puppymill.jpg

Puppies rescued from an Allentown puppy mill in 2009.

(Christine Baker | cbaker@pennlive.com)

Attorney General Kathleen Kane's decision to not defend the state's law against gay marriage, arguably, should be nothing particularly new conceptually for the Corbett administration, which, according to an auditor general's report released Monday, simply decided in July 2011 to not enforce the new state law regulating puppy mills.

The auditor general's report indicates the Department of Agriculture's Office of Dog Law Enforcement was not prepared to enforce the law, and the administration - including the apparently unqualified Corbett appointee in charge of the office - "made a conscious decision to work with the kennel owners rather than citing them for not being in compliance."

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said he was "appalled that it turns out the department knew there were violations of the law and instead of correcting the problems they decided not to conduct inspections."

DePasquale, who as a legislator supported the new dog law, said "Before the new law went into effect in July 2011, Pennsylvania had one of the worst reputations in the country for allowing puppy mills. Now, we find out that the law changed but enforcement was so poor that there was little impact to alleviate puppy mill conditions."

The administration contends the audit does not accurately reflect the Dog Law Enforcement situation as it exists today, because the Corbett appointee has since left and been replaced by an administrator who has implemented most, if not all, of the auditor's suggested improvements.

According to the audit, most of the large kennels subject to the law were not ready to meet its requirements when it went into effect, despite more than 18 months notice. More to the point, neither was the state ready to enforce the law.

According to the audit, just days before the law was to be enforced, the state had either not purchased or purchased the wrong equipment required to monitor conditions within large commercial kennels.

Standard operating procedures for administering the law didn't exist, and wouldn't be written for another 16 months.

The dog law required 64 hours of training for dog wardens and others charged with enforcing the law, but no formal training under the terms of the law existed and still didn't exist a full year after the law went into effect, according to the audit. The administration told auditors a training program was being developed, but could not produce any draft instructional materials for such training.

According to the audit, "management indicated that there were none."

The state wasn't ready when the law went into effect, and wouldn't be for more than a year afterward.

Some responsibility for that rests with the outgoing Rendell administration, but it appears from the audit that little if anything was done about the issue during the first six months of the Corbett administration, which didn't appoint anyone to lead the office - arguably the second most high-profile post at Agriculture - until 15 days before the new law was to take effect.

And that appointment, according to multiple dog law experts, indicated a shocking lack of understanding or interest in animal welfare on the part of the Corbett administration.

Lynn M. Diehl, an ex-banker and Republican Party volunteer with no experience in dog law issues, was really interested in a state job dealing with banking and finance, but - through the arcane process of Corbett patronage - found herself instead in charge of dog law enforcement at the Dept. of Agriculture.

According to a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation last year, Diehl's resume met none of the primary qualifications for the job to which Corbett appointed her, but Corbett apparently was working with a different standard.

"She owns a dog," was the administration's answer to the Inquirer's question about Diehl's qualifications.

The administration claims the proper monitoring equipment had been purchased by July 1, but according to the audit, "department management made a conscious decision to work with the kennel owners rather than citing them for not being in compliance.. essentially deciding to delay enforcement of the law."

As a result, the audit says, the administration failed to perform the second of two required inspections on more than half the large-scale kennels in question.

It also allowed those kennels to rack up violations and still remain open and obtain their operating licenses for the upcoming year.

When the state resumed inspections, it didn't cite kennels with violations. According to the audit, "the department limited its enforcement to issuing only verbal and written warnings."

During the entire year after the dog law went into effect, only four citations were issued to commercial kennels.

What's more, overall citations under the dog law dropped by nearly one-third the year after Corbett took office, and continued to decline thereafter, according to the audit.

As for tracking the performance and citations written by dog wardens charged with enforcing the law, the administration told the auditors, "although this information is maintained in its database, no queries existed to easily produce such a report, and therefore, management did not have procedures to review citations issued by each warden."

The new law created a differentiation between big commercial kennels subject to increased scrutiny and other non-commercial kennels. The key difference was the number of dogs being sold each year: more than 60 dogs in one year and the kennel becomes a "commercial kennel" for purposes of the law.

Many kennels simply lowered the number of dogs sold per year to avoid the new regulations; that's the theory anyway: the audit indicates it's unclear whether or not those smaller kennels actually reduced the number of dogs they sold.

The audit discovered that the administration was unable to provide any documentation showing that any process exists to ensure that smaller kennels "did not exceed the number of dogs they are allowed to transfer per their licenses."

What's more, the inspectors were apparently using different ways of counting the dogs. According to the audit, "various interpretations exist" of the part of the inspection form that requires the number of dogs to be recorded.

"Management agreed that the form can be confusing in this respect," the audit said. "However, the form was not revised as of the completion of our audit execution."

These findings aren't entirely new.

The Auditor General's report tracks an earlier report from the state's own Dog Law Advisory Board, issued last Septemeber, which reached "the disturbing conclusion that, through either studied indifference or by design, the [Dog Law Enforcement Office] has failed in its enforcement of critical components of the Dog Law and the Canine Health Regulations."

The authors of that report said, "a laxity in enforcement has allowed thousands of dogs to languish in pre-2008 conditions despite protections in the law that as of today largely exist only on paper. We see a simultaneous moratorium on all types of kennel enforcement – application review, Canine Health Regulation enforcement, citations . . . – along with a reduced number of inspections – all of which signal that the [Dog Law Enforcement Office] is not discharging its duty as the Dog Law requires."

Deihl had been demoted and transferred to the Department of Corrections before that report was released.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Diehl had approved a kennel license "for the wife of Lancaster County breeder John Zimmerman after his license was revoked because of an animal-cruelty conviction. Animal-welfare advocates protested the license because they said it violates the dog law provision against transferring licenses to family members of those convicted of cruelty."

Although the Corbett administration had tasked the Dog Law Advisory Board with researching and writing its report; after the report was released, the administration billed members of the board more than $1,000 because they had requested information from the state by using official Right To Know Law requests.

Members of the board considered that "a get back" from an administration displeased with the content of the report. The bill has since been negotiated down to $280.

The administration response to the audit released Monday suggests the audit is "deficient" and "misleading."

In a response longer than the audit report itself, Dept. of Ag executive deputy secretary Michael Pechart said "The finding does not provide an accurate presentation of facts relevant to enforcement of the regulations at issue and is materially deficient in reciting piece-meal, incomplete and outdated information about efforts to ensure the remaining 54 commercial kennels in Pennsylvania came into compliance with the law. A fair, objective and accurate report should acknowledge the necessity of, and provide, an accurate and thorough summation 'of the whole,' so as not to mislead citizens."

Pechart's response also notes that five kennel license applications were denied and one revoked in 2012. In addition, 37 illegal kennels were identified: 30 were shut down and fined, while the remaining 7 have come into compliance and received a kennel license or they have an application pending. During the same period, all commercial kennels received the mandatory two inspections per year. "In fact," Pechart wrote, "most if not all received more than two inspections in 2012."

The audit acknowledges changes have occurred since the period audited, and says "it appears that the auditors’ questions/comments during audit execution spurred management to begin implementing changes."

The audit calls into question the future of dog law enforcement, noting that in 2010 Ed Rendell and the legislature conducted a $4 million raid on the restricted account intended to fund enforcement efforts to fill budget gaps, and that the account has subsequently been used to fund employees and activities not clearly associated with dog law enforcement.

According to the Auditor General, $2.6 million was used for unsupported payroll costs, and $1.4 million was used for unsubstantiated expenditures.

Consequently, the fund has gone from more than $15 million in 2009 to slightly more than $3 million in 2012.

The audit says "the current practice for documenting and substantiating payroll expenditures paid from the restricted account remains inadequate."

The administration's response: "We must simply agree to disagree."

DePasquale said, "I applaud the Department of Agriculture’s efforts since our audit to improve administration of the dog law program and at some point I look forward to auditing the results of those efforts."