OutdoorNebraska

6 Nebraska Game and Parks Commission • 2018-2022 Focus on the Future government entity, and federal policies often impact our ability to build capacity for wildlife conservation and outdoor recreation. The Federal Farm Bill has been one of the most critical pieces of federal legislation impacting our ability to conserve habitat on private lands. It is critical that our agency and partners continue to work together to engage policymakers on issues that influence the mission of our agency. internal factors Game and Parks recognizes the importance of proactively solving issues. In recent years, the agency has undertaken a myriad of planning efforts to embrace future opportunities. Multiyear plans, such as the Berggren Plan: Nebraska's Mega Plan Improving Pheasant Hunting, the Nebraska Natural Legacy Plan, the Lake McConaughy/ Lake Ogallala Master Plan, the Cool Water Streams Management Plan and the Venture Parks Plan, provide guidance to improve visitor experience, address habitat and species needs, engage future park goers and recreationalists, and tackle future challenges. Some internal factors include our personnel, regulatory oversight, deferred maintenance concerns, outreach and education to our constituents, environmental issues and funding. PERSONNEL: Historically, Game and Parks has low employee turnover rates, which has enabled the agency to provide consistently great service to the resources and the people of the state. However, we are facing a time when a large cadre of agency leaders and senior staff will retire. Table 1 illustrates the distribution of age of the full time employees at the agency. This graph shows that of the 418 full time employees, 22 percent of the employees are at or very near retirement age; another 27 percent of employees are within 10-15 years of retirement age. In the next 15 years, approximately half of our workforce will be at or near retirement age. Capturing the institutional knowledge of senior staff will be paramount to the future success of the agency. Succession planning and the need for seamless leadership transitions will come to the forefront in the next five years. Creating a strategy to garner the knowledge of the personnel that are retiring and passing that on to the future leaders will be a primary issue that must be addressed in the coming years. The agency must ensure that potential new leaders have the resources necessary to grow their careers. The limitation on competitive AGE RANGES TABLE 1: AGE RANGE OF FULL TIME EMPLOYEES 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 20S 30S 40S 50S 60S 70S 3 82 77 93 115 48 BY THE NUMBERS STATE PARK SYSTEM – 77 AREAS ENCOMPASSING 170,207 ACRES • State parks – 8 areas, 32,332 acres • State recreation areas – 59 areas, 92,497 acres • State historical parks – 10 areas, 2,424 acres • State recreational trails – 2 areas, 324 miles ALSO: • State fish hatcheries – 5 • Open Fields and Waters – 254,724 land acres, 620 water/wetland acres and 42 river miles • Wildlife management areas – 298, encompassing 183,375 acres

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