♦️CALL TO IMMEDIATE ACTION♦️The participation of each and every one of you is URGENTLY NEEDED!
The City of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is seeking input for 2024 potential projects, one of which is the “2024 Audit Draft Annual Plan” and includes CACC on page 7.
To emphasize, this is a “proposed project.”
Whether they go ahead or not will depend on the Community Feedback (that’s ALL OF US).
Fill out the Community Survey and share widely on FB or whatever platforms you use!
CACC falls under the second open-ended question (Audit and Program Review projects from the Annual Plan). Here are some talking points that you can add so that this is meaningful to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). There are many listed below, but only choose four or five.
1) CACC has not had an audit since 2013. An audit is way overdue.
2) As a result, CACC has not complied with the standards of care needed to secure a humane and healthy animals under its care.
3) We need to assert the need for accountability and ownership of running an animal shelter as a safe space for the animals of our city. Currently CACC kills one out of three dogs that go into the shelter and they confuse that number by categorizing the deaths. Where is our humanity if we do not even attempt to actively save the lives of the homeless companion animals under city stewardship?
4) The last available audit report of CACC is from 10 years ago, the office of inspector general conducted this audit on May 2, 2013 (https://igchicago.org/publications/follow-up-on-chicago-animal-care-and-controls-shelter-operations/
• The 2013 audit found that CACC was significantly understaffed according to national standards and appropriated staffing levels and did not carry out veterinary examinations in a timely manner for 38% of neglected and abused animals. The audit also noted inconsistencies in animal inventory.
• Mitigation steps taken as published September 4, 2014 on the office of inspector general website:
-Animal Care Clerks into nine previously appropriated but unfilled positions to clean and feed animals
- hiring one Operations Manager
-implementing new inventory procedures including a daily count of animals
- hiring Animal Care Clerks into nine previously appropriated but unfilled positions to clean and feed animals
•Why has a follow up audit not been conducted since to check the effectiveness of these actions?These issues are still persistent and have exaggerated in scale based on our independent observation.
5) We request an annual audit of a defined process and governance to hold the CACC staff accountable for their actions, with more transparency to the public, so that CACC may
deliver its mission and vision, putting the animal interest first.
7) We would like to draw you attention to some key questions for an annual audit to hold :
• Who is responsible today to check that CACC is delivering as per its mission?
• Chicago Animal Care and Control protects public safety:
• When was the last public education program run by the CACC on animal safety?
• Why do citizens have to wait for more than a day for an animal to be picked up?
• Does CACC assure the humane care of animals through sheltering, pet placement, education and animal law enforcement?
• How is it ensured that the shelter manager has the bare minimum education/training to identify which animal should be put down?
• Who ensures that qualified personnel are engaged in some tough decisions that CACC has to made daily such as euthanasia? What is the qualification (background/education) of the current staff in shelter management who control the operations and make decisions about the future of these for animals - to be in a playgroup or not?
• Why are animal behaviorists not a part of the support system for these animals?
• Why does CACC not publish reports highlighting the Alive % and Rescued % instead give a convoluted equation to calculate this?. This is a clear lack of transparency (killing randomly and without warning and inflating the number of intakes and hiding the number of killings)
•. How many homeward bound rescues were added to the list for better outcome and capacity management within the shelter ?
• Why does it take more than a year to sign up a new HomeBound Partner?
• How many volunteers were engaged in the past year to help the shelter operations?
• By what percentage have the volunteer numbers increased/decreased in the past years?
• How many Fosters were engaged in the past 10 years for efficient capacity management?
• When will the shelters onsite clinic be functional?
• Why is CACC not partnering with major city vets for outdoor events?
• How many low cost/ free vaccination clinics were conducted per year since the last audit as part of the policy? Spay/neuter?
" Why are the time and attendance reports of the
CACC staff not available publicly?
• Why are adopters refused?
• What are the number of adoption drives in the past year?
• Who oversees the operational resources in CACC are used optimally? Who checks hygiene/cleanliness and safety of animals, check basic amenities and food is in place and appropriately provided.
And not to overlook, the personnel aspect at CACC:
• Why are positions vacant?
" Why is there no rotation of duties?
• What is the training provided to the staff to be able to do the work expected from them?
• How often are volunteer drives conducted ?
• Who checks that the people assigned a task are doing the task and doing it well?
• What is the support system that is available for the wellbeing of employees / volunteers who spend their time in the facility? This is its important because it will in turn lead to better care for these deserving animals.
8)These audits should be reoccurring, checking the resource allocation, personal training, capacity management, keeping the CACC employees responsible and accountable for delivering CACC mission and vision. These audits should be reoccurring, checking the resource allocation, personal training, capacity management, keeping the This would be the first step towards bringing the positive change for these sentient beings who come in their care first. delivering CACC mission and vision This would be the first step towards bringing the positive change for these sentient beings who come in their care first.
• What is the support system that is available for the wellbeing of employees / volunteers who spend their time in the facility? This is important because it will in turn lead to a better care for these deserving animals.
•Who determines the salaries for the staff at CACC?
•Why does CACC have to work as kill machine when there are options available to involve the community in order to serve the voiceless animals with care that they deserve!! The No-Kill equation and approach works. It works is because it is dual-purpose in nature. If functions to keep animals from entering the shelter in the first place (the "keep them out" elements) and it functions to get those animals who do end up in the shelter out quickly (the "get them out" elements). This means the animal shelter is just that: a shelter. It is a safe haven, a safety net, a temporary place to house animals until they are returned home or they are re-homed. When intake is reduced and output is increased, there are fewer animals in the shelter at ny given time so costs are decreased. Refer - https://www.paws4change.com/the-no-kill-equation.html
� If you do not have a Chicago zip code, explain that you are a CACC networker, that you follow, share and pledge on CACC posts or that you have fostered or adopted (or facilitated fosters/ adoptions) at CACC.
� DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Dec 31, 2023.
LASTLY, from my experiences with City agencies, this is very much a NUMBERS GAME. That is, junior staffers will add up numbers on each proposal and code for specific issues (like CACC). The other proposal — Public Safety/CPD — is going to have WAY more replies than the Audit proposal. So we REALLY really need to be on this and SHARE WIDELY.
� WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED FILLING OUT and SUBMITTING, please write “Done and shared” in the comments.
https://igchicago.org/publications/audit-and-program-review-section-2024-draft-annual-plan/
THANK YOU!!! Can we get 1,000 of you to carry out this very important step?