State to expedite audit on corrections HQ decision
The state Legislative Audit Committee has declined to request an independent review of a decision by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) to keep its headquarters in Colorado Springs.
But the decision isn't out of the woods yet. In November, a bipartisan group of legislators from the Pueblo area asked the Audit Committee to investigate the DOC's decision, announced in October, to build a new headquarters near the department's existing building on South Circle Drive. The Pueblo legislators argued that the DOC disregarded superior competing bids from Pueblo and Cañon City.
The DOC headquarters employs 240 people. It is the only department of state government not headquartered in the Denver area.
Earlier this year, the DOC, which said it had outgrown its current offices, threw open a possible move to another city by asking for competitive bids that included perks such as free rent. In deciding to stay in Colorado Springs, the DOC chose a bid that included no incentives, just a new, larger building.
The Legislative Audit Committee could have referred the issue to the state auditor's office, which is independent of any branch of government. But in discussions this week involving State Auditor Sally Symanski, Mary Kay Hogan of Gov. Bill Ritter's office and Rep. Jim Kerr, R-Littleton, the chairman of the Legislative Audit Committee, it was decided that, to expedite a review, it should not be made by the auditor's office.
"The problem was that it needed to be done in such a short time frame," Symanski said. She estimated that her office would have needed four to six months to "do a thorough review."
With its lease expiring in 2010, the DOC wants to go forward with construction of a new building.
State Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs and a member of the Legislative Audit Committee, joined with other legislators from the region in a statement supporting the DOC's decision, but said that regardless of the benefit to Colorado Springs of retaining the DOC and its jobs, he would have no problem seeing it go elsewhere if it saved taxpayer money. He said the problem was that an official state audit would take more time than the DOC says is available.
Evan Dreyer, Ritter's spokesman, said Friday he had asked the Department of Personnel and Administration (DPA) to review questions about the selection.
"Everybody agreed the most effective way to address them was to go this route," he said.
Like the Department of Corrections, the DPA answers to the governor. And Julie Postlethwait, the DPA public information officer, confirmed that two representatives of the DPA's real-estate unit had been involved in the DOC's headquarters search.
While acknowledging that it "could be awkward" for the DPA to investigate a decision it had been involved in, Postlethwait said the real-estate unit would be excluded from the review, and it would not be a case of "the fox guarding the henhouse."
Rep. Liane "Buffie" McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, was one of the signers of the letter requesting a review. She said it should include a conference of all the interested parties and an agreement on what the bid criteria should be.
"Without that openness,'" she said, "you'll continue to have the same questions by Colorado Springs, by Cañon City, by Pueblo, regardless of what the outcome is."
Katherine Sanguinetti, a DOC spokeswoman, said her department just wanted to move forward.
"We welcome any audit that either the Legislature or the governor's office would like to do," she said.
"And yes, it would be nice if it happened in a time-efficient manner so that we can get this over."
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Contact the writer: 476-1654 or dean.toda@gazette.com
