Moving DOC Headquarters?

Even though the Colorado Department of Correction's lease for its Colorado Springs headquarters isn't up for 2 more years, now is the time to talk about moving it elsewhere, area lawmakers say.

But moving those administrative workers to Pueblo or Fremont County, closer to where most of the state's prisons are, isn't necessarily on the department's radar screen, DOC officials say.

Under orders from Gov. Bill Ritter to find ways to save money, DOC executive director Ari Zavaras said his department plans to review all space it currently leases to see if there are ways to save the state money.

Zavaras, however, stopped short of saying the facility located on the south side of Colorado Springs would move further south, such as Pueblo, or move at all.

"I would not rule Pueblo out as a potential, but it does get us further away from Denver, and quite a few of the people in the central office in Colorado Springs have to make quick trips up to Denver, and obviously have to make trips to Canon City and Pueblo for that matter," Zavaras said. "I'm not dancing on you, but I wouldn't put odds on any place. I'm really going to look for what will be the very best deal for the state."

Zavaras said at this point just about everything is on the table, including decentralizing the headquarters, or at least parts of it, such as splitting up its Private Prison Monitoring Unit into two or more offices, or moving its computer division elsewhere, which would free up space in their current location.

Regardless, some Southern Colorado lawmakers said the time is right to take some serious steps toward moving the entire DOC's central office from Colorado Springs closer to where the vast majority of the prison facilities it oversees are located.

"If we can't beat the dollars per square footage, I'd be really surprised," said Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo and chairman of the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee. "I'm saying we ought to get the best value for our dollars. I don't see anything in statute that says it has to be in Colorado Springs. I could make a good argument that they would be better served in Pueblo or even Fremont County.

"I know what the rental rates are in Pueblo and I know what they are in Colorado Springs. We're quite a bit cheaper," Tapia added. "This is not too early to be talking about this. In fact, this is the time. I would imagine, if we were really serious about this, there's probably something down at the (Pueblo) industrial park."

He and Reps. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, and Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, said they plan to work together to see what it would take to move the office to Pueblo, or, at the very least, out of Colorado Springs.

They said it makes more sense financially - rents are cheaper in Pueblo and Fremont counties - and managerially - 20 of the 28 state and private prisons are located in Southern Colorado, and DOC administrators should be closer to them.

"It's time to re-evaluate whether or not we wouldn't be better served in a better building," McFadyen said. "Space-wise it appears it's too small. We've seen this growth in the Department of Corrections system, but we haven't seen growth in the office space at their headquarters. They're doing more with less space, but it's just not laid out very well."

Currently, the DOC's central office houses more than 225 workers in about 64,000 square feet of space in a privately owned building located at 2862 South Circle Drive in Colorado Springs.

The four-story building, which the DOC rents for about $1 million a year including utility and maintenance costs, was built in 1970. It has seen its share of problems, including an electrical fire and plumbing problems, but the building's owners always have been quick to fix them, said DOC spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti.

The building, which is owned by the Broomfield-based Colorado & Santa Fe Real Estate, is an island unto itself of sorts. It is not connected to city water or sewage, getting its water from a nearby well and dumping its refuge into its own septic system.

The company leases office space throughout the Front Range.

The DOC's central office first moved to Colorado Springs in 1977 when it only had 61 workers. Previously, it had been located in Fort Logan on Denver's south side. It centralized its operations in 1985 when it moved into the building it currently occupies.

"Piecing stuff together from our historical file, it looks like we were at Fort Logan and they said, ‘We need to move you because you'll be more centrally located between Denver, Canon City and Buena Vista,'Ê'' Sanguinetti said. "They may have pulled some jobs to up here, but there's nothing to show that."

At the time, the department took up the top floor of the South Circle structure and part of the third floor. Over time, DOC extended its lease, getting more space each time.

Jim Rizzuto, president of Otero Junior College who was in the Colorado Senate from 1982 until 1998, serving on the JBC starting in 1987, said there was little objections to the move at the time.

He said that while the then-Colorado Springs delegation to the Legislature pushed to get DOC into the building, it wasn't part of any deal, nor was it done nefariously.

"As I remember it, there wasn't much discussion about it at all," said Rizzuto, a Democrat who represented Southeastern Colorado at the time.

Six years ago, the building's owners had hoped to move DOC into a larger building it owns right next door, an 83,000-square-foot building that currently houses various offices, including the Internal Revenue Service, some radio stations and a local outlet of the University of Phoenix.

That deal, which would have included a long-term lease and millions of dollars in owner-paid renovations, fell through in part because the department saw staffing cuts during the recession, just as all other state agencies did, and couldn't justify the additional expense.

But now, and partly thanks to the 2004 prison riot at the privately run Crowley County Correctional Facility, the department is expanding again.

The criteria for looking for new space, however, isn't based entirely on money and square footage. Employees' needs also will be taken into account. Most have roots in the city now, and aren't anxious to move to another town, Sanguinetti said.

She said the majority of DOC center office workers live in the Colorado Springs area, though some commute from as far away as Denver and Pueblo, and there isn't a lot of interest in going elsewhere.

"We (the DOC) will consider all the options available to us," she said.

"We will look at all of our options, and then make a decision based on what's the most efficient and its impact on staff. We really want to ensure they are in a work environment that is really comfortable and efficient."

While the department has been trying to add as much bed space to its prisons around the state to handle more inmates through double-bunking, it has been forced to do a little double-bunking of its own in the central office.

During the recent recession earlier this decade, the department cut several positions, including in its private prison monitoring unit, which went from 26 positions to seven.

But after the Crowley riot and a scathing audit that found problems at the private facility and within the DOC, the department has added 10 inspectors to that unit with 15 more coming soon.

All of those new workers need a place to hang their hats, which has been at the central office. As a result, other parts of the center have been squeezed, Sanguinetti said.

Currently, part of the building is being renovated to better utilize the space DOC does have, but it still isn't expected to be enough.

As a result of that and Ritter's directive to find ways to save state dollars, Zavaras has ordered the the department to review all of its leases.

Overall, the department spends about $3.4 million on leases, with just less than one-third of that amount being spent on the central office, according to state budget figures. The bulk of the remaining lease expenses go to space for its training academy in Canon City and parole officers, who are housed in various locations around the state, Sanguinetti said.

McFadyen and Tapia said there's little chance the state will pay to build a new facility for the central office. It doesn't have enough capital construction funds to handle existing needs, much less a new one.

Additionally, the state is more likely to spend any money it does find on prison beds rather than administrative space, which leaves continuing to lease the likely option, she said.

"I imagine there has to be another building, whether it's in Pueblo or El Paso County or even Fremont County, that has to have a better space value than what we have in Colorado Springs," she said. "We'll get more space in the southern end of the state than we would in a metro area. And with the majority of the prisons in the southern end of the state, it would make sense to keep the headquarters in the southern end."

Tapia said he expects to begin addressing the issue when the department comes before the JBC in December. That's when the department along with all others will come to the Legislature to present their annual spending plans for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

"When I first came to the Joint Budget Committee, I was told they had a seven-year lease and we were already two years into it," he said. "I told them, ‘You'd better not consider re-signing this lease before you come back to us.’ I've been to that building and I think we can do better."

Zavaras said he agrees, and is fully aware that the state is unlikely to sink the limited capital construction money it has into an administrative building.

Still, he said he'd like to get away from leasing anything, at least for the long-term, and opened the door for some local community to come up with a plan to help it get the space it needs.

"My preference would be that we own the building rather than leasing another building, but I think it's probably going to take some creative things," he said. "The reason I'm sketchy on it is I want to know for sure what our needs are going to be and what the possibilities are.

"I then want to take that package and talk it over with the governor," he added. "Depending on whether we're going to look for leased space or try to do some other sort of financing to build a building would govern our next moves, and that would then involve whatever communities."

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THROUGH THE YEARS

History of the Colorado Department of Corrections:

• 1868 - State penitentiary established by Territorial Legislature.
• 1871- First building opened at penitentiary in Canon City.
• 1876 - State penitentiary and state reformatory authorized in the Constitution as Colorado enters statehood.
• 1877 - State Board of Penitentiary established by the Colorado General Assembly.
• 1889 - State Reformatory created by the Legislature as an independent agency.
• 1915 - Colorado Board of Corrections created by the Legislature.
• 1949 - Office of the Director of Parole created by the Legislature.
• 1951 - State Department of Parole created by the Legislature, abolishing the parole director and creating State Board of Parole and the Division of Administration. State Department of Public Institutions also created by Legislature, which included overseeing prisons, the state hospital, and several other noncorrectional agencies, including the Department of Public Welfare.
• 1959 - Parole duties placed under the control of the public institutions department by the Legislature, abolishing the Department of Parole.
• 1977 - Department of Corrections created by Legislature with 61 employees with oversight over the only existing prisons in the state, which are in Denver, Fremont County and Buena Vista. Moved central office from Fort Logan in Denver to Dublin House in Colorado Springs. Division of Adult Services, Division of Correctional Industries, State Board of Parole and Division of Management and Development placed under the department, abolishing the divisions of parole and institutions in the process.
• 1985 - Corrections central offices moved from Dublin House, which is a sports bar today, into their current headquarters at 2862 South Circle Drive in the southern part of Colorado Springs.

- Source: DOC and Legislative Library.

Pueblo Chieftain