"It's all about the kitties and puppies!"

Public forum tonight for transparency-troubled humane society

Tonight (Wednesday, November 13th), the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society (OPHS) will host a community forum to outline its path forward after a sudden financial implosion this summer.

Previous communications have created confusion.

• The agency announced its intent to sell Bark House, a relatively new dog facility, but then backtracked and decided not to sell.

• Kitty City, their feline facility in Carlborg, also experienced the same on-again and off-again status. Its fate is uncertain.

• The OPHS contract with Clallam County was increased to $125,000 annually but was terminated half a year later.

• The Executive Director committed to staying with the organization and then resigned.

As a result, community confusion grew, as did the number of abandoned and stray animals. Other local animal welfare agencies swooped in to fill the void while OPHS closed its doors and restructured.

Money woes

A recent letter from OPHS may have reached you. It shared the story of Josie, the obese cat who couldn’t groom herself and weighed 28 pounds. The mailing highlighted Josie’s weight loss success story and included a plea for OPHS donations. The letter didn’t mention that the agency had shut its doors and wasn’t accepting animals.

It was accompanied by complimentary gift tags, address labels, and an offer “to help you create your legal will.”

OPHS President Marti Oldham penned the letter. However, Board Secretary Martha Ireland disclosed that Oldham was among three board members who suddenly resigned.

Previous reporting by CC Watchdog resulted in demands from OPHS and the public relations firm they had retained to change published information. They suggested that the information CC Watchdog sourced from federal IRS documents was incorrect. CC Watchdog expressed willingness to correct misreported data if the agency shared financial statements and meeting minutes to prove the 990 tax forms were inaccurate. However, the Board replied, “The remnant of people at OPHS is so busy working to repair things that there's no capacity to open the books for you.”

New leadership

In September, Paul Stehr-Green emerged as the agency’s new president. By October, other Board positions had been filled.

From OPHS’s Facebook page.

Seeing a mix of new and rededicated leadership, CC Watchdog contacted President Stehr-Green with questions:

“I'm following up on a few questions I asked before you assumed your new role.

1) How much did OPHS pay the GreenRubino firm?

2) Are there plans to make minutes and bookkeeping open available for public viewing?

Since publishing stories about OPHS, these are the two top questions I've heard from readers.”

The reply came the next day:

“OPHS is proud to be a part of the Olympic Peninsula community.  Despite difficult conditions and a few self-inflicted errors in the recent past, we are focused on rebuilding our ability to offer supportive, healthful care to cats and dogs who are abandoned or surrendered to our care…and to help them find loving homes.

As you may know, we are required by Federal law to make our annual tax returns (Form 990) available to the public; you can find the last 5 years’ returns for OPHS on our website: https://www.ophumanesociety.org/financial-transparency.

Washington State law does not require the board minutes of nonprofit corporations to be open to the public (RCW 24.03.135).  The same is true of the board meetings themselves (RCW 24.03.075; RCW 24.03.120).  Similarly, private, nonprofit organizations are not required by State law to share details of specific invoices or line-item expenses.  As a matter of policy, the OPHS Board does not publicly release our Board meeting minutes nor finely detailed information that may compromise confidentiality.

Thanks for your understanding and, I hope, ongoing support.  Remember: It’s all about the kitties and puppies!”

While telling the media that information gleaned from annual tax returns is inaccurate, OPHS directed CC Watchdog to review those very annual tax returns for unanswered questions. The organization’s meeting minutes could indicate how the agency swelled from 17 employees in 2015 to 50 last year and why the executive director’s compensation grew from $73,217 to $141,933 in just seven years. However, it seems OPHS will not provide transparency beyond the minimum that state law requires.

According to the last annual tax return, for every $100 donated, only $8 went directly to “animal care.”

Stehr-Green also sidestepped a critical question about the cost of retaining a public relations company, GreenRubino, to repair the agency’s image. This distanced the nonprofit organization from its commitment to maintain “the highest standards of transparency and accountability.”

It isn’t solely “about the kitties and puppies,” as Stehr-Green wrote — it’s also about years of receiving community donations and taxpayer money while dodging questions. It’s about turning away stray and dangerous animals due to a financial crisis while prioritizing payments to a Seattle-based consulting firm for damage control.

For an organization that is cash-strapped and begging for money through mass mailings, people have legitimate questions:

• Will my donation be spent on a Seattle PR firm to make the agency look good?

• Are dollars being spent to give the Executive Director a massive raise?

• Is our local humane society overstaffed?

• How much money is making it to the animals?

People want to know

“Is there going to be an investigation?” asked Port Angeles resident Marolee Smith at October’s public budget town hall hosted by the County Commissioners. “Will the records be requested by the County so they can be reviewed by the People as to how the money’s been handled over the last five years, or longer?”

In response, Commissioner Ozias explained that the county had not discussed investigating the nonprofit it had been paying for years. He said that the $125,000 annual contract with OPHS had been suspended. County CFO Mark Lane said an agreement of $10,000 has been established for housing dangerous dogs next year.

“That’s very little, isn’t it?” asked Smith. “What about just lost strays?”

County Administrator Todd Mielke replied, “Right now, we don’t have a formal process for dealing with strays.”

“The people of our community came up with one-point-something million dollars to build this beautiful facility,” said Smith, speaking about the 2016 Bark House canine facility construction. “And now it’s just sitting there from a nonprofit that’s basically nonfunctioning? Is that what I’m understanding?”

The commissioners and county staff were silent.

Smith said, “I think we need to work on this, and I think that we do need an investigation into it because this doesn’t just happen.”

Unfortunately, a pattern of financial irresponsibility is becoming increasingly common and accepted. County leaders are considering raising taxes and pushing for the construction of a $40 million reservoir, but they cannot provide a budget for the recent Towne Road project. While they can’t say how much of our money they spent, they assure us it was spent appropriately, and now they want more.

Similarly, OPHS is unwilling to show how past donations and tax money were spent. Agency leaders assure us it’s all about the kitties and puppies, and now they want more of our money.

When it comes to government and nonprofit agencies, Clallam County citizens are becoming wary of organizations that refuse to show how they spend money yet ask for more.

OPHS public meeting

From OPHS’s Facebook page.

OPHS Public Forum

Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 6 - 8 pm

Port Angeles Moose Lodge (809 S Pine St)

Note: CC Watchdog is unable to attend. Please post any information learned from the meeting in the “comments” section.