Bismarck's continuing growth was reflected by the reports delivered by the city's many department heads to the mayor and city commissioners during a strategic planning session held at the Civic Center on Monday.

The city commission is beginning work on its 2006 budget and department heads were asked to cite their accomplishments over the past year while listing their biggest challenges along with budget needs. Each department expressed issues in keeping up with the community's expected growth, and nearly every department is requesting an increase in full-time equivalent positions to address increased work load due to Bismarck's growth.

City Administrator Bill Wocken says the requests for new positions aren't unusual at this point in the budget process. Wocken is impressed how the departments have handled increased requests from the public, particularly in the commercial area where several "big box" retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe's are opening new stores.

City Engineer Mel Bullinger listed coping with the "beginning big box boom" as one of his department's top accomplishments over the last year. "It's amazing how much time this takes up," he said. And this is leading to one of the engineering staff's biggest challenges, avoiding staff burnout. "The heavy workload has meant additional hours and concern on how to cope with the overtime budget."

Planning director Carl Hokenstad and utilities director Keith Demke expressed similar concerns. Hokenstad has been instrumental in coming up with developmental agreements, which specifically lay out the responsibilities of the city and developers. These agreements, according to Wocken, have received a lot of praise from developers outside the area who have indicated Bismarck is a good partner to work with on their projects.

While commercial growth is just beginning to take place, the city's residential growth has been outstanding, held in check only by the Missouri River to the west. This has put additional pressures on all facets of government, particularly services such as fire control and law enforcement.

"Our biggest accomplishment this past year - no person lost their life to fire, and that's at the core of our existence," Fire Chief Joel Boespflug said. Work is under way to acquire land in north Bismarck for a new station, and the department is exploring the need of perhaps another station to serve the area in southeast Bismarck where the Northern Plains Commerce Centre is being built.

Police Chief Deb Ness rated Bismarck's low crime rate as her department's greatest accomplishment, but also as its biggest challenge.

Ness said that methamphetamine problems continue to grow across the state, and while progress has been made through the attorney general's office, the problem has not yet seen its peak.

Monitoring of high risk offenders is also a major challenge, particularly since the State Penitentiary is located here, leading to a higher number of offenders living here after having served their time.

City Attorney Charlie Whitman said there is a need for an additional prosecutor in his department. More tha 14,000 cases were prosecuted in municipal court last year, double that when he started. "We're busy all the time. The case numbers are not going down, but are going up 500 to a 1,000 a year. And the complexity of the cases is going up. Just as a warning, sometime in the next few years, we're going to need an additional part-time prosecutor or we will have to contract to do prosecutions."

Whitman added that the commercial development has also impacted his department and working with the various developers has been a major challenge.

Wocken praised the department heads in their efforts to work together as did the mayor, referring to them as "team Bismarck."

"I've only been hearing compliments from developers on our staff," Warford said. "When companies come to a city and find barriers, they end up not wanting to come. That's not what we've been experiencing."

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@bismarcktribune.com.)