Department heads have to look ahead when budgeting

After being on the job just a few months, Fremont Parks and Recreation Department director John Schmitz said residents should look for some new elements in the next budget.

New programs for the Parks and Recreation Department next year will include lacrosse and rugby.

"Those programs are becoming more and more popular," he said, adding that the programs aren’t being added out of a whim.

"We evaluated all of our programs," he said. "We looked at what works and what doesn’t work. We got input from middle school and high school students. That was beneficial. Lacrosse and rugby are spreading from the East to the Midwest in popularity."

That input is part of an overall strategic plan for the department.

"We’ve talked with staff to see what their visions for the department are. We’ve surveyed the kids to see what they want. We look at what facilities we have and don’t have, what programs we have and don’t have. Adding lacrosse and rugby is coming directly from those surveys," he said.

That’s important.

"We feel strongly that in order for there to be buy-in from the kids on any program, we have to have their input," he said. "At one time I was a kid, but that was 25 years ago. Things have changed."

Another major priority for the department is to complete the city’s trail system.

"That will be a huge piece for us in the future," he said. "We want to have a full connecting trail through Fremont. We just finished a new proposal for a trail along Johnson Road from the middle school to East 23rd Street."

The goal is to eventually have a complete trail system through the city.

"With more people walking and biking, this is important," he said. "More communities have trail systems in place. It’s going to take time for us to get there, but we are working on it."

But looking into the department’s programs is only part of the equation in putting together the budget.

"You have to look back over the past four or five years to see if there are any trends," he said. "You have to consider oil prices, gas prices. Those are items that we don’t have any control over. We will continue to mow grass and remove snow at the parks. That

doesn’t change. Unfortunately, gas prices do change."

For Ann Stephens, director at Keene Memorial Library, the budget picture is somewhat different.

"We place things in different priorities," said Stephens, who has been director of Fremont’s public library for nearly 20 years.

"First, we set what the city wants us to do to maintain this building," she said of the facility that sits on North Broad Street between 10th and 11th streets.

"Our materials are always a priority. Books are still our brand."

Stephens said some of the new books they buy each year depend on popular topics. This year, for example, library staff has focused some of the new book purchases on the Olympics.

"We buy a lot of large print books," she continued. "We focus on different genres: Westerns, mysteries. We have to have the right shelving for the books we buy. We have to buy new books and magazines. We also buy new computers every year. We replace one-quarter of our public use computers every year. They take a lot of abuse."

Staffing is another major priority, she said, adding that Friday was the last day for children’s librarian Karen Choy, who is moving back to southern California to help with family issues.

"We hate to lose her," Stephens said. "She’s only been here two years, and we absolutely love what she has done."

Stephens said funding is always an issue.

"Of course there’s rarely enough funding to budget all three priorities to the degree we’d like," she said. "So compromises are inevitable.

"Finally, in the words of ‘South Pacific,’ ‘you’ve got to have a dream; if you don’t have a dream; how you gonna make a dream come true?’ The library has plans - capital plan, service plan, technology plan - and these plans help us envision the future and create paths to make our dreams come true.

"Presently, our larger visioning plans include a plan to provide library services to citizens of Dodge County who live outside the city limits, a capital plan to build an addition to the library which will address numerous space needs and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements, and a technology plan that will give the library more bandwidth for its internet service and link the library to other departments in the city and, perhaps eventually, to other libraries in the county and state."