In a February 11 e-mail sent to all
Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Division of Wildlife personnel,
agency chief Scott Zody reiterated the goal of cutting funding along
with developing mechanisms to prioritize projects at every level.
If that were not enough Zody wrote also
how the Wildlife Division officials will be exploring the possible –
maybe even, likely – dissolution of the 13-county Wildlife District One (Central
Ohio) with its parts being absorbed into the agency's remaining four
management districts.
As for the first item Zody says the
marching orders for the troops includes cutting “non-personnel
allocations for (Fiscal Year) 2015 by 5%.”
Beyond that reduction the Wildlife
Division's so-named Executive Planning Group has established what it
calls next step goals.
These steps will utilize a mechanism
that will prioritize projects within the Wildlife Division'
five-component organizational structure: fisheries, wildlife,
information and education, law enforcement, and business.
Next is encumbered by a $10-term any
bureaucrat would be sure to love: “large-scale efficiencies” that
if assembled properly and executed “could create substantial
savings without a reduction in customer service.”
“Progress is currently being made on
both fronts,” Zody says. “The Fish Management and Research Group
and the Wildlife Management and Research Group have made substantial
progress in the development of a project prioritization process.”
The remaining forenamed cells are
expected to begin their catch-up work “soon,” Zody said also.
Downrange is the targeted goal of
achieving Wildlife Division-wide compliance in time for the Fiscal
2016 Operational Plan and thus become integrated within the agency's
annual Operational Plan process, Zody said.
In effect, the process appears to be a
step-up and sped-up morphing of what's called comprehensive planning
management, a one-time popular strategy once used by various state
fish and game agencies.
“Although this approach is more
involved than our traditional planning through the use of incremental
budgets, it provides criteria-based rationale for why we consider
some work to be higher priority or of grater urgency,” Zody said.
Left unsaid is how how such a strategy
would allow the Wildlife Division to better argue its mission or
projects to a questioning administration or doubting legislature.
Zody's Large-Scale Efficiencies will
revolve around the nucleus of identifying areas that will provide
significant cost savings.
Again, however, “without compromising
customer service,” according to Zody.
Perhaps easier to say than to do the
Wildlife Division will have to study at some length its current
organizational structure; an activity that will require all agency
personnel to don their thinking caps, says Zody.
“Throughout this exploratory process,
we ask that all employees keep an open mind and remember that the
goal is to provide stability to the Wildlife Fund for the future with
the least amount of impact to our employees,” Zody says.
Important as well, says Zody, is for
employees to remember that for now everything is under review with
nothing written in stone. At least not yet and not before a thorough
vetting process is commissioned that will help ensure a smooth
process, Zody says.
On that point first up will be focusing
on what Zody and his administration staff calls a “realignment of
(wildlife) district boundaries.”
“This idea has been discussed for a
number of years and is worth serious consideration,” Zody says.
Pointing out that the last time the
Wildlife Division underwent a seismic realignment of agency
boundaries was 51 years ago. That is when the District One flag was
transferred from Chillicothe to Columbus and the agency's Sandusky
district office was rendered extinct.
Up now for a rehash of district
realignment is shifting District One's counties in the four existing
surrounding districts.
To study this concept and determine
whether its needed and if it will yield greater efficiencies at less
cost, the Wildlife Division's top brass will appoint a high-level
review team. This study group will include representation from the
agency's fisheries management, wildlife management, law enforcement,
information and education, business units, as well as the managers
from two of the Wildlife Division's current five districts.
This committee will be tasked with a
multipurpose goal in mind. That goal will include a cost-benefit
review of the current district boundaries, provide a draft for
possible realignment, and make recommendations to the higher-ups by
the first week in May.
Results of this collective
collaboration will be reported on at the various summer district
meetings, Zody says.
“It is important to keep in mind that
no decisions have been reached in this process other than to fully
evaluate our options, and we go into this process with no
preconceived notions,” Zody said.
However, not addressed by Zody in his
electronic letter was any mention of the oft-times repeated concerns
that Wildlife Division higher-ups are giving thought to likewise
disbanding the present Lake Erie Law Enforcement Unit, now
headquartered in Sandusky.
Currently operating at no more than
one-half strength the unit typically must rely on the help of
commissioned officers located elsewhere in the state. And these
agents may be less familiar with both Lake Eire’s commercial
fishing operations as well as the nuances associated with sport
fishing along a more than 200-mile-long coastline.
Efforts to get further input from Zody
on this particular point and the rest of his e-mail were unsuccessful
up through the time this story was posted.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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