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Post date: Apr 25, 2010 7:16:3 PM
By JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, April 22, 2010 on line at http://www.journalstar.com Story & Comments at:
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A plan to shake up the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission would cut administrative positions while committing more staff to conservation work, the agency's director said this week.
The restructuring plan offers no specifics about how many of the agency's 517 jobs might be eliminated, but it clearly seeks to reduce layers of management, Commission Director Rex Amack said.
"The whole goal of this is to try to put more boots on the ground in delivering conservation and see if we can squeeze by with less administration," Amack said Wednesday.
For example, the commission currently has three separate assistant directors in charge of parks, wildlife and marketing. The proposal calls for replacing them with one deputy director.
An internal committee assigned to the restructuring plan issued a six-page report Tuesday that was distributed to employees. Amack described the report as a "working document" that will evolve before it is presented to the nine-member board of commissioners no later than May 20.
The report's recommendations include:
Reducing the number of geographic districts from six to four or five. The commission currently maintains district offices in Lincoln, Norfolk, Bassett, Alliance, North Platte and Kearney.
Combining fisheries, wildlife and law enforcement divisions under a single director. Each division currently has its own administrator.
Restructuring the human resources, fiscal and information/education divisions.
Requiring law enforcement officers to devote some of their time to conservation and educational activities.
"The solidly entrenched paradigm of ‘business as usual' must be shifted, and (it) is the challenge and responsibility of each and every one of us to shift this paradigm," the report states.
Staff representatives from every agency division serve on the committee, Amack said. It is led by Richard Nelson, a district wildlife manager from North Platte, and Mick Jensen, a commissioner from Blair.
Months ago, the board of commissioners established a committee to review the agency's administrative structure.
In March, the commissioners passed a resolution to develop an efficiency plan as required of all state agencies by the Nebraska Legislature to help deal with an anticipated budget shortfall in 2011.
The committee has met twice since then, Amack said. He does not expect the commissioners to make a final decision on the matter until this summer.
This marks the first major restructuring of the agency since Amack joined the commission in 1967. At 22 years, he is the longest serving director in the history of the agency.
A total of 461 people work for the commission, which means 56 authorized positions are vacant. The agency has a budget of $58.2 million, most of which is funded by revenue from permits, rentals and federal reimbursements. Nearly all of the state appropriation to the agency helps fund parks.
It will be difficult to eliminate jobs in an agency that has been cutting positions since 2000, Amack said.
"In my judgment, we are about as thin as we can get," he said. "We're down, I think, we're into the muscle. I'm not visualizing us to have a great reduction in workforce."
Still, about 70 percent of the agency's expenses are tied up in personnel. The committee's goal is to reduce that to 50 percent.
Upper and middle administrators whose jobs will be reclassified will be given opportunities to stay with the agency in different capacities, Amack said.
Amack, who serves on the committee, said there will be greater emphasis on collaboration and integration of work duties. Where employees were specialists in the past, they will be asked to become generalists in the future.
Dick Turpin, who held several Game and Parks jobs during his career, including chief of law enforcement, said Wednesday the agency probably has too much management.
"If their rearrangement... is going to eliminate some of the top positions, some of the administration, I wouldn't have any problem with that at all," he said.
Steven Williams is president of the Wildlife Management Institute in Gardners, Pa., a conservation organization that encourages professional wildlife management. Agency reorganizations should be transparent while encouraging input from the staff and the public, he said.
Based on experiences from other states, new structures have a limited impact, Williams said.
"It's not the boxes you draw on a piece of paper," he said. "It's the actual people in those boxes."
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