Lloyd Warren, manager June 2013 to June 2014
Mr Warren disputes that donations and bequests had "dried up" and says Val Ball's suggestion of that in yesterday's Times-Age is "wildly incorrect".
Mr Warren said he reduced operating costs and reckons there was more than $200,000 cash in the bank when he left.
"I ran a more efficient and cost-effective operation," he said.
He said when he started there was five months' operating costs remaining and "a real fear by the committee we would have to close".
In his May 2014 report to the centre's committee, he said expenditure in January to June 2013 was $145,000, which he reduced to $94,000 in the second half of the year.
"When I left 12 months later, there was 13 months' operating cost available and the centre was in a very healthy position.
"For it to end up where it is now is simply inconceivable."
Mr Warren left after he was suspended on full pay in June 2014 over an "employment issue", resulting in a six-month investigation and dispute resolution, involving lawyers and an investigator.
Yesterday, Mr Warren said the issue had been resolved, but he was bound by an agreement not to discuss it.
"I left there and it was in a very healthy position.
"So where's the money?"
Val Ball, manager to June 2013
Mrs Ball, a life member of the Wairarapa SPCA society, said the centre had $300,000 in the bank at the time she finished as centre manager, partly due to a $250,000 historic bequest the centre received some years ago.
She agrees with Mr Warren there was $200,000 when he departed and he "might be right in saying we were spending too much money, but that's animal welfare".
"I don't believe there was mismanagement of money by Lloyd Warren."
She believes Mr Warren being suspended on full pay and "massive vet bills" on animals which should have been put down ate into the money.
"Some animals being kept would have been better off being put down."
She also believes the public did not warm to Mr Warren as a manager, and she believes donations and bequests slowed down.
What makes her angry "more than anything" is the membership not knowing the state of the centre's finances.
She said with the way the centre was, it had to close.
"It couldn't go on the way it was. It's got to be refocused."
Mrs Ball says she wants to get the Wairarapa SPCA society up and running, with a general meeting on May 31 under the constitution of the RNZSPCA.
"We hope to be able to form a decent working committee."
Rob Sewell, committee chairman to April 2015
Mr Sewell said there were two key challenges the centre faced last year, the first was Mr Warren himself, who was suspended on full pay.
"The subsequent investigation and grievance went on so long that in the end our legal advice was to settle with him and to walk away.
"That was a significant cost to the centre."
Secondly, Mr Sewell said he had been told by "local people" that many donors to the centre funds would not contribute while Mr Warren was still employed.
He said the auditor noted that assets dropped by $176,000 throughout the financial year, of which $105,000 was reduced bequests and donations, the rest being increases in legal fees, wages and rent.
Mr Sewell said $20,000 of this was legal fees from failed prosecutions in the previous years and the wage increase was to cover other staff while Mr Warren was on suspension.
"So real term increases were actually no more than around $20,000 in total. Much of this was on maintenance which had not been carried out for many years and was overdue.
"In 2014, the centre gave 276 more animals positive outcomes than it did under Mr Warren's tenure, although Val Ball also operated the centre very successfully."
He said the auditor noted that while equity had dropped, the SPCA was still very much a going concern due to its level of assets.
"I am confident that had the last committee chosen to remain, we would have raised sufficient funds to continue to operate."
