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The San Antonio City Council approved six contracts with veterinarians to staff its new Animal Care Services (ACS) spay and neuter clinics on the East and West sides at a cost of $389,500 for the year.
The contracts will enable ACS to perform 5,000 more spay and neuter surgeries per year, helping the department reach its annual goal of 41,000 such surgeries.
The decision to hire contractors rather than full-time staff members — a decision that led to higher costs for the city — was made after full-time positions at the clinics couldn’t be filled.
“One of the biggest challenges was nobody responded to that [Request for Proposals] for actually running the center,” explained District 1 Councilmember Sukh Kaur. “And when we asked why to all of our partners that came to that meeting, they said we have a huge vet shortage and that people just don’t want to do high volume spay and neuter all day, every day.”
She said while she appreciated that city staff were able to find a way to quickly staff the two new clinics over the next year, a new solution would be needed to avoid such high costs in the future.
“What is it that we as a city can do, whether that’s tuition reimbursement, whether that’s different incentives to try to — or just changing the schedule — to try to get somebody W2 versus on a contract basis?” Kaur said. “I think this is going to be something that, if we really want to address long-term our stray and loose dog population, we have to get ahold of this.”
The contracts pay each of the veterinarians $1,300 per shift with an additional $50 per shift travel stipend for veterinarians traveling from outside the City of San Antonio and more than 25 miles away from the clinic.
The contracted veterinarians will also provide non-routine sterilization surgeries and wellness services in addition to spay and neuter surgeries.
The spay and neuter surgeries these veterinarians conduct will be free to the public — part of an effort from the ACS to incentivize residents to have their pets sterilized.
City staff said if the city council did not approve the six contracts, no surgeries would be provided at either of the two new clinics.
Those two clinics in Las Palmas and Denver Heights are expected to open soon.
Disclosure: Sukh Kaur is a member of Texas Public Radio's board of directors.
