Among the documents received by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee yesterday was Co-Op Architecture’s “Capitol Complex Building Inventory Evaluation,” a study of the state’s owned and leased buildings around Pierre focused on determining what operations we might consolidate to improve operations and save money. The study maps 57 state-owned or -leased buildings around Pierre:
The leased facilities make up 19% of the state’s workspace in Pierre.
The executive summary paints five broad strokes for achieving the goals of the study:
- Develop a Capitol building master plan, which should include removing or repurposing the Capitol basement (what, no more video studio for Kristi?).
- Consolidate leased space back to the Capitol complex and “co-locate agencies where necessary and synergistically appropriate.”
- Identify a new swing space during construction.
- Develop a statewide remote work policy that could ease the need for office space (a.k.a., shift costs to workers?).
- Develop a Capitol complex land use plan.
Along with those broad strokes and maps, the document lists state buildings in Pierre with its employees, physical area, and square footage per full-time equivalent. Alas, a lot of the Capitol offices, including the Governor’s, still don’t have figures, but we do learn that the Public Utilities Commission has a measly 142 square feet per FTE. Across the street at the Dolly-Reed Plaza, the Governor’s Office of Economic Development gets 267 square feet per FTE. Over at the Cultural Heritage Center, the Department of Education has 1,716 square feet per FTE, plus another 303 SF/FTE at the MacKay building.
In the Joe Foss building, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has 183 SF/FTE, while its impending merger-buddy/undertaker Department of Agriculture as 193 SF/FTE. It thus appears that Noem is targeting for merger two departments that already have some of the leanest workspaces in the Pierre government office-plex.
Blue linky seems kinda kinky. No workie.
The Cultural Heritage numbers might be skewed by including exhibit space in the calculation.
Sorry about that, Grudz! I’ve revised the links; try again! [Geek speak: LRC set the document to download instead of simply open from their server.]
ACB: Well, who needs exhibits and culture? Let’s merge both the DENR and the Department of Ag into the DOE and let them all divvy up that luxurious display space for offices!
Mr. H has a fine point there. We don’t need the government to be providing museums and we could get rid of nearly all the leased space if we packed the workers more tightly into the space in the museum and probably palatial conference rooms in the Education Department. Don’t they have a library too? Everybody has libraries, government of the state doesn’t need one. More space. But do not be giving gravy money out to the landlords that will whine about this. They took that risk when they built offices. But then the covid bugs came and ate everybody’s lunch. It is what it is.
Grudz shows his vacuity. The state library serves school districts, state government, researchers, the blind and the general public. The Cultural Heritage Center has historical and archeological collections and resources, and the historical society, and deals with historical preservation. Both are important to scholars and a broad section of South Dakotans who eat a breakfast they make for themselves.
Really, Grudz, you seem more like an out-of-state ignoramus, and out of touch with your own state.
grudznick could be vacuous or maybe is a pot stirrer out to get your goat, Mr. Pay. Their own web blogs say they serve state employees and libraries. The only general public serving is on the computers from your home so that doesn’t take space. As a South Dakota citizen, I have a state library card reading “grudznick”. It lets me find things on the webs. It does not let me set foot in a building. Here, you can get one yourself. https://library.sd.gov/SDSL/libcard.aspx
But wait. You have to be a South Dakotan.
Grudz, I lived in Pierre for 7 years, and I used the state library at least once a week during that time. For a couple years I walked there every day, spending 2-4 hours a day perusing government documents, part of my preparation for beating back uranium mining, ETSI and the nuclear waste dump. Now I admit times have changed and many government documents are now on-line and accessible from anywhere. But, I also checked out books. When I was living in Pierre, the Cultural Heritage Center was built. What a tremendous resource for anyone interested in South Dakota history.
Donald, seems pretty difficult in SD to somehow enlighten some people living in an ignorance ‘bubble’, don’t it?
The Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre is a jewel of a museum and I urge anyone to go visit it if they are ever in Pierre. You won’t go away disappointed.