State unscrewing light bulbs, locking up supplies to save cash

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Maintenance workers are unscrewing light bulbs in government buildings. And posters urge employees to turn off their computers, printers and coffee pots when they go home for the day.

It's all part of a plan to close the state's budget gap one dollar at a time. And true to government form, the campaign even has name -- "The Big Turn Off."

Although it conjures up jokes about government functioning in the dark, state officials say the energy conservation efforts seriously could save the state several hundred thousand dollars.

That's a mere flicker in a projected $300 million shortfall for the fiscal year that ends June 30. But there's more:

The state Senate is locking up supplies -- pens, sticky notes, paper clips and such -- and requiring staff to sign for what they take.

The state archives is soliciting money from private businesses to pay for its interns.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education plans to direct schools to a Web site in a few weeks, instead of mailing 1,000 copies of a roughly 20-page report ranking schools' performance.

The education department expects to save a couple of thousand dollars for printing and mailing on that one report alone, said spokesman Jim Morris.

'Every single thing'

In some cases, state officials aren't sure how much they're saving -- they just know they are.

"You save a million dollars a thousand dollars at a time. You start looking at every single thing," said Senate administrator Michael Keathley, whose other cost-saving steps include locking up government copy machines to prevent lobbyists from using them.

Some of the cost-saving measures might not be immediately apparent. For example, it's hard for the public to tell that the Senate is now printing 500 copies of each bill that gets filed -- instead of the 800 printed last year.

The reduction in lighting might be more visible, but only slightly so.

In 19 state-owned buildings in Jefferson City, Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield, the state's Division of Facilities Management is unscrewing every third light fixture in common areas such as atriums, lobbies and hallways.

Similar measures soon will be taken at 10 leased buildings in various parts of the state. Overhead office lighting might also be reduced, meaning employees would be asked to use lamps or built-in cubicle lights, said state leasing manager Lisa Cavender.

"Right now, we're trying to do those things that have no impact on people," said Dave Mosby, operations manager for the state-owned buildings run by the Division of Facilities Management. "It's not our intent to make it dangerous and unsafe."

Mosby reports no complaints about dim lighting.

But the change has not been transparent.

'It's really annoying'

State Archivist Ken Winn did a double-take when he walked from his office into the hall one day at the Kirkpatrick State Information Center.

"I have a bad habit reading while I walk," Winn said. "I can't read in the halls anymore, because they're too dark to read. It's really annoying."

But Winn knows the reason for his personal frustration. As archivist, he also has cut corners in anyway he can. He has become more and more of a private fund-raiser, asking businesses to sponsor his interns and turning to an auxiliary group to pay for cultural events and historical reference books.

"I spend an enormous amount of time trying to figure out how to do things without state funds," Winn said.

Some of the cost-savings steps are so behind-the-scenes that even most state employees are unlikely to notice.

The Division of Facilities Management, for example, is putting variable speed drives on large motors that run such things such as air ventilators. That allows them to gradually ramp up instead of starting with a power surge.

While asking employees to turn off computers at night, maintenance workers themselves are shutting off such things as escalators.

And like a family cleaning out its attic, the state also is clearing out warehouses with the goal of reducing the leased storage space around the capital city by as much as 20 percent.

Building administrators say they are looking for more ways to save.

"We're looking for ways to reduce costs, and any way we can get it down -- that's what we're looking for," said Lin Appling, director of the Division of Facilities Management.