Stumbo authorizes $230,000 renovation in Capitol Annex

By John Cheves – jcheves@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky House is spending about $230,000 to renovate new office space for lawmakers at the Capitol Annex, even as it meets in special session to discuss the state budget shortfall.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, authorized the project this year. It involves rebuilding, rewiring and adding new carpet to about 4,100 square feet on the Annex’s third floor. Furniture and electronics costs have not been tallied.

The work is part of a six-year effort by the General Assembly to claim more space for lawmakers, who previously shared the four-story Annex with several executive branch agencies.

Lawmakers have forced most of the other occupants to move elsewhere in Frankfort, which costs $408,000 a year in rent paid to private landlords.

Other recent plans by legislators to renovate office space have become controversial when details became public.

Last year, the Senate scrapped a proposed $450,000 project to create meeting space with kitchens, a news conference room and a lounge after the Herald-Leader reported it and several senators facing re-election said they were uncomfortable with the expense.

Pierce Whites, Stumbo’s general counsel, said Stumbo ordered the current House office renovations after he became speaker in January and learned the legislature was paying $166,594 a year in rent to the state Finance and Administration Cabinet for that vacant space and a similar vacant space on the fourth floor. The legislature took possession of those spaces a year ago.

“We thought as long as we were paying rent, we might as well make them usable,” Whites said.

The spaces were dilapidated, with missing carpets and ceiling tiles and inadequate wiring, said Robert Sherman, director of the Legislative Research Commission. State workers had scavenged the area for fixtures to use elsewhere in the Capitol complex, Sherman said.

In a March 31 letter to Stumbo, Sherman advised: “While it might properly be argued as inappropriate to expend inordinate sums on renovations during tight budgetary times, it would seem even more unwise to allow some of the most valuable office space in Frankfort to remain fallow for want of a coat of paint.”

The estimate for the work — to be completed later this year — is $228,670, according to state records.

To deal with the state budget shortfall, Gov. Steve Beshear called the legislature into special session this month to cut spending for most state agencies by 2.6 percent. The House will discuss its version of the state budget on Monday.

The legislative budget is not hurting for money. Last year, when lawmakers told Beshear to cut $230 million from the executive branch’s $9.1 billion budget, it awarded itself 13 percent more over the next two years, taking it up to $55.6 million in 2010.

The legislature already provides each of its part-time members with a private office in the Annex. Leaders also get offices in the nearby Capitol outside their respective chambers.

The Annex expansion allows these office suites to grow, with additional shared facilities to be added, such as conference rooms, Sherman said.

Filed Under: Greg Stumbo • KY General Assembly