Board members of a Cerrillos-area shelter for abused and neglected horses say they eliminated The Horse Shelter's executive director position after a charitable trust pulled its annual $50,000 donation because of the economic downturn.

An Oct. 5 letter from Cindy H. Finn, trustee of the Norman Winer Charitable Trust, says the trust "will be unable to make a sizeable gift to The Horse Shelter this year and cannot commit to similar gifts going forward." Jennifer Rios and Wilhelmina Bandler, daughters of the shelter's founder, Jan Bandler, also are trustees.

Several volunteers with The Horse Shelter angrily denounced the board's early October decision to let go of executive director Georgia Smith. They believe it had less to do with money and more to do with Smith's personality conflicts with board members.

"My big beef was the way Georgia was treated," said Denise Acosta, who began volunteering at the shelter in January. "The board has the right to can her, but when she saw things that she felt weren't appropriate, she would speak up and that didn't sit well with some of them."

Volunteers think the shelter needs an executive director to manage both the volunteers and the horses' care. "I don't think the board really understands the extent to which they depend on volunteers to make that place humane," said Judy Williams, a health services consultant who has donated to and volunteered at the shelter for three years. "And the volunteers need some direction."

Smith left within a couple of days after she was told her position was terminated.

Smith, who is continuing to work with longtime shelter board member Caroline Invicta Stevenson as an instructor with the therapeutic riding program Las Campanas Compadres, did not respond to repeated efforts to reach her by phone or e-mail. Smith was asked to sign a nondisclosure form when she was hired, but refused and was free to speak publicly, according to Stevenson.

Jan Bandler died a few years after she started The Horse Shelter, but her daughters and other friends continued the work. Until last year, the board, other volunteers and one paid ranch manager handled everything from mucking stalls and feeding horses to raising funds and investigating horse abuse cases. An experienced equestrian, Smith was hired to handle many of those duties. She previously had worked with the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, the Girard Foundation and The University of New Mexico.

Smith quickly built up a volunteer corps and found a trainer to work with the horses. Adoptions increased, making room for other horses in need.

"Georgia was extremely loved," said Stevenson, who directs the Las Campanas Equestrian Center. "She did an incredible job at the Horse Shelter. She nurtured horses and people."

But by October, donations were down $65,000, including the lost Winer Trust gift, according to Rios and board member Doug Lanham, owner of Jinja Bar and Bistro.

The board held an emergency meeting Oct. 8. Lanham went to tell Smith her position was eliminated. "It was emotional for both of us," he said.

The board gave her 30 days to help transition the shelter's operations, stay at the house on the shelter's property and keep her horses there, Lanham said. But she was gone within a couple of days with no explanation, he said.

Stevenson said Smith had an ill family member, and that might be one reason she left so suddenly. "When she disappeared it was like the bottom dropped out for the volunteers," Stevenson said.

A flurry of e-mails from volunteers indicated some felt the board had handled the situation with Smith poorly. "No board member communicated with the volunteers about why Georgia was fired," Williams said.

Stevenson said the board accepts responsibility for leaving volunteers in the lurch. "Volunteers are the core of our organization," she said. "We're hearing we need to open lines of communication and make the volunteers feel appreciated."

The board has found a new volunteer coordinator, and a couple of trainers will continue working with the horses, Stevenson said.

Williams and Acosta said the board spent money to train horses but had no program to regularly handle them until Smith set up a system so volunteers knew who had last worked with each horse and what issues arose. "The way to make the horses adoptable is to work with them. You can't leave the horse out there in the back 40 for months and then expect them to halter, trailer and be nice," she said.

Several volunteers said they think the shelter needs an executive director. "If they want to do more than feed the horses until they die, they need somebody to organize and get money in. They need someone who is actively working on grants," Acosta said. "They need people to handle the horses and that will be volunteers, who need someone to tell them what needs to be done."

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.