OCEANSIDE -- Nearly a year after a drug scandal rocked the North County Humane Society, the agency is still trying to repair its reputation.

Complicating efforts to restructure the animal-care organization is a spate of resignations of key personnel. Eight management-level employees have left in the last eight months.

Several past and current employees, volunteers and a former board member said last week that efforts to restructure the agency have resulted in low morale, a mass exodus of qualified personnel, an increase in the number of euthanizations, and an overall decline in humane animal care.

They also cited what they characterized as conflicts of interest on the board of directors that continue, they said, to damage the public's perception of fairness.

Getting over Steel

"Overall, this agency is still going through crisis control," Julie Bank, the society's executive director, told a reporter in December. "The past year has been tough to say the least -- tough on staff, on the animals, on the community. It was not, and still is not, an easy time. The agency lost a lot of momentum."

In a board meeting last week, Bank and six other directors said the society was still grappling with the lingering effects of a drug scandal that toppled former Executive Director Stacy Steel.

Bank, hired last July, is the society's third executive director since Steel resigned in the middle of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation last spring. Steel pleaded guilty in April to using the federal drug registration numbers of three local veterinarians who had worked with the society to fraudulently obtain 3,600 Vicodin tablets, ostensibly for dogs.

She was ordered into a six-month drug treatment program, fined $500, and must submit to searches by law enforcement at any time.

The scandal created a host of problems for the private, nonprofit agency housed in the cramped, 70-year-old facility just off Mission Avenue in northwest Oceanside, including a decrease in donations.

Bank said the lack of money and lack of space are crippling the society's efforts to care for the 5,000 dogs, cats and other animals that come to the facility each year, Bank said.

The society's board of directors -- seven members, including Bank -- invited the North County Times to its private board meeting last week to talk about issues and allegations raised by former employees. The atmosphere was tense as directors spoke cautiously in measured tones, often after consulting with the board's attorney as a puppy whined nearby. But the board's willingness to talk is a change from its historical reticence to discuss internal operations.

Exodus

Bank said she was in the process of restructuring the organization and that while some of her decisions have been unpopular, they were necessary.

In the last eight months, seven key personnel have resigned and one was fired, according to four former employees, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they hope to get jobs in the local tight-knit animal care business. The board did not confirm or deny the resignations and firings last week.

"There's hardly anyone (now working at the Humane Society) with more than a year of experience," said former board member Josh Helmle. "They've all been run off."

Those who have resigned or been fired include the humane education coordinator of three years, an accountant of two years, the human resources manager of six years, the public relations/communication director of one year, the special events coordinator of one year, the office manager of three years, the operations manager of 11 years, and the licensing coordinator of one year, Helmle and two employees said independently.

"It's been very tough on individuals," said Bank. "Some have left because the transition has been tough, (and) some have been asked to leave because it's not right for this agency at this time."

Helmle and others said that an atmosphere of oppression allegedly common under Steel's reign has only worsened since Bank took the helm.

"I left because I wanted to help animals in a more proactive way," said Dana Arbogast, now director of operations for the Spay/Neuter Action Project in La Jolla.

"My experience was definitely not the best there," said Arbogast, formerly a humane education coordinator, said last week. "I didn't feel it was an open environment for staff to have a say in how we could run it more effectively. It was an environment that was not receptive to ideas and comments, and that can be troubling to staff."

Helmle said the problems are systemic and come through Bank from the board of directors -- notorious among volunteers and employees for their standoffishness.

"Micromanagement? No. They were never here," Helmle said, recalling his days as a volunteer. Once he became a board member, Helmle said board member Julie Moran told him he could no longer volunteer in the kennels or talk to the volunteers. The policy struck Helmle as nonsensical and evidence of an oppressive atmosphere.

Humane Society or dog pound?

Helmle said animal care has taken a back seat to financial considerations as funding dwindles.

"It's a kill center now," he said. "The 'Humane Society' is gone. (Bank) has turned the place into a pound."

Bank bristled visibly at the notion that the organization has abandoned its mission to promote humane treatment of animals and to educate the public on practices that advance humane treatment.

"To make the statement that we are not a Humane Society when we have animals here like this one is not right," Bank said last week, pointing to Kona, a pit bull mix, caged among rows of outdoor kennels. Picked up as a stray, Kona has been up for adoption since October. Employees and volunteers have been feeding and caring for the dog now for four months as the society pays the bills.

Gary Gurley, Oceanside's general services manager, said animal-control laws require that a stray animal must be picked up by its owner, adopted or euthanized within five days. After five days, the animal becomes the responsibility of the society.

"There are many animals here that have been here that long and longer," Bank said. As an animal-control facility, the Humane Society must take all animals that come to it. Spring and summer -- the traditional gestation periods for animals -- yield more animals, as do the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve when fireworks spook animals from homes and backyards into the streets.

As the population rises, Bank said she and her staff must make hard decisions regarding animal care based on a number of interrelated considerations. The animal's health, behavioral profile, breed and age all figure into its overall chance of being adopted. Those decisions are guided by published policies.

When the kennels become too full or money is tight, Bank said the decisions get harder still.

Euthanasia on the rise

Steel's actions have made finding a staff veterinarian difficult, Bank said, although the society has been advertising for the position. Without a staff veterinarian, the society must transport animals to the county's animal shelter, where Humane Society workers euthanize the animals with drugs provided by the shelter.

Former employees said a rise is the number of euthanizations proves that leadership at the society is failing.

The euthanasia rate for all animals -- dogs, cats, rabbits, rodents and other animals -- from July through September jumped from an average of 29 percent in 2003, 2004 and 2005 to 36 percent in 2006, according to documents provided by former employees and the society.

Between July and September of 2005, the facility took in 2,144 animals, of which 606 were put down -- 28 percent. During the same period in 2006, 1,916 animals came in, and 699 were euthanized -- 36 percent.

The euthanasia rate for dogs dropped 4 percent from 2005 to 2006 in that same three-month period. However, cat euthanizations rose from an average of 34 percent in the three previous years to 53 percent between July and September -- or more than half of all cats that came into the facility.

Former employees and Helmle noted that in the summers of 2004 and 2005, outbreaks of a disease called panleukopenia -- a highly contagious and commonly fatal feline parvovirus -- drove up euthanasia rates. And yet, they said, the 2006 rate is higher still, even without such an outbreak of feline distemper.

Bank explained the 2006 rise by saying that when she arrived, the facility was flooded with sick cats.

"We had a huge amount of upper-respiratory infections and we had a lot of cats treated long term that were not getting better, and because they were sick, they were not getting adopted," Bank said.

The bottom line for Bank, she said, is not the numbers but how to more effectively serve the animals and the humans who care for them.

On that point at least, Helmle and past and current employees and volunteers agree.

Money matters

Former board member Helmle said he was ousted by the directors in October over his attempts to interview Bank and make changes he said threatened the board. Helmle said his overriding goal was to create a more responsive board.

Helmle began as a volunteer four years ago, he said, and joined the board in June, serving for five months. He readily admitted he has an ax to grind over his ouster.

"Yes, I'm disgruntled, but aside from that, I would like to see change there and see the animals get the best care," he said.

According to Helmle, one of the primary responsibilities of each board member is fundraising and identifying and recruiting donors.

Board member Moran said fundraising is one of many responsibilities of the board, and that it has raised more than $100,000 in donations in the last year. In contrast, the organization took in $773,334 in donations in fiscal year 2004 and $514,425 in 2005, according to public records and society financial records.

Since Steel resigned, few fundraisers have been held, Helmle said. Bank canceled the annual Fall Ball -- a fundraiser for the last seven years that raised more than $60,000 in 2005 -- last fall, Helmle noted.

In addition to donations, the agency receives income from the cities of Oceanside and Vista by providing animal control. Oceanside recently renewed its deal with the society with a two-year contract for almost $1 million, according to Gurley. Vista pays the society $225,000 for animal control, Vista's code compliance manager, Dave Wilson, said last week.

Bank said she recently struck a deal with the Mohnacky Animal Hospital to provide free spaying and neuterings for a month to Humane Society clients adopting an animal. During January, Dr. Craig Mohnacky donated the operations, saving the society more than $10,000, Bank said. Bank and the board called the deal "good business" that allowed the society to pass the savings on to its clients.

But Helmle and other former employees said the deal alienated veterinarians who had been providing discounted services to the society.

"If you want to remain popular with the other veterinarians in town, it's best to spread the work around," said veterinarian Bob Cartin of the Mission Animal and Bird Hospital.

Additionally, Helmle said, the Mohnacky deal smacks of a conflict of interest. Moran, president of the Humane Society board, works at the Mohnacky Animal Hospital as a vice president of human resources.

Bank said Moran had nothing to do with setting up the deal, and Moran said she does not believe there is a conflict of interest.

"I did not personally or professionally benefit from the agreement," Moran said.

Contact staff writer Philip K. Ireland at (760) 901-4043 or online at pireland@nctimes.com.