Chapter Two

Duties and Responsibilities

Statutory Requirements

C.G.Secs. 4b1-12 outline the various buildings under the care and control of the Department of Public Works. State law requires the department to supervise and maintain the buildings and grounds of properties:

1. owned or leased by the state within the city of Hartford, including the State Office Building and state-owned police buildings;

2. owned or leased by the state located outside Hartford if: A) the building is used as a district office, or B) the DPW commissioner, the Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, and the executive head of the department or agency currently overseeing the property agree in writing to have DPW manage the property;

3. held under lease or rent by the state, except as otherwise provided by law;

4. owned by the state and designated by the Governor, except as otherwise provided by law.

State law also requires that no permanent change in the structure or ornamentation of the buildings affecting their symmetry or architecture be made without authorization from the legislature.

Exemptions to DPW management. Although the Department of Public Works is responsible for supervision and management of state-owned buildings within the city of Hartford and several locations outside city boundaries, state law provides for exceptions. Further, all property either leased or rented by the state or by any officer, department, institution, board, commission, or council of the state and located outside the city of Hartford, is under the control and management of the administrative head of the department or agency using/occupying the property. The following properties are statutorily exempt from DPW management:

• State Capitol Building and Legislative Office Building complex;
• Connecticut Marketing Authority;
• Property under the supervision of the Chief Court Administrator where the Judicial Department is the primary occupant, as well as the buildings and grounds of the State Library and Supreme Court ("Judicial Department" does not include Courts of Probate, Division of Criminal Justice, and Public Defender Commission except where it shares facilities in state-maintained courts); and
• The University of Connecticut.

Facilities Inventory

The Department of Public Works is required by law to maintain a "complete and current" inventory of all state-owned property and premises, including space utilization data, under its care and control. Table II-1 is a list of the properties under the department's care and control, and includes property location, number of buildings at each location, building population, gross and usable square footage, the contract term for buildings managed by private companies, and service level (i.e.; whether the property is owned, leased, occupied or not, or under a special agreement with the occupying agency for property management.)

As Table II-1 shows, 45 properties statewide are under the care and control of the Department of Public Works -- 19 within the city of Hartford. The properties include a total of 253 buildings covering 1,213 acres. The total gross square footage of the properties is just under 7.4 million, while the useable square footage for office space is almost 4.2 million. The number of occupants in the buildings totals just under 9,000.

Property Management Providers

Although the Department of Public Works is responsible for the care and control of various buildings, it does not provide property management services in all instances. Table II-2 shows private companies used by DPW provide property management services at 38 locations throughout the state (where DPW supplied the property manager's name in the information sent to the committee) at an annual cost of approximately $19 million. The process used to select the private management companies is detailed in Chapter III.

DPW provides management services at seven different locations, all located in the city of Hartford. As mentioned, DPW is also responsible for the care and control of several state hospital campuses throughout the state, including the Fairfield Hills, Norwich, Seaside Heights, and Uncas facilities. Management of the Norwich campus is under the auspices of DPW, but mostly provided by the Tunxis management company under a working relationship with DPW (Tunxis provides management services at a nearby DPW facility.) The management of the other state hospital facilities is provided by private companies.

For comparison purposes, committee staff analyzed the properties managed by DPW and private management companies as presented in Table II-2. The table shows DPW provides actual property management for just under nine percent of the gross square footage for buildings under its care and control. This figure, however, is somewhat misleading because of the amount of surplus in the mix. Surplus property accounts for 3.1 million square feet, and is considered less resource intensive to maintained than fully occupied property.

Table II-2 also shows private companies manage space with the most people. Roughly 85 percent of the total 8,964 people occupying property under DPW's care and control are located in buildings managed by private companies. In terms of overall acreage managed, DPW-managed properties account for approximately three percent.

Property Classifications

The properties listed in Table II-1 have been classified by DPW in two ways. The first classification is based on the usage and function of a particular property. Property usage is classified according to five different descriptions -- operating, leased, inactive, surplus, or other. As mentioned, several large campus settings housing state hospitals in the process of being sold are now under the department's purview and considered "surplus" property. Properties classified as surplus are no longer used by state agencies and come under the care and control of DPW.

Properties classified as "other" include special agreements whereby properties overseen by other state agencies are managed by DPW. The agreements are developed through a "memorandum of understanding" (MOU). State law authorizes DPW to enter into such written agreements allowing the department to manage properties occupied by other agencies not normally managed by DPW. A memorandum of understanding is developed among DPW, OPM, and the agency giving DPW property management responsibility.

Is should be noted the various types of office space overseen by DPW along with the corresponding square footage of the types of space, in the following tables were provided to the committee by DPW. Although there are missing data for several properties for several properties leased by DPW and vacant land owned by the department, it is the most current and complete information collected by the committee to date.

Table II-3 shows how properties under DPW care and control are used. The table outlines the total gross square footage as managed by either DPW or private management companies.

The table shows private management companies are responsible for the vast majority of buildings currently operating as working offices in full capacity. According to DPW data, private companies manage 3.2 million gross square feet, or just under 85 percent, while the department manages roughly 584,000 gross square feet of buildings in full operation. Private companies also manage all leased buildings under DPW's care and control, properties recently classified as inactive, and properties classified as surplus - namely the various state hospitals that DPW is now responsible for before their final disposition.

A second way DPW classifies properties under its care and control is according to type of space managed. Again, the department uses five classifications to describe the type of space in the facilities DPW is responsible for overseeing. For example, the properties range from Class A office space, which is the most desirable type of office space, to parking lots and general land parcels in several locations.

As Table II-4 shows, Class A office space under the care and control of DPW is primarily managed by private companies. Class A space totals 1,923,055 million gross square feet, all of which is managed by the private contractors hired by DPW. Properties classified as "mixed use" properties have several types of space within the same property, such as Class A and B office space. According to the DPW data, 56 percent of the properties considered mixed use are managed by DPW (486,400 gross square feet.)

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