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DAS director seeks $40 million for OSOB sale process, $500,000 for fleet and pledges efficiency review
Summary
Lee Will, director of the Department of Administrative Services, told the Appropriations Committee the agency requests a $40 million revolving fund appropriation to support sale/relocation work for the Omaha State Office Building and a $500,000 increase for Transportation Services Bureau operations; he summarized steps to reduce repeated audit
Lee Will, director of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), testified to the Appropriations Committee in support of the governor’s budget recommendations and outlined several large agency requests. Will described a requested $40,000,000 revolving fund appropriation to support real-estate transactions around the proposed sale of the Omaha State Office Building (OSOB) and relocation of 13 state agency occupants. He said OSOB has estimated deferred maintenance of roughly $10 million to $20 million and that the appropriation would be used to pursue a sale and identify replacement office space.
Will also explained a $500,000 requested revolving fund increase for the DAS Transportation Services Bureau (TSB) to cover rising operational costs — fuel, insurance, repairs and higher vehicle acquisition costs driven by manufacturers’ shift away from sedan models. He reported the state has roughly 4,300 vehicles and about 17,000 state employees and said DAS plans a fleet-utilization study to “right-size” the pool of vehicles.
Will reviewed recent state-auditor findings and said some large dollar items reported in the annual comprehensive financial report were clerical classifications rather than fiscal weakness, noting a $1.96 billion classification error and another $283 million federal fund classification issue. “I would say this is in no way a reflection or testament of the state's financial position. It was frankly a, clerical error,” Will told the committee; he said DAS resolved roughly 77% of repeat audit findings and intends to push toward 100% resolution.
On procurement and administrative reforms, Will described efforts to return more workers to office space, reduce mail-route costs, adopt value-based procurement metrics and reexamine IT and rate structures (including $1.1 million annual Workday-related costs that had previously been covered by COVID funding). Committee members asked about details of operating-expense line items; Will offered to provide a detailed breakout of allocation codes.
Ending: Will closed by offering to answer additional questions and to provide follow-up documentation; the committee accepted DAS testimony and heard a short proponent statement from the Capitol Commission.
