do that when the animal comes in, we have a four-hour lead time for something to happen,” he said. “It could spread something that is contagious or catch something from another animal.”

Such diseases, which include parvo and distemper for dogs and feline leukemia for cats, can be deadly. “We’ll probably have to euthanize more animals who get sick from disease,” Ballenger said. “It kind of has a domino effect.”

Ironically, the cutbacks come at a time when the spay and neutering program appears the most successful and necessary, according to county officials and Los Angeles SPCA statistics.

The surgeries are particularly needed to control the cat population, some officials believe. According to Cubrda, the number of cats taken to city, county and nonprofit shelters has increased 15% countywide during the past five years. Meanwhile, the number of stray dogs brought to these shelters has decreased by 9% over the same period, he said.

Andrews and other animal care officials are still holding out hope for a last-minute rescue. To prevent the county from dropping the five veterinary assistants from the payroll, the department moved them to vacant animal control officer slots.

Meanwhile, Andrews and others hope to hear a positive response from the county administrative office on alternative funding for the department. Andrews said he requested about $136,000, but that only $50,000 would preserve the five positions. The difference would be made up in revenue generated by the restoration of the estimated 6,000 surgeries, county officials said.

If the veterinary assistants stay on the job, he explained, there will be no drop in the number of spay and neuter operations and thus no drop in the amount of fees collected for the operations. These fees could make up the difference of assistants’ salaries, he said.

If the county can unearth no other dollars, Supervisor Mike Antonovich may request that the five supervisors contribute $10,000 each from their discretionary funds to save the positions, said Peter Whittingham, a field deputy with Antonovich.

But there is plenty of competition to use those funds for human needs.

“Everybody’s asking for that,” said Robert Alaniz, press deputy for Supervisor Gloria Molina, whose office is being lobbied constantly by various county departments for those discretionary funds.

“Keep in mind that there are other priorities in terms of health and human services. Keep in mind that the reality is we are starting to make some hard decisions.”

If the county fails to provide funding, Andrews said, the veterinary assistant positions probably will be eliminated by the end of the week. The employees will be offered jobs as animal control officers, positions that pay less.

To veterinary assistant Mark Cusick, the situation holds bitter irony. After 17 years at the Baldwin Park clinic preventing tens of thousands of unwanted animals from being born, the only job the county has money for now is to put him on the streets seeking out unlicensed animals.

“They want us to go back as animal control officers and sell dog licenses in the field,” said Cusick. “We think that spaying and neutering dogs and cats is much more important.”