PU'UNENE, Maui — The Maui Humane Society has come under fire in the wake of board resignations, the sudden departure of a respected animal control supervisor and an incident in which a pet dog was mistakenly euthanized at the Pu'unene animal shelter.

Former board members and employees interviewed by The Advertiser are especially critical of chief executive officer Jocelyn Bouchard and board president Anthony Levoy, and claim the volunteer board is not providing adequate oversight of agency operations and programs.

Public concern over the controversy will likely be on full display at the Humane Society's annual meeting April 6 at 5:30 p.m. at the J. Walter Cameron Center.

Levoy, who owns a commercial real estate management company, said the complaints are being stirred up by "disgruntled employees" and former board members suffering from "professional jealousy" and a lack of business acumen necessary to judge shelter management.

He praised Bouchard, a certified animal welfare administrator who has worked at the shelter for 15 years, as "exemplary" and "a fair but firm manager." Levoy said that since Bouchard was named CEO in 2003, she helped pull the agency out of debt, more than doubled the budget and expanded spay-neuter efforts and other programs. In 2007, she was named Maui County executive director of the year by the Cameron Center, a major base for the island's nonprofit community.

The Maui Humane Society has 43 employees and a $2.6 million budget that includes $1.5 million from the county for providing animal-management services and operating the shelter, which takes in more than 9,000 animals annually.

Sue Liscombe served on the board from 2003 until last summer, when she resigned because "I could no longer support the leadership."

She said her attempts to get information on the high rate of employee turnover at the Humane Society, spending and other issues were routinely brushed aside by Bouchard and Levoy. Liscombe and other former board members and employees described the pair as confrontational and intolerant of dissent.

"I started asking questions about shelter operations and was told by the president that this was none of my business. My take on it was that's exactly what my business was," she said.

Liscombe said job performance reviews of Bouchard conducted by an executive committee were not accurately reflected in the CEO's personnel file.

CONFLICTS ON BOARD

Other directors who recently resigned from the board include J.D. Wyatt, director of operations at the Hawai'i Nature Center's Maui site; Leslie-Ann Yokouchi, president of Prudential Locations Maui; and Georgia Norton, owner of The Salty Dog, a pet-grooming business. All told The Advertiser they were disenchanted with the direction the agency was taking under Bouchard and Levoy.

Another outspoken board member, Whitney White, who runs Interquest Detection Canines, was voted off the board in February for a "conflict of interest" because she sat on the nonprofit CrimeStoppers board with Aimee Anderson, the animal control director whose September departure from the Humane Society after 20 years of service sparked a community outcry and petition drive.

Levoy said the former board members "wouldn't put aside their personality conflicts" with Bouchard during the performance evaluations and resented her $80,000 salary.

"Jocelyn is a very strong woman," Levoy said. "These things will happen when you have females judging females and when you have board members who are making less money than the CEO is making and never had the business experience necessary to do this type of evaluation."

'EMOTIONAL' WORK

Humane Society critics said 80 percent employee turnover in the last fiscal year, up from 30 percent the previous year, should have been a red flag that something was seriously wrong at the agency. So far this year, turnover is about 30 percent, according to Humane Society records.

The agency also has had five development directors since Bouchard left the post to become CEO.

Employee turnover at animal shelters nationwide is notoriously high because of low wages and the emotional and physical stress of the job, and Bouchard said it's no different at the Maui Humane Society. She said the most common reason given for leaving was to seek a job with higher pay and/or easier work.

Bouchard said she's "not really sure" why so many former board members and employees are speaking out against her. "It seems there's a lot of negative energy and misinformation," she said. "A lot of what I've heard is not true."

Animal shelters are "an emotional business," she said. "People don't like euthanasia and how we do things. Everybody has a pet so they think they know how to run a shelter."

Some of the former board members agreed they were frustrated the Humane Society wasn't doing more to move toward becoming a no-kill shelter or at least reducing the euthanasia rate. About 60 percent of shelter animals are euthanized, mostly because of behavioral or medical problems, Bouchard said.

Critics say the incident involving the pet dog that was wrongly killed last August shows that some managers had become lax and desensitized to euthanasia.

OWNER'S OUTRAGE

Dog owner Teresa Rabanes of Hawaiian Homes said she didn't find out her 5-year-old blue heeler named Lady was dead until about three weeks ago, when she was contacted by Anderson.

The Maui County Code requires that stray dogs be kept for a minimum 48 hours. Rabanes' dog ran off Aug. 16, a Saturday, and was turned in to the shelter as a stray that same day.

Rabanes, a state corrections officer, said she called the Humane Society on Aug. 16 to report Lady missing but wasn't able to go to the shelter until the following Monday to make a lost-dog report.

On Aug. 17, a Humane Society supervisor told animal control officers to destroy Lady, thinking it was an aggressive male blue heeler that had been brought in by its owner to be put down. Anderson said the officers objected because there was no paperwork to identify the animal. The supervisor ignored their objections and shelter policy and ordered the officers to administer a lethal injection to the dog.

Bouchard said when Rabanes showed up at the shelter Aug. 18 to file a lost-dog report, Humane Society officials "weren't 100 percent sure" the dog that had been destroyed was Lady, so the pet owner was not told of the mistake.

Bouchard said once the error was confirmed, she called the Rabanes household three times, twice leaving a message. When her calls were not returned, she dropped the matter.

Rabanes said no one in the family received a call from Bouchard.

"We had no idea what had happened. We just figured somebody had found Lady and was taking good care of her. That's what we thought all these months," she said.

"That's more than our pet, that's a family member. I want somebody to take responsibility for this."

SOME CHANGE AHEAD

Bouchard said an employee involved in the incident received a written reprimand, and a new policy requires two supervisors to sign off before an animal is euthanized.

"There are 40-odd staff members here who love animals and are devoted to the care of animals," Bouchard said. "We take in almost 10,000 animals a year and on occasion mistakes may happen. Anybody involved in a mistake like this will never forget this dog, and I will never forget this family."

Anderson said she was never convinced that Bouchard had contacted Rabanes, and last month decided to call the dog owner "to give her closure."

She said the Rabanes case and other incidents led her to resign Sept. 3, after Bouchard informed Anderson she was going to be fired for insubordination and other reasons.

"My demise was a result of challenging the leadership, ethics and integrity of Jocelyn," said Anderson, who until now has kept quiet about the circumstances of her departure.

Bouchard said she is unable to discuss Anderson's situation because it involves confidential personnel matters.

The uproar over Anderson's resignation is one reason the Humane Society board hired an outside firm in October to conduct a management audit at a cost of $14,000, which Levoy said was paid for with the profits of merchandise sales and not from donations to the shelter.

Levoy said the confidential report uncovered some areas for improvement, and the board already has decided to hire a human resources director who can deal more effectively with employee concerns, instead of contracting out human resources functions.