FLORIDA--Monroe County on July 8 turned over management of the Key West and Marathon animal shelters to the Florida Keys SPCA--and cut the county animal control budget by 10%. Despite the cut, Florida Keys SPCA president Gwen Hawtof was reportedly optimistic that animal care would improve and shelter killing decrease. The Humane Animal Care Coalition has already made similar progress after taking over the Key Largo shelter in 1998, HACC president Tom Garretson told Miami Herald staff writer Nancy Klingener.

But even before the reported "worst parvovirus outbreak in memory" hit Orange County Animal Services in Orlando, it was a hard month for many other Florida humane institutions. * Planned Pethood of Collier County closed its six-and-a-half-year-old neutering clinic in Golden Gate at the end of July.

* In Davie, the Hoof and Halter Foundation faced possible prosecution for alleged neglect of 17 horses, a pig, and 40 birds who were taken from the premises by Broward County Animal Control on July 22, soon after the Florida Department of Children and Families removed the 12-year-old grandson of founders Yvonne Moran and James Schupolsky.

On August 3 Broward County Animal Care division veterinarian Allan Siegel said Moran and Schupolsky had evidently not neglected 27 dogs and cats who were taken from Hoof and Halter. But a judge ruled on August 10 that nor any of the other animals would be returned to Hoof and Halter pending disposition of related legal actions. "There's no way the birds should go back," said Diane Watchinski, director of development for the Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale.

All three of the troubled organizations reportedly were financially stressed. "Relying on private donations for funding," ETC Horse Rescue founders Michael and Susan Heck "fell behind on their mortgage payments and were foreclosed upon last month," Ocala Star-Banner staff writer Seth Soffian wrote. "On June 29, Jack Knap, who originally sold the property to the Hecks last year, paid $400,000 through his attorney to reclaim the property."

The Hecks had about 85 horses in their care. Bailing out ETC Horse Rescue, Susan Heck told ANIMAL PEOPLE, would take approximately $700,000.

"Dwindling funds and a lack of community support" also shut Planned Pethood, wrote Naples Daily News staff writer Elissa Osebald. The Planned Pethood equipment was sold to Fitzgerald Oliver, DVM, medical director for the Collier County Humane Society, who was to pay for the acquisitions by performing approximately 300 neutering surgeries at the Planned Pethood prices, Planned Pethood vet Elton Gissendanner II, 71, told Osebald.

The Planned Pethood clinic was an outgrowth of Planned Pethood of America Inc., cofounded in 1988 by Gissendanner and Bea and Robert Rose. The Roses, who started the former Friends of Animals neutering program in Miami in 1970, were then five years into a seven-year legal battle with FoA over first the use of funds sent to FoA headquarters, and later the 1986 closure by FoA of a thrift store that the Roses bought, ran, and deeded to FoA to fund the Miami operations.

Gissendanner was reportedly paid $100,000 a year to neuter animals for the Humane Society of Greater Miami. In December 1992, Gissendanner became director of the humane society, succeeding 25-year director Kenneth McGovern, who resigned amid criticism after Hurricane Andrew.

Gissendanner took no salary as director, but continued to hold the neutering contract. Florida deputy attorney general Mike Burnstein in October 1993 called this a conflict of interest. Gissendanner was succeeded in January 1994 by former Broward County Animal Control director Rick Collard, 53. Collard left in August 1995 to become executive director at his current post, the Clark County Humane Society in Vancouver, Washington.

One reason for leaving, Collard indicated, was the difficulty of fundraising in Florida--which has a fast-rising cost of living, high percentages of fixed income and lower income residents, and a veterinary establishment militantly opposed to low-cost neutering.

In Tampa, for instance, the Humane Society of Tampa Bay recently asked Hillsborough County to spend $25,000 to $50,000 a year to subsidize neutering the pets of low-income owners. The program would be modeled after others that have saved cities as much as $10 in animal control costs per dollar invested since Los Angeles introduced the basic structure in 1973. But the proposal was reportedly blocked by Hillsborough County Animal Advisory Board members Richard Kane, DVM, president-elect of the county veterinary society, and Bob Encinosa, DVM, who is in private practice. Responding to the challenge, Tom Parker, then manager of the Hillsborough County Humane Society, in the late 1930s showed the humane community how to generate income by running a pet cemetery. Parker, after leaving the humane society, made much bigger money managing singer Elvis Presley.

Customs have changed, land is now costly, and pet cemeteries are accordingly no longer greatly profitable for most operators. But providing guaranteed care for the pets of deceased persons via trusts or bequests could become the biggest fundraising mechanism for humane societies ever, then-Lee County Humane Society president Roland Eastland (now retired) told ANIMAL PEOPLE in 1993. Such arrangements are increasingly popular, at an average requisite trust amount or bequest of $5,000 per animal.

Hoping to compete for tourism and entertainment dollars, the Humane Society of Seminole County and subcontractors reportedly took a big loss in April when a two-day benefit concert flopped. Executive director Jeff Cashatt admitted having "paid for an event that didn't raise money," but refused to share specifics with Orlando Sentinel reporter Elaine Backhaus, who investigated reports of unpaid debts in late July.