The Animal Rescue League of Boston, which is closing its shelter in Pembroke, is being criticized by animal welfare activists for the size of its executives’ salaries and for what the activists say is spending too little on animal care and services. (LISA BUL/The Patriot Ledger)

By SYDNEY SCHWARTZ
The Patriot Ledger

PEMBROKE - Before the Animal Rescue League of Boston opened its Pembroke shelter in 2002, animal welfare advocates criticized the nonprofit organization for sitting on its money, taking a decade to build a shelter and spending too little on animal care and services.

Now, as the League prepares to walk away from the shelter after only five years, critics question the organization’s spending habits, including investments and executive salaries.

In 2005, the most recent year for which a tax return is available, the League brought in almost $7.2 million in revenue and spent nearly $8.9 million.

That year, $6.8 million went to program services and nearly $4 million to salaries.

The League’s outgoing president, Arthur Slade, was paid $203,909 in salary plus $14,846 in pension contributions and deferred compensation. The incoming president that year, John Bowen, earned nearly $15,000 for his first month’s work, starting Dec. 1, 2005. The League’s chief operating officer earned about $151,000 and at least four other top employees, one of them a veterinarian, earned between $84,000 and $94,000.

The League also paid 12 other employees $50,000 or more.

‘‘They sat on the money,’’ said Marilyn A. Phillips, who serves on the board of directors at the Standish Humane Society in Duxbury, of the years before the shelter was built. ‘‘Then they built this state-of-the-art shelter that was so mismanaged ... it just makes you sick; their abandonment of the South Shore.’’

The League has more than $100 million in assets and an endowment of more than $80 million, but faces losses topping $1 million a year.

League officials say the Pembroke shelter has lost money every year since it opened, and that all its fundraising goes to cover the loss.

But critics question whether the League is as fiscally conservative as it could be.

The League’s top managers earn salaries in line with at least one other animal rescue organization. Bowen’s counterpart at MSPCA-Angell, president Larry M. Hawk, earned $286,616 in 2004.

That year, the MSPCA had revenues of $54 million and spent $42 million on program services compared with the Animal Rescue League’s $8.2 million and $7 million respectively for the same period.

According to GuideStar.org, which operates a database of financial information on the nonprofit community, the average CEO salary in the nonprofit sector is $118,252 a year.

Charity Navigator, another organization that evaluates charities, gives the Boston Animal Rescue League a two-star rating out of four because of its administrative expenses and fundraising inefficiency.

Sandra Miniutti, a spokeswoman at Charity Navigator, said the League is ranked high in program spending, devoting 76 percent of its funds in that area.

‘‘But its administrative expenses are definitely on the higher side,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s spending 17 percent. Most charities spend 15 percent or less.’’

Miniutti said the League’s fundraising efficiency is also ‘‘a little off compared to its peers.’’ Most groups spend about 13 cents per dollar to bring in contributions, and the League spends 21 cents.

She said the group is bringing in more money each year, but spending less and less on its programs. In 2004, the organization spent nearly $7.2 million and in 2005, it spent $6.8 million. ‘‘That’s an indication that they’re cutting back on programs or they’re laying off staff,’’ she said.

In announcing the decision to close the Pembroke facility, the 108-year-old animal welfare organization said it must do so to ‘‘preserve the vitality of services and facilities throughout the League.’’

The organization plans to sell or rent the Pembroke building and introduce mobile adoption trailers and ‘‘Spay Waggins.’’ It will keep its adjacent 60-acre nature sanctuary.

‘‘When it was built, I think it could’ve been smaller,’’ said spokesman Christopher Smalley. ‘‘Just the size of the building makes it expensive to run.

‘‘It’s our hope that for the opportunities that are available, staff here will be applying,’’ he said, adding that closing the facility would help the League regain financial stability.

The League blames the financial markets’ 2001 downturn for its fiscal woes. From 2000 to 2006, it lost more than $20 million from its endowment, it says. It estimates that if it continued to operate the Pembroke shelter, the endowment would decline to less than $10 million by 2019.

‘‘Animal shelters don’t exist to make money,’’ Bowen, the new president, said in late February. ‘‘It doesn’t take long when you erode your endowment to over time weaken the institution financially.’’

The facility, the largest of the four League shelters, cost nearly $7 million to build. The League has spent an additional $7 million to run it.

The organization built the facility with a bequest from Frederick W. Potter Jr. of Dover, who died in 1986. By 1997, his estate had grown from $1.4 million to $4.4 million.

The organization bought 69 acres in Pembroke in 1993 and 1994 and used $62,000 from the Potter fund to renovate a house on the property. Its director of operations moved in with his family.

Pembroke officials revoked the tax exemption for the property in 1997 on the grounds that it was not being used for a nonprofit purpose. Construction on the shelter began in 2000.

Animal rights crusader Dorothy Checchi-O’Brien of Plymouth, who died in 2001, often criticized the League for waiting so long to build the shelter.

‘‘They love to watch the interest grow on their endowment. They hate to spend the principal even though they have such a surplus they could build several shelters all over the state,’’ she told The Patriot Ledger in 1999.

Phillips, of the Standish Humane Society, said she can imagine how Checchi-O’Brien would react right now.

‘‘The Animal Rescue League came to Pembroke because Dorothy O’Brien, the wonderful late animal activist from Plymouth, forced their hand,’’ she said. ‘‘Dorothy is turning over in her grave.’’

Other advocates say the League didn’t give the Pembroke shelter a chance.

‘‘People had begun to just recognize that they were even there. That’s when they decided to close down,’’ said Candace Hart of Hanover, who volunteered at the shelter until March. ‘‘It came as a big shock to everybody.’’

‘‘The South Shore desperately needs this shelter to protect man’s best friend,’’ said Plymouth resident Alan D. Williamson.

Sydney Schwartz may be reached at sschwartz@ledger.com.

Copyright 2007 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Saturday, April 14, 2007
http://www.patriotledger.com/articles/2007/04/14/news/news01.txt