Page 11 - 2022 Annual Report

Climate Change + Environmental Stewardship
• BREC’s Planning and Engineering Department developed standards for design and management for green infrastructure elements for future park projects including wet and dry retention, rain gardens, porous pavement, bioswales, grow zones, native plantings and other best practice design standards
• The Communications team built and launched a green infrastructure web page and conducted a social/digital campaign to educate the public about the importance of green infrastructure for flood mitigation
• The Baton Rouge Zoo reconfigured how storm water exits the Zoo and uses a UV filter before it goes back out to Cypress Bayou.
• Through the Baton Rouge Zoo Foundation, the Zoo donated to global conservation organizations supporting cheetahs, leopards, brown hyenas, African and Indian Rhinos, tigers, turtles, golden frogs and Asian Hornbills
• The Natural Resource Management (NRM) team completed hiking trail improvements in eight conservation areas including bridges, boardwalks and benches
• The NRM team completed four biodiversity assessment reports in parks and nature reserves creating a total of nine completed reports since 2020
• The Zoo is working with Southern University students from Gabon, Sierra Leon and Niger to tell their stories about their cultures and the role wildlife plays at the new Pygmy Hippo/ Colobus Monkey exhibit.
• The NRM team completed seven invasive species management projects and maintained three native plant pollinator gardens
RISING TO THE
CHALLENGE:
Navigating the Post
Pandemic Environment
Since the pandemic, BREC, like organizations across the state and country, is experiencing the dual challenges of significant staff shortages and skyrocketing inflation which has impacted capital construction projects, operations and maintenance and caused supply-chain shortages.
BREC’s Finance, Park Operations and Golf Departments use contracts and staffing services to ensure services are still being provided to the public, the Recreation Department and Baton Rouge Zoo offered limited operation hours for facilities and services while pursuing staff to operate them and BREC staff filled in to make sure camps were fully staffed due to a shortage of counselors and camp directors. Liberty Lagoon Water Park opened later in the season and offered more limited session hours as lifeguards are increasingly hard to find.
BREC’s Communications Department created a specific marketing plan for the Human Resources Department with a budget of more than $18,000 which was used for television ads, targeted digital ads, social media and videos highlighting each department. The 2022 campaign resulted in 1,764,952 impressions and 14,317 unique clicks to BREC’s hiring portal. Overall, the brec.org/careers webpage had nearly 53,000 views with 22,414 visiting the page more than one time. Human Resources also raised the minimum wage to $12 an hour, offered benefits and merit raises to part-time staff and launched a compensation study one year earlier than planned. The department worked with other departments to hold or participate in job fairs and Recreation staff attended conferences and visited college campuses to help recruit staff.
A Partnership and Development Division was created to strengthen BREC’s partnerships and increase the number of dynamic groups operating BREC facilities in lieu of staff. The division intends to create friend’s groups for all 175 parks to act as advisors and ambassadors to help spread the word when issues like these arise.
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