The state investigative agency strongly recommended the NJSPCA be stripped of its statutory responsibilities to enforce the state’s animal cruelty laws. | Getty Images Dysfunctional NJSPCA should be stripped of its duties, investigative agency says

The New Jersey Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a dysfunctional non-profit, mired by waste, abuse, debt and conflicts of interest — and it’s full of “wannabe cops” that are allowed to carry firearms, according to a scathing report issued Friday by the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation.

The state investigative agency strongly recommended the NJSPCA — formed in the 1860s — be stripped of its statutory responsibilities to enforce the state’s animal cruelty laws. Instead, it reccommends the enforcement of animal cruelty laws should be left solely to the government.


“The Commission recommends the immediate repeal of statutes empowering the SPCAs to enforce New Jersey’s animal cruelty laws,” the report reads. “This function, like other legitimate elements of law enforcement, should be placed within the qualified framework of government and performed by trained professionals.”

The report comes 17 years after the SCI first reported similar findings on the SPCA, with similar recommendations. The state Legislature responded six years later with a new law pertaining to the agency, but it left the non-profit as the primary enforcer of animal cruelty laws and, in many respects, allowed abuse to flourish at the non-profit, according to the SCI report. The NJSPCA paid Trenton lobbying firm MBI Gluckshaw tens of thousands of dollars for its work on that law, the report states.

THE NJSPCA made the news recently for losing its tax-exempt status after failing to file tax forms with the IRS three years in a row.

“The NJSPCA – as constituted and governed, then and now – is and has been a dysfunctional organization,” the report reads. "It has engaged in and tolerated waste and abuse, conflicts of interest and self-aggrandizement, and has routinely taken a cavalier approach to financial and operational accountability – all at the expense of unwitting donors and volunteers whose only motivation is to help abused animals."

The NJSPCA, which has affiliated county chapters around the state, is not affiliated with the ASPCA. It is funded primarily by donations and fines, and does not operate any shelters. Its officers do not actually handle or transport animals, according to the report.

The commission found that, of the agency’s 55-member volunteer enforcement officers and agents, 20 are authorized to carry guns. Some of those enforcement officers, according to the report, have gone well beyond the scope of their duties, even conducting traffic stops.

Nevertheless, the agency has been slow to respond to reports of animal cruelty, according to the report.

“The Commission found that 75 percent of the cases examined from the NJSPCA’s computerized complaint and report system database, in which response times could be determined, indicated that response time far exceeded the organization’s own policies and procedures, which require a written record of action taken within 24 hours of receipt of the complaint,” it reads.

That included one case where it took more than a month to respond to a complaint about puppies covered in oil and flees, and 36 days to respond to a complaint about a dog tied up outside an apartment even though the caller was “in obvious distress.”

The NJSPCA spent about $775,000 in legal fees over the past five years, much of it on squabbles with local chapters and unsuccessfully fighting a lawsuit that claimed it was subject to the Open Public Record’s Act. According to the SCI, that’s approximately eight times what it spent on direct animal care like hospitalizations. And its attorney, Harry Levin, billed at a rate of $475 per hour — higher than state agencies typically pay, according to the report.

Levin, in a rebuttal letter, said the report was misleading.

“I am certain that scores of lawyers representing the State of New Jersey charge at higher rates. To compare our rates to others is misleading without the context,” Levin wrote, adding that lawyers with specialized practices tend to charge higher rates than standard legal fees.

Although there’s a 15-member board of trustees charged with overseeing the non-profit, the SCI said it is effectively run, “by a select group of board members who hold leadership positions both on the board and in the organization’s humane law enforcement unit.”

The SCI said the person exerting the most control is its Chief Humane Law Enforcement Officer, Frank Rizzo, who was also its treasurer until resigning in April. From 2013 to 2017, according to the report, the NJSPCA paid a company owned by Rizzo more than $93,000 for promotional items like t-shirts.

“Further, the SCI found that businesses owned by other former trustees, or that employed a family member of a former trustee, received more than $108,000 for expenses related to vehicle repairs and for supplying NJSPCA merchandise,” the report reads.

The non-profit’s financial record keeping is “dismal,” according to the report.

“Even its own bookkeeper testified that given the totality of its expenses – including its legal bills – the organization is effectively bankrupt,” the report reads.

Top law enforcement officers are allowed to use cars owned by the non-profit for personal use, according to the report, and are even given gas cards.

“The Commission found that the NJSPCA conducts little to no due diligence to ensure that personnel are appropriately using vehicles and gas cards,” the report reads.

In his rebuttal to the report, NJSPCA President Steve Shatkin said that to save money on legal expenditures it had made overtures to the state Attorney General’s Office to assign an attorney to represent it — a request that had fallen on “deaf ears.” The SCI, in its report, said the NJSPCA could provide no written documentation of that request.

Shatkin insisted the troubled non-profit needed more help from the state.

“The NJSPCA has been entursted by the NJ Legislature and the people of New Jersey since 1868 to protect and serve those without a voice - the animals. It is a mission we undertake every day, 24/7, 365 days a year, for no pay,” Shatkin wrote. “It is an unfunded mandate by the State of New Jersey. We do not receive any financial support from the state yet are held to the same standard as every other state agency. The model might have worked in 1868, but it does not work today.”

Read the report here.