San Antonio ACS reports staffing gains, higher live-release rates and expands spay‑neuter clinics

John Gary, director of Animal Care Services, told the Public Safety Committee that the department has added positions and seen municipal metrics improve while it scales community programs and two new city-run spay‑neuter clinics.

Gary said ACS added 22 first-responder positions in FY ’24–25 and that the department’s overall critical-call response rate has climbed to 96.2% this fiscal year — up sharply from prior years — with a year-end goal of 97%.

That improvement is part of a broader update that also highlighted placement and outreach gains: ACS reported a live-release rate of about 88% for the current fiscal year, adoptions of just over 5,900 animals and nearly 8,000 returns to owners. “We’re at 96.2% for our critical call response rate,” Gary said.

ACS leaders also detailed the agency’s investment in sterilization capacity. The city has allocated $1,760,000 across 10 spay‑neuter contracts and opened two ACS-run clinics (the West Side clinic opened in March and the East Side clinic in July). The clinics operate several surgical stations and — with contract veterinarians — are averaging roughly 20 surgeries a day; appointments are booked through the end of February. ACS’s stated goal is to perform 6,000 surgeries across the two clinics in the coming year, Gary said.

Council members and public commenters welcomed the expansion but repeatedly identified veterinarian staffing as the key constraint. A public commenter, John Bachman, told the committee the scale of the challenge is large: “You’d have to do about 200,000 spay and neuters a year… to get to zero population growth” if current pet counts and sterilization rates persist, and he urged long‑lead planning for the new veterinary hospital and staffing. Committee members also noted contract rates for veterinarians: a public commenter said some contract vets are being paid $1,350 a day.

Council members asked for additional operational data to inform budget planning and access improvements. Council member Castillo asked when pilot programs such as Pet Care Connect would become permanent city functions and asked staff to model what long‑term funding and budgeting would look like. Gary said clinic hours are limited by available veterinarians — the clinics are budgeted for four days a week but are operating fewer days because of the vet shortage — and that ACS is exploring partnerships with national groups (including Bissell) and local providers to increase capacity.

Council members requested ZIP‑code breakdowns and heat maps showing where appointments come from, and asked ACS to share more granular data on owner surrenders, including reasons for surrender (Gary said surrenders are tracked and that behavioral reasons are the most common category). Committee members also urged improved user experience across partner booking sites so residents only have to interact with a single, consolidated portal rather than separate processes for each partner organization.

ACS highlighted outreach programs that support placement and owner retention, including Pet Care Connect block‑walking, outreach events with partners such as Daisy Cares (food distributions) and wellness clinics that provided vaccines and microchips. Gary said the pet‑networking team’s marketing work has helped place animals quickly on social media: “About 87.7 percent of the animals that get that photo and they get highlighted get adopted,” he said.

Next steps: ACS will provide requested ZIP‑code appointment data and further split-out reasons for owner surrenders, and will continue to pursue partnerships and grant opportunities to expand surgical capacity. The committee did not take any new formal budget action at the meeting; the minutes from Nov. 17 were approved at the start of the session.