NEWS ANALYSIS
A discussion about horse-drawn carriages became a public accounting of the shelter's finances. A councilmember pointed to its nonprofit arm. The organization's own tax filings show what is in it, and how it is classified.
By Kim M. Braud | August 10, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A discussion about horse-drawn carriages in the French Quarter turned, on August 6, into a public accounting of how the Louisiana SPCA spends its money.
During public comment, Jeff Dorson of the Humane Society of Louisiana told the City Council that the number of stray animals is rising and that residents have begun forming their own groups to pick up animals off the street. He said some people are abandoning animals in the city's canals, and that the SPCA's shortened hours have made it harder for residents to surrender animals. He urged the city to look at places that have replaced animal-drawn carriages with electric ones.
Councilmember Lesli Harris acknowledged that the SPCA had absorbed budget cuts and reduced its operations, and said she had been in regular contact with other rescue groups to help fill the gaps. Then she made a pointed request.
"Would ask that you and the other animal activists take a look at the SPCA full budget, not just what the city pays them to do, but their nonprofit arm, so when you make a donation to the SPCA that goes to their nonprofit. Their services to the city could be supplemented with the use of that nonprofit arm, but they are choosing not to do so."
- Councilmember Lesli Harris, New Orleans City Council, August 6, 2026
Two organizations, one mission
The Louisiana SPCA that holds the city's animal-control contract is one nonprofit. The nonprofit arm Harris pointed to is a second one: the Louisiana SPCA Foundation, a separate 501(c)(3). Its stated purpose is to exist exclusively for the benefit of the Louisiana SPCA.
On its federal filing the Foundation identifies itself as a Type I supporting organization existing solely for the Louisiana SPCA, which holds the power to appoint or elect a majority of the Foundation's directors. The two are combined in the SPCA's audited financial statements, and the chief executive, Ana Zorrilla, signs the returns for both.
What the filings show
The Foundation's most recent federal return, for 2024, reports $13.48 million in total assets and no liabilities. On its balance sheet, all of it sits in the category the accounting rules call net assets without donor restrictions. The line for net assets with donor restrictions is blank.
That distinction carries the whole dispute. Donor-restricted money is locked by the donor and cannot be repurposed. Board-designated money is set aside by the organization's own board, which can also choose to release it. On its own filing, the Foundation reports no donor-restricted net assets at all.
The return does not, on its face, classify the endowment as board-designated. The schedule that would break the fund into board-designated, permanent, and term endowment was left blank. What the filing does establish is the absence of donor restriction. The Foundation reports the endowment as a fund being reinvested to provide operating funds for the SPCA, and reports zero net assets with donor restrictions.
Their services to the city could be supplemented with the use of that nonprofit arm, but they are choosing not to do so.
The return also shows the money moving. In 2024 the Foundation granted $565,165 to the SPCA for operating expenses, and its endowment schedule describes the fund as being reinvested to provide operating funds for the SPCA. Over five years the Foundation has sent roughly half a million dollars a year to the operating organization: $565,165 in 2024, $537,622 in 2023, $590,691 in 2022, $503,605 in 2021, and $496,984 in 2020.
The reserve is not static. The Foundation's endowment fell from about $12.5 million at the start of 2022 to $9.5 million by the end of 2022, then recovered to $12.6 million at the end of 2024, moved chiefly by investment markets rather than by spending. In 2024 the Foundation ran an operating deficit of $137,343, granting more to the SPCA than it took in. The money the Council pointed to is real and largely unrestricted, but it is invested, it fluctuates, and a share of it already leaves the Foundation for operations each year.
The operating SPCA is the larger balance sheet. Its own 2024 return reports $14.6 million in revenue against $10.3 million in expenses, a surplus of about $4.3 million for the year, and $31.6 million in net assets at year end, up from $27.2 million a year earlier. It reported surpluses in the prior years as well.
Two things temper that figure. The organization owns its campuses, so a share of the $31.6 million is real estate rather than money that could be spent, and [how much of the operating total is donor-restricted is pending: Form 990, Part X, lines 27 and 28]. The 2024 surplus also predates the city's 2026 funding cut, so it does not describe the organization's finances during the current shortfall. What it does establish is that the SPCA entered that shortfall holding substantial reserves.
The cut itself is real. The SPCA has said its city funding for animal-control services fell 38 percent, from about $3.2 million to about $2 million, and reduced its hours in response. [Confirm the figures against the adopted 2026 city budget line before publication.]
What the SPCA says
The organization has offered a partial answer in public. In an interview with WDSU, Zorrilla said the SPCA has been using donor dollars to supplement city services because of the gap between what the city pays and what the work costs, and that it cannot use some donated dollars because donors designate the programs those gifts support.
Both statements can be true, and neither fully answers Harris. Gifts designated by donors to specific programs are a real constraint, but they are a constraint on a portion of the money. They are not a constraint on the Foundation's endowment, which the Foundation's own return reports as carrying no donor restrictions at all.
The SPCA also has a position the filings do not settle: that a city which contracts for animal-control services should pay the cost of those services, and that a nonprofit is not obligated to backfill an underfunded municipal contract out of donations and reserves. That argument stands on its own terms, alongside the numbers.
What the record supports
Read together, the documents support part of what Harris said and complicate part of what the SPCA has said. The Foundation's endowment is not donor-restricted on its own filing. It is controlled by a board that the SPCA appoints, and it already funds a share of operations every year. Whether that board draws more from it, or from the operating organization's reserves, is a discretionary decision, not one the filings show to be legally foreclosed.
Whether it should is a different question, and one for the SPCA's board and for residents to weigh. The filings establish what is possible. They do not, on their own, establish what is wise.
Public documents cited: Louisiana SPCA Foundation, IRS Form 990 (2024), including Schedule A, Schedule D, and Schedule R, and Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, IRS Form 990 (2024), both via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. The August 6, 2026 City Council meeting is archived on Granicus.
Kim M. Braud is the Founder and Editor of Evans Cutchmore Press, an independent newsroom covering Louisiana and the Gulf South. Her reporting focuses on government accountability, infrastructure, business, culture, and the public policies that shape communities. Her work combines investigative journalism, public records research, and documentary storytelling.
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