Help wanted: Director to manage a high-profile government department, supervising 40 full-time employees and a budget of $3.1 million. Opportunity to oversee construction of a new $10 million facility. Generous benefit package and a salary of as much as $124,842.
The job: Director of Stanislaus County's Animal Services Department.
Applicants so far: Few and far between.
"We are having a heck of a time getting anyone to even apply for the job," said county Supervisor Jim DeMartini.
The position has been open since former director Michael McFarland resigned three months ago. It had been open for nearly a year before McFarland was hired in June 2006.
Dave Young, a retired assistant chief from the Modesto Police Department, filled in as interim director before McFarland was hired and will do so again, starting Monday.
The shelter veterinarian's position is even tougher to fill. It has been open for more than two years, despite a salary of as much as $110,780. The county has advertised in veterinary magazines and at veterinary schools throughout the Western states, without luck.
A variety of factors affect the recruitment for shelter jobs, county officials say, from a national shortage of veterinarians to the run-down condition of the county facility and continuing controversy in the community over the shelter.
Pay doesn't appear to be the problem in the case of the veterinarian's job, said Monica Nino-Reid, county assistant executive officer. Other counties, such as Sonoma, have similar salaries, she said.
Mike Kline, a retired Modesto veterinarian, agreed. "The package they are offering is real competitive," he said.
A national shortage of veterinarians, which is more acute in the Central Valley, is a problem. Kline, who has served on the Stanislaus County Animal Advisory Board, said private veterinarian clinics in Modesto would hire three to six more animal doctors if they could.
Shelter medicine is a specialty that further narrows the field, and in an area with such a large overpopulation of pets, the job isn't very attractive, Kline said.
"If they are spaying and castrating all day long, they are not really putting to use their eight years of college," he said.
Nino-Reid said the county has advertised the job at veterinary schools in California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado, with no success. "There's more jobs out there than graduating veterinarians," she said.
The shelter is coping by using outside veterinarians for spay and neuter work and getting vets to work part time on a contract basis, Nino-Reid said.
Farming out the work is expensive, she added. The county spent about $275,000 last year for outside veterinarian services.
A private veterinarian comes to the shelter seven or eight days a month to do spays and neuters on a contract basis, Nino-Reid said. "It doesn't replace a full-time veterinarian, but it is a great help," she said.
Shelter comes under fire
The controversies that have surrounded the shelter in recent years may be a stumbling block for veterinary and management applicants. A civil grand jury report in 2005 criticized the care and treatment of animals at the shelter and called for the resignations of the director and veterinarian. Both subsequently left the department.
Animal welfare activists have continually decried conditions at the shelter, and a second grand jury complaint was filed earlier this year.
The director's job is stressful, and requires a high degree of diplomacy, Kline said.
"It takes a unique individual to work with a government agency, employees and animal welfare groups," he said. Trying to implement programs with limited funds and costly state mandates to deal with is another challenge, he said.
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