The city’s uneasy, interdependent relationship with San Antonio Pets Alive begins a new chapter today.

That’s when the City Council receives a mid-year budget briefing that will include a proposed $375,000 bailout (from the city’s contingency funds) for the nonprofit, which is in the middle of a serious fiscal crisis. The council will vote on the plan Thursday.

By all accounts, SAPA is on an unsustainable path. A few weeks ago, the organization requested $500,000 from the city in operational support for the remainder of the year, so the proposed city bailout is actually less than SAPA wanted.

The organization perpetually struggles to raise funds and to bring in enough animals to meet the demands of its contracts with the city.

At the same time, the city’s Animal Care Services department isn’t necessarily on a sustainable path without SAPA either.

After all, SAPA came into existence at the special request of ACS, whose reps were looking for a high-volume rescue group to help the city attain no-kill status, which is defined as the live release of at least 90 percent of incoming animals.

In 2011, ACS asked Dr. Ellen Jefferson, the executive director of Austin Pets Alive, to bring her Austin model to S.A.

SAPA’s first 41/2 years have been fraught with instability, epitomized by the March firing of then-CEO Dru Placette, only five months into his tenure.

Former board chairwoman Debra Innocenti told me last month that SAPA has suffered because, unlike Austin Pets Alive, it did not get to “grow organically.”

SAPA representatives did not respond to an interview request for this column.

Local rescue activist Deanna Lee said she’s conflicted about SAPA’s request for a city bailout.

“We need an agency like SAPA, but not with their current management and infrastructure,” Lee said.

A common complaint in the local rescue community is that SAPA has been a byproduct of the city’s obsessive drive to attain no-kill status, an obsession that critics argue has put statistical goals ahead of quality-of-life issues.

At its worst, no-kill can have the unintended effect of encouraging animal-care agencies to drag their feet on picking up strays, because the more strays that get taken in, the more potential euthanasia cases for the city to confront.

Along those lines, some observers argue that SAPA has functioned as a convenient place for the city to unload animals, because it shifts the burden to a private organization, and removes accountability from Animal Care Services.

“It’s kind of a too-big-to-fail situation with SAPA,” Lee said. “SAPA has been largely responsible for the live release rates for ACS.”

SAPA’s high-volume contract with the city requires the organization to pull at least 4,000 animals per year from the city shelter, and provides SAPA with $50 per animal it takes. Also, SAPA’s contract for the operation of the city-owned Paul Jolly Center for Pet Adoptions requires it to take in a minimum of 3,000 additional pets every year.

Chris Garza, the organization’s former marketing director, recently told me that SAPA, like Animal Care Services, became consumed with numbers.

SAPA “took on a much larger job than they could handle financially,” Garza said. “So their focus was always on the number of animals, and not necessarily on the sustainability of the organization.”

Lee added, “SAPA was supposed to get the dogs adopted, but some animals taken in by SAPA have ended up on the street because they didn’t properly vet the fosters.”

In January, the city announced it had reached no-kill status for the first time in its history.

At the time, then-ACS Director Kathy Davis said no-kill status “has never been a destination, but a journey” on the path to creating a “more humane” city.

While it’s highly debatable whether the city should sink $375,000 of taxpayer money into propping up a shaky organization, at least some accountability strings are being attached to the bailout.

In exchange for the funds, the city plans to require that SAPA provide a $150,000 match, a seat on the organization’s board and a guarantee that it will hire a new CEO by the end of July.

At this point, both ACS and SAPA have good reason to resent their interdependent relationship, but it doesn’t look likely to end anytime soon.