This Washington
State Saves $1.67 Million Reducing Unnecessary Cell Phone Use; AG's Office High on List
Under a 2011 directive from Gov. Chris Gregoire (and a cost-cutting bill adopted by the state legislature), state agencies are required to "reduce unnecessary cell-phone use," either by cutting the number of state employees who have state-issued cell phones, or by imposing new rules on cell phone use.
Jill Satran, director of external relations for the state office of the Chief Information Officer, says that some agencies "just eliminate phones that weren't being used enough to justify cell phone use," while others "looked at different ways of structuring their contracting with the telephone companies ... in most cases, by pooling minutes so that rather than having their own individual stash of 400 minutes or whatever, they would have a pool of minutes that everyone could draw from."
The total savings: $1.667 million a year.
So which agencies, proportionally, gave up the most cell phones? As a percentage of the total number of cell phones that were previously issued to employees in agencies with more than 100 workers, they are:
1) The state department of licensing, whose employees turned in 20 percent of their cell phones;
2) The state parks and recreation commission, whose employees turned in 15.4 percent of their phones;
3) The state attorney general's office, whose employees turned in 14.3 percent of their phones; and
4) The state gambling commission, whose employees turned in 14.1 percent of their phones.
There are, of course, different ways to interpret those results. Were agencies whose employees turned in a large number of phones initially being profligate with their cell-phone use? Or is reducing cell-phone use dramatically a sign of thrift on the part of agencies that made deep cuts? We're talking to the CIO's office tomorrow to get their interpretation of the results.
Jill Satran, director of external relations for the state office of the Chief Information Officer, says that some agencies "just eliminate phones that weren't being used enough to justify cell phone use," while others "looked at different ways of structuring their contracting with the telephone companies ... in most cases, by pooling minutes so that rather than having their own individual stash of 400 minutes or whatever, they would have a pool of minutes that everyone could draw from."
The total savings: $1.667 million a year.
So which agencies, proportionally, gave up the most cell phones? As a percentage of the total number of cell phones that were previously issued to employees in agencies with more than 100 workers, they are:
1) The state department of licensing, whose employees turned in 20 percent of their cell phones;
2) The state parks and recreation commission, whose employees turned in 15.4 percent of their phones;
3) The state attorney general's office, whose employees turned in 14.3 percent of their phones; and
4) The state gambling commission, whose employees turned in 14.1 percent of their phones.
There are, of course, different ways to interpret those results. Were agencies whose employees turned in a large number of phones initially being profligate with their cell-phone use? Or is reducing cell-phone use dramatically a sign of thrift on the part of agencies that made deep cuts? We're talking to the CIO's office tomorrow to get their interpretation of the results.
