Surrounded by old desks, office chairs, computer monitors and even a surplus exercise treadmill – but not the one that caused a stress fracture in his leg last month – Gov. Martin O’Malley announced that the state was going to sell the dreary Jessup warehouse that houses the excess property.
The decision to close the warehouse by the train tracks that are the border of Anne Arundel and Howard counties was pretty much a no brainer. The state was collecting about $200,000 a year from the sale of the surplus property, and the operation was costing $220,000 a year to run, O’Malley said.
“Every dollar we spend on this, which is not part of the state’s core mission, is a dollar that cannot go to the classrooms for our kids or to retain that high quality teacher” or aid local government or provide work force training, O’Malley said.
He said the warehouse and the 9.3 acres it sits on are estimated to be worth about $2.4 million.
The governor also signed an executive order that directed all department heads “to review its agency’s inventory of state owned office and storage space” and identify ways to consolidate functions into less footage and to dispose of excess property and space. Cabinet secretaries were also ordered to reduce inventories of supplies and purchasing to reduce the need for storage capacity.
Alvin Collins, the secretary of General Services, which runs the warehouse, said no more surplus property would be brought in, as the state tries to sell the remaining property.
Besides the file cabinets and furniture that were the bulk of the surplus, there also were blenders, stuffed toy bunnies and beach chairs, including the one the governor hoisted to make his point.
The toys came from child care and child protection facilities, Collins said.
Collins said that in the future surplus state equipment and supplies would be sold over the Internet, rather than from a central facility.
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