Numbers don't add up, says treasurer

By Lisa Morry - lmorry@chilliwacktimes.com

While SPCA head office says the Chilliwack SPCA shelter was sinking by $300,000 a year, the former treasurer of the Community Advisory Council said the shelter actually achieved small surpluses recently, except in the years it made significant animal seizures.

In any given year, Sue Vilandre, who has a financial background, working for CIBC for 30 years until she retired, built the budget by projecting how much the shelter would take in in revenues, basing figures on previous years, and how much projected expenses would be.

"We're a non-profit society. We're not in the business to make money but we're not in the business to lose money," Vilandre said.

In the four years Vilandre looked after the budget-from 1999 to 2002-they achieved a small surplus in two years and a significant deficit in one year (the 2002 budget is not finalized). There were extra expenses associated with animal seizures in two recent years they had a deficit, Vilandre said.

Specifically, in 1999, they achieved a $1,200 surplus on a budget of $192,000. In 2000, they showed a $8,700 surplus on a budget of $190,000.

"We were cutting it close but we were okay," said Vilandre, who quit, along with the other four members of the CAC, at their meeting last week. "I was pulling it out of the fire."

However, in 2001, the Chilliwack

shelter did two puppy mill seizures and another seizure of horses and birds. There were veterinary bills and extra staff costs associated with those seizures, Vilandre said. They reported a $44,000 deficit on a $196,000 budget.

It was the same story in 1998, a budget which Vilandre saw when she took over as treasurer. That was the year of a cattle seizure and they reported a $42,000 deficit on a $101,000 budget.

There was no financial contribution from head office to help with either seizure, Vilandre said.

"The veterinary fees just about did us in," she said.

Vilandre doesn't have the final figures for 2002, but by the third quarter, they were showing a $13,000 surplus on a $210,000 budget. The reason she doesn't have the final figures is because head office called the budget in in September.

For 2003, Vilandre had projected a $6,000 deficit (she said she always projects a small deficit just to be safe) on a $210,000 budget. Head office cut her budget back to $101,000 and increased expenditures to $236,000, showing a $136,000 deficit, she said.

Vilandre said head office had told her that she wasn't supposed to include some of the fundraising dollars in her projections

"In my cynical little mind, I'm thinking there's not accountability in these fundraisers," Vilandre said. "They've done that at every shelter so there's a big pool of money called fundraising."

Vilandre said she doesn't think it's a good thing.

"My personal opinion is that it is still feeding into that idea that head office is keeping secrets. It is not open and transparent as they have said they will be," she said.

SPCA spokesperson Lorie Chortyk said Vilandre's figures, generally, are "not very reliable." Chortyk said the B.C. SPCA board is no longer willing to take operating money out of legacies willed to the shelters.

However, an examination of Vilandre's budget makes minimal references to legacies. In 1998 and 2001, there were no projections for bequests. In 1999 and 2000, Vilandre projected small amounts-$15,000 and $1,800 respectively.

Chortyk said part of the reason the SPCA is restructuring is to centralize shelter budgets.

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