Deputy director outlines department's 2025'030 strategic plan, emphasizes staff training and standardization

Patrick O'Meara, deputy parks, recreation and cultural affairs director, presented the department's 2025'030 strategic plan at the Nov. 4 commission meeting and described a largely in-house development process involving staff surveys, program and registration data, a SWOT analysis and workshops.

O'Meara said the plan centers on three priorities: (1) training and empowering staff through clear job expectations and career-development training; (2) standardizing practices across centers and divisions to ease staff moves and ensure consistent operations; and (3) delivering high-quality services, which includes maximizing facility utilization, formalizing event-quality standards, improving communications and completing a CityWorks work-order rollout for maintenance tracking.

He noted the department kicked off the plan with the new fiscal year and intends to provide annual updates. O'Meara also said sustained pursuit of CAPRA accreditation is part of the plan because the accreditation process requires regular review of procedures and policies. He described CityWorks as a tool to schedule recurring maintenance tasks and to quantify work-order response times, data the department can use to support requests for staffing and budget resources.

Commissioners asked about volunteer engagement, representation on the Nevada Recreation and Park Society board and opportunities for staff to participate in state-level leadership. O'Meara said Las Vegas currently has one representative on the NRPS board and that the nomination period for NRPS elections had just opened.