A decline in financial support led a nonprofit horse rescue organization to lay off its executive director.

The board of The Horse Shelter didn't renew the director's contract and doesn't plan to hire a replacement for the time being.

Jennifer Rios, co-president of the board, said a drop in donations was the primary reason Georgia Smith, the shelter's first executive director, wasn't rehired.

Smith was hired last November at $40,000 a year to manage the 10-year-old shelter near Cerrillos, which has 30-plus horses, according to Rios. Smith took over many tasks unpaid board members had done since the shelter for abandoned, abused and neglected horses was started by Rios' mother, Jan Bandler.

"We'll have to go back to what we've always done, which is have a working board," Rios said. "We have to worry about being able to take care of the horses."

Smith did not return messages left at The Horse Shelter or her cell phone seeking comment.

Rios said Smith had done a fine job, but donations were down about $75,000 compared to last year, and large grants also were reduced. The Horse Shelter takes care of all the horses' basic care and veterinary needs until they are adopted or die. Volunteers feed, groom and clean up after the horses. Many of the horses were severely neglected or abused before arriving at the shelter and require more veterinary care. Many are scared of humans because of their past experiences or lack basic training, making it difficult to find them good homes.

Smith established a program to train horses that were good candidates for adoption, which then made room for new rescued horses. The shelter hired Corrales trainer Michael Sikorski to work with some of the horses at a reduced rate. From November until May, the shelter adopted out a record 13 horses, twice as many as the year before.

Rios said horses have always been available for adoption. How much training the shelter should provide the horses has been a question. "Training has always been minimal anyway — mostly a matter of making them halterable, walkable and loadable," she said. "We just have to figure out how to do these things when we don't have someone there heading it up. But it will not affect the care of the horses or how many we can take in."

Rio said if the board had foreseen how far the economy would crash and the impact on donations, it might not have hired Smith. But when she was hired, the shelter's income was healthy and the board felt it was time to have a full-time person responsible for the shelter's office, investigating abuse calls, promoting adoptions and taking on other responsibilities.

"We hired during the best-case scenario," said Rios, noting now the board is preparing for the possibility that donations will decline further through the winter as the cost of horse feed rises.

Lisa A. Flores, the board's treasurer, also recently resigned her post with the board. Rio said the decision was voluntary on the part of Flores, who lives in Albuquerque.

The shelter's federal tax-exempt report for 2008 is not yet available, but reports from 2006 and 2007 show the shelter was in good financial standing with a surplus at the end of each year. In 2006, the shelter listed $153,314 in revenues and $132,945 in expenses, of which $21,667 was for wages and salaries. In 2007, the shelter reported $225,945 in revenue and $158,681 in expenses, with $49,213 for salaries and wages. The shelter has received steady help from Las Campanas Community Foundation, the Santa Fe Community Foundation and the Thaw Charitable Trust among others.

The shelter last year was hit by a large volume of calls regarding abused, abandoned and neglected horses. Some people called the shelter asking if they could just bring their horses there because they could no longer afford to feed them. Rios said the number of such calls seemed to have peaked, but "we'll see what happens now in the winter."

The Horse Shelter board was scheduled to meet Monday night to discuss how to proceed. "But there's no question about whether we'll continue to exist and continue to do what we do," Rios said.

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