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Administrative Services seeks more building maintenance funds, ERP upgrade funding and plans to move agencies into state‑owned space
Summary
The Department of Administrative Services described deferred maintenance across state buildings, requested additional funds for courthouses and elevators, and outlined a multi‑year plan to move agencies from leased space into renovated state buildings.
Department of Administrative Services leaders briefed the Senate Capital Budget Committee on a broad portfolio of building maintenance needs, a multi‑year ERP (enterprise resource planning) upgrade and a plan to shift state agencies from leased offices into state‑owned space.
Charlie Arlinghaus of the Department of Administrative Services said the division of plant and property manages 96 state buildings and that deferred maintenance may total around $1 billion, though the department lacks an exact centralized total. He said the governor’s capital budget contained about $15 million for the department’s needs; the agency’s internal requests were substantially larger.
Karen Renton Mackey, director of plant and property, highlighted priority items that did not make the governor’s request: HVAC and boiler work for county courthouses (estimated about $4.3 million for Fort Smith and Coos County and about $2.85 million for Carroll County and Lebanon), brick repointing on the main state hospital campus buildings, single‑pane window replacement at Spaulding, continued elevator repairs in multiple buildings and a scalable $5 million request for ERP sustainability and advancement. The department said it expects the ERP modernization effort to go live on a major upgrade in early 2026 and that previous capital budgets have supported this multi‑year IT project.
Committee members asked whether the DAS list was in strict priority order; Arlinghaus and Renton Mackey said the ERP is the top scalable priority but that courthouse and building systems needs are close behind. Senators also pressed the department about using renovated buildings to reduce leased‑space costs: Arlinghaus reviewed an ongoing program to renovate vacant state buildings such as Londrigan Hall using ARPA funds and said the department maintains a public list of leased buildings it seeks to vacate over time.
Arlinghaus said the department’s goal is to move agencies out of leased space into state‑owned buildings when possible; agencies under consideration for relocation included the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC), BEA, Banking, Council on Developmental Disabilities and PELRB. The department said it will coordinate priorities with the governor’s office on who moves next.
No committee vote was taken; members asked for more detailed cost breakdowns for specific projects and a list of state leases and per‑square‑foot costs to help prioritize moves from leased space.
