Pay for Underperformance

Because AWLA saves a much lower percentage (and kills a much higher percentage) of its homeless animals than the other shelters listed, you might hope AWLA’s Board of Directors wouldn’t reward AWLA management for its unimpressive performance. That hope would be in vain.

The numbers below reflect FY2009 data for AWLA and CY2008 data for the other organizations, and are drawn from Form 990 filings and annual animal-outcomes reports.

Why don’t Arlington taxpayers get their money’s worth from AWLA?

Imagine how AWLA’s animal-outcomes data might change if its management was paid based on the organization’s effectiveness at saving animals. How many more companion animals would survive to find forever homes if AWLA scrapped its Executive Director’s guaranteed $109K salary and benefits and instead paid her $50 for every cat, dog, bunny, or ferret that AWLA successfully adopted out or transferred to a rescue organization or foster home?

Instead, half of AWLA’s cat and dog cages sit empty week after week, while less-affluent shelters within a few hours drive beg cash-strapped DC-area rescue groups to take animals that the shelters will otherwise have to kill for space.

And when few potential adopters visit AWLA’s dogs — because not a single effort is made to promote them via proven tactics like adoption events, foster care, neighborhood flyers, or Craigs List postings — one by one AWLA quietly kills its unwanted dogs.

While the low-effort status quo must seem comfortable to AWLA management, it’s depressingly lethal for Arlington’s neediest companion animals.