The Puppy Mill Project reports that the USDA's current inspection staff numbers only slightly more than 100 and they are charged with inspecting all the facilities under its supervision, not just commercial dog breeders and brokers.
As the inspection staff slid from 79 people in 1991 to 43 today, the city chose not to hire replacements.
But its efforts have been undercut by a depleted inspection staff, inadequate laws and modest enforcement goals, experts say.
So it is time to think carefully about the balance between in-house inspection staff and private contractors.
The authority has not released the names of the companies it uses to augment its own inspection staff.
After a two-month, $21 million inspection, staff engineers told the commission at a two-hour briefing that the plant suffered only cosmetic damage.
Ms. Lancaster had already taken that mission to heart, beefing up the inspection staff, increasing penalties for violations and issuing more stop-work orders.
It has lost 28.6percentt of its detention and deportation officers, 20percentt of its airport inspection staff and 14percentt of its criminal investigators.
In 1988, 43 people — about half the department's restaurant inspection staff at the time — were arrested in what officials described as a case of widespread corruption.
Budget cuts have reduced the inspection staff by a third in the last decade, and tenant advocates complain that city enforcement lawyers are also shorthanded.
