The Humane Society of the Black Hills can't seem to solve its high turnover and continuing problems.

After only five weeks on the job, humane society director Steve Hawley resigned earlier this week after a sexual harassment claim was investigated. Although the claim was proven false, Hawley still tendered his resignation.

It was barely a month ago when a Journal editorial welcomed Hawley: "The new executive director said he and the board were working on goals and would get the humane society in good light 'across the spectrum,'" we wrote late in June. "We like to hear that and are confident it points to a stable future for the humane society."

Were we ever wrong.

Hawley's sudden departure is just one more incident in a series of bad turns for the humane society.

The director prior to Hawley resigned without explanation. It was kept so quiet, as a matter of fact, Rapid City Mayor Alan Hanks learned about it only by chance… three weeks after the resignation had taken place.

But the problems go much further back and just haven't seemed to end. In 1996, the humane society was going through tumultuous times after the resignation of the then executive director and another key employee. At that time, some staff resigned in protest.

By January 1997, the former executive director had sued the society for breach of contract. In March, an animal control supervisor was arrested on charges of forgery and grand theft. The interim director was fired in April. With a new director in place, things didn't get better. Disease plagued the humane society and some shelter donations went missing. The director stayed through construction of a new facility but resigned - without explanation - a short time later. Several directors have come and gone since including Hawley, who resigned last week for reasons unknown even to the president of the humane society board of directors.

Clearly, the humane society is in need of an intervention. And the sooner the better.

We're not confident the Humane Society can continue to operate without a total overhaul. We would even suggest it's time for the city and/or county to take over operations and manage the humane society as a city or county entity.

That's a drastic option but one that should be discussed.

Another option would be for the city to closely scrutinize the humane society operation and put a city-appointed group in place to provide oversight.

The humane society is big business, and it's funded in part by taxpayer dollars and community donations ($170,000 in 2006). And unless you want to see thousands of stray and wild animals roaming the streets, it's an important business, too.

The 2006 humane society budget showed more than $730,000 in revenue and $170,000 public support. That's public support after the public support the humane society receives in the form of revenue from city and county governments.

In essence, the public is supporting the humane society through taxes and donations. Because of that, the humane society needs to do much, much better and the public deserves a much more stable, professionally-run operation.

The work of the humane society is too important to let it continue to run in such disarray. The humane society board has proven it needs serious oversight. It's time for new management to step in.