SAN ANTONIO — Animal Care Services (ACS) has been dealing with an increase in roaming dogs every month this year and needs more people to keep up with the demand. Now the city council is making ACS one of their top funding priorities going into the fall.
Chief Operations Officer Bethany Colonnese told Kens 6 at the beginning of June officers still had around 240 calls that were waiting to be serviced.
"We are seeing a lot of puppies coming in. A lot more than we would expect. We are also seeing a lot of sickness coming in," Colonnese said.
At the same time, Councilwoman Teri Castillo said the issue is absolutely on the council's radar.
"We are scaling up ACS with the budget briefing that we received from our community engagement process," Castillo said. "Support for Animal Care Service is in the top five priorities."
Castillo said the council will also look at paying city veterinarians more in order to stay competitive.
The additional funding is even more important now after Governor Greg Abbott vetoed HB 4759, which was known as the "dangerous dog" bill. The bill would have increased penalties on pet owners after their animal attacked someone and would have made it possible to report attacks anonymously in a way that would still get an investigation started.
Animal Care Services Director Shannon Sims told KENS 5 last week their officers normally need to get a sworn affidavit to start an investigation. Those are subject to records requests and some people fear retaliation from neighbors when making reports.
"It would have provided some protection from open records requests," Sims said. "If it went to an appeal the individual would have to show up, but it would allow us to get it kicked off and do the investigation without disclosing the information of the complainant."
Sims said the requirement to disclose is part of the Texas constitution and the city can't change those rules on their own. He said the City of San Antonio had been in favor of the legislation.
"It's real disappointing. We worked very closely with Menendez and Campos to really tailor this bill so that it would give us a little bit more leverage and be able to bring higher penalties to owners of dangerous dogs, especially repeat offenders," Sims said.
Still, Sims told KENS 5 ACS would be able to better tackle investigations if they had more people.
"We are going to try to enhance our budget to get more officers in the field and boots on the ground, " Sims said. "It will allow us to get on calls and go door to door to get a sworn statement. It's going to require more leg work."
Castillo said ACS had not seen a large budget increase since 2012. The city council will start making decisions on the budget in September.
Both Sims and Castillo hope that they can work with the governor's office to introduce a new version of HB 4759 that at least allows for dangerous dog reports to be protected some homeowners would feel more secure in reporting issues.
"There is still a large piece that the community is counting on us on: the ability to anonymously report an aggressive animal," Castillo said.