State office consolidation ignites dispute on growth

The old Department of Health office was so limited on space that employees had to wash shellfish in the sink by the office coffee maker before sending them to a laboratory for toxin testing.

"Here we are with big gunnysacks of crabs from the crab processor, and we'd stink up the whole building," said Frank Cox, marine bio-toxin coordinator.

With its move to a four-building campus in Tumwater, the department now has a "wellness room" where workers can ride out ailments, space for large meetings and a lactation room near a training center for the Women, Infants and Children program. And agency workers have a room for the fish cleaning, averting what Cox said were near-evacuations of the old office.

Such modern work environments bring employees and programs into one area, making things such as vehicle fleets, energy use and program coordination more efficient, state officials say. But they also increase the physical size of state government in Thurston County, even after consolidations of some of the state's largest agencies.

By the state's estimation, the amount of office space it rents has increased by 13 percent since 2000. It rented 5.8 million square feet of office space in Thurston County then, and by 2006, it was renting 6.5 million square feet.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative Olympia think tank, said the growth was far greater - 56 percent.

The Department of General Administration, which acts as a real estate agent for many agencies, said the larger figure makes an incorrect assumption by comparing office space in 2000 with all warehouse, laboratory and office space in 2006.

Regardless of its size, the increase should concern residents, said Evergreen Freedom Foundation analyst Amber Gunn.

A growing government presence in the county real estate market means fewer buildings are available to private companies, and rental rates go up, she said.

But the four buildings the Department of Health occupies were all privately built for the agency and still are privately owned by Vine Street Investors, said Suzette Frederick, director of office facilities. The state pays $607,000 a month for its lease.

"A lot of the things you see that make it a pleasant environment, the amenities, the state didn't pay for and didn't ask for," she said.

That includes the bronze statues, fountains and chairs made from uncarved stone that decorate the campus.

Among the additions taxpayers are paying, however, are public restrooms and interview rooms at the various offices, as well as security stations at the front doors.

The Department of Health moved from 23 separate spaces to Tumwater starting in 2003. But the new campus takes up 46 percent more space, at 375,000 square feet.

The Department of Corrections left four buildings in Olympia for a single new building in Tumwater, and increased its footprint by 9.7 percent.

The State Parks and Recreation Commission occupies 38,000 square feet in Tumwater in a collection of leaking, 30-year-old modular buildings. It expects to move into new, 24 percent larger headquarters by the end of the year.

And the Department of Information Services, now housed in 10 Olympia buildings, is in the midst of a $370 million project to create a new headquarters, data center and general office building.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation scrutinized the size of government leases in Thurston County this year. The difficulty in finding exact numbers to describe it has been a frustration, said Brian Zapotocky, who co-authored the report.

"Yes there might be increases in personnel, maybe there might be increases in the space each one of those personnel have, but is it reasonable? We couldn't get data on that," he said.

At the least, citizens should be aware how much the state's footprint has grown, he added.

Bob Bippert, senior deputy assistant director for General Administration, said much of the growth is simply a part of meeting modern standards for workspace. But agencies also must find space for programs created by the Legislature, he added.

For instance, the Department of Health is expanding into the fifth floor of one of the Town Center Buildings in Tumwater as it adds duties to follow laws passed this year giving it more power to regulate health professionals, as well as creating more licensed professions to regulate.

And some agency workers say staying in their old offices - which in some cases were the subject of air-quality complaints - was not an option.

"Possums lived under the floor. It was not good. We had one of our programs spread out over three buildings," said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. "(Former) Gov. Locke asked me what I had learned, and I said, 'We've got government inefficiency going on here.'"

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Information from: The Olympian, http://www.theolympian.com