Henderson Animal Shelter underreporting deaths, critically understaffed, says analysis 

The City of Henderson’s animal shelter is ill-equipped for its mission, generating burnout and fatigue among an inadequately staffed workforce, and misusing public funds by killing healthy feral cats, according to a 260-page analysis commissioned by the city. 

The most serious deficiency identified in the report, prepared by Citygate, a local government consulting firm out of California, is the “extreme lack of Kennel Attendants.”

“It is not possible for a shelter the size of the City of Henderson’s to be operated properly with only two Kennel Attendants scheduled to work each day, as it is currently,” says the report. “The extreme lack of staff in the kennel and other areas is, in turn, contributing to issues… including with disease control, a lack of customer service in adoption areas, and the lack of availability of the current Administrator to perform higher-level duties because she is busy performing other, lower-level tasks.” 

The Current reported in January the shelter is understaffed and underfunded. 

Councilwoman Carrie Cox says former Assistant City Manager Jim McIntosh, who left earlier this year, found money to address the priorities in the report. 

“It was (Shelter Director) Danielle Harney’s choice as to where she wanted to spend that money and what the greatest needs were,” Cox said during an interview. 

“Animal care is of the utmost importance to the City Council and City leadership, which is why a comprehensive third-party operational analysis was conducted to provide recommendations to ensure our animal shelter meets national best practices,” city spokeswoman Madeleine Skains said via email. “A $4.5-million budget has been allocated for immediate facility enhancements, and additional shelter and operational improvements have been made.”

The city has addressed the staffing shortage by adding two animal control officers, who initially assisted with kennel cleaning, perhaps not the best use of an animal control officer’s time and talents, Cox says. 

“I would prefer they were not cleaning cages,” Cox said, adding the officers are learning all aspects of the shelter. “But that is 100% up to Director Harney.”  Cox later clarified a steering committee is involved in the process. 

Cox praised the efforts of the shelter staff.  “This is not their fault.”

Harney did not respond to requests for comment.

The city has also added a veterinarian, a part-time veterinarian, and a customer service specialist, and converted two part-time kennel attendant positions to full time.

Skains says it could take five to seven years to fill the positions recommended in the Citygate report.

Councilwoman-elect Monica Larson, who will replace Councilman Dan Shaw, called the report’s findings “extremely concerning. The animal shelter staff are doing the best of their ability with the resources that have been provided.” 

Larson said she is hopeful the city will “reallocate funding” to meet the shelter’s needs. She did not immediately identify a source of funds for reallocation. 

Measuring up

The Citygate analysis measures Henderson policies against guidelines of organizations such as the Association of Shelter Veterinarians and the National Animal Care and Control Association.

Henderson’s reliance on volunteers to provide standard services is leaving a gap in other areas, the report says, noting “the number of volunteers varies widely from day to day, and there were times during Citygate’s observations when there were no volunteers in an adoption area while the shelter was open to the public, and when there was only one volunteer assisting with the morning cat cage cleaning, which greatly impacted operations.”

The report identifies a number of areas in need of improvement in order to increase efficiency, meet standard of best practices, or improve operations. 

“For HACC to address many of the items listed will require additional staff members—either to implement a recommendation, or to provide the Administrator the capacity necessary to directly implement a recommendation,” the report says. 

The aging facility lacks “necessary animal holding rooms, has indoor dog kennels that are too small, does not have enough double-sided cat cages, does not have enough storage space, does not have a multipurpose room, does not have enough office space, and was designed without an appropriate work flow.”

Animal advocates have long been frustrated by the city’s failure to budget for shelter improvements, even while it spends tens of millions of dollars to buy property and partner in recreational facilities.

Skains, the city’s spokeswoman, says the shelter is currently reviewing its plans for a $4.5 million renovation.

The shelter’s front desk staff “is performing time-consuming record keeping tasks that became unnecessary” when the city installed software designed to perform those tasks, the report says, while existing policies lack the detail to ensure they are properly implemented. 

Cox says she initially opposed spending city funds on a report, but says hearing the findings from independent experts gives credence to making changes that have long been requested by residents and volunteers. 

No-kill to low-kill

For years the Henderson Shelter billed itself as a no-kill shelter, meaning it ultimately released 90% or more of the animals in its care. Today, the shelter’s website notes it is a low-kill facility, meaning it no longer meets the no-kill standard.  

The report suggests Henderson’s formula for calculating positive outcomes (live-release rate) is artificially increased by the shelter’s failure to count animals that die or go missing while impounded. 

Henderson reports euthanizing 10% of the animals in its care in 2022, the last year of data provided by the city for the analysis, but did not include the 2.5% that died while in the shelter’s care. 

The city contends it was not underreporting deaths, but rather using a former industry formula to calculate Live Release Rates. “However, we have now transitioned to the Best Friends reporting model, aligning with current Live Release Rates industry standards,” Skains said.

Citygate’s analysis says the shelter’s reporting of “animal statistics can be improved to align with best practices and to increase the accuracy of the live release rate being reported.”

The consultant notes a large portion of shelter deaths in general, not specifically at the Henderson shelter, can result from the failure to properly disinfect and isolate animals with deadly, contagious diseases. 

TNR showdown

Henderson is the only municipality in Southern Nevada that prohibits the trapping, neutering, vaccinating, and release (TNR) of feral cats to colonies that are cared for by volunteers. 

On Tuesday, the City Council will consider approving a long-awaited one-year pilot program that will allow TNVR as well as the maintenance of colonies, which is currently prohibited. The program would be conducted with the assistance of the Community Cat Coalition of Clark County, which is credited by Best Friends Animal Society with reducing the cat population in the City of Las Vegas by 30% within five years of establishing a community cat program, according to the Henderson agenda. 

“Based on national averages, Henderson has approximately 30,000 household pet cats and potentially an even higher number of community cats,” says information accompanying the city’s agenda item. “Henderson residents who find community cats are generally unable to find resources. Unless they choose to have the cat/trapped and possibly euthanized, it is left alone to continue breeding.”

“Cats entering traditional animal shelters have only three possible outcomes: being adopted, reunited with an owner or killed,” says the Citygate reporting, adding that the national euthanasia rate for cats is as high as 70%. “Without a TNVR program, unsocialized feral cats who can’t adjust to life in a human home and have no traditional ‘owners’ to claim them are almost always euthanized.” 

Harney, the shelter director, has long been a vehement opponent of TNR. 

Henderson’s current policy of admitting and euthanizing feral cats is out of step with best practices throughout the country, the Citygate report found.

The National Animal Care and Control Association (NACA) says euthanizing healthy feral cats “fails to serve commonly held goals of community animal management and protection programs and, as such, is a misuse of time and public funds and should be avoided.” 

The resolution does not say what would happen to colony cats should the pilot program not become permanent after a year. 

“If it’s discontinued, original operations will resume,” Skains said.

Henderson fancies itself a ‘premier’ community. But volunteers say its outdated animal shelter is nothing to crow about.  

“Our shelter is understaffed, in complete disrepair and represents a safety hazard not only to our workers but to our animals,” former volunteer Scott McIntyre told the council in April of 2023, adding volunteers provided the equivalent of ten full-time staff members in the last year – a savings to the city of $675,000, he said.   

“If you really want to be America’s premier community, you should be focused on the things that people care about, which will include making Henderson a safer city for animals, whether in the shelter or otherwise,” volunteer Laura Guimond told the council in 2023, citing “enormous amounts of money have been spent on things that don’t really make much of a difference,” such as $42 million (half of the funding) for Dollar Loan Center Arena, a minor league sports facility with limited access for the public, and $32 million for land at the site of the former Fiesta Casino for another indoor sports facility. 

“Imagine what that money or even a fraction of it could have done to improve the lives of homeless animals in Henderson,” Guimond told the council. 

In recent years the city spent about $2 million a year on the shelter, including $1 million for full time employees, an amount that remained unchanged for almost a decade.  

Henderson spent $21 million in 2022 maintaining its parks, including more than 20 for dogs.  

Note: This story was updated with comment from the city and additional comment from Cox.