SPRINGFIELD, Ill.— More than a quarter of Illinois state government’s leases of office space have expired and haven’t been re-negotiated, sometimes for years, a state audit released Thursday found.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.— More than a quarter of Illinois state government’s leases of office space have expired and haven’t been re-negotiated, sometimes for years, a state audit released Thursday found. And the Department of Central Management Services is sometimes is late with rent and utility payments, receives shut-off notices from utility companies and is slow to keep reimbursements from agencies in line with the rents the state has to pay private vendors. Auditor General William Holland found that 139 of 505 leases have expired and are in "holdover" status or on a month-to-month agreement. Those agencies could be evicted or subject to increased rents at any time. But that is an improvement. An Associated Press analysis in 2006 found that 331 of 632 leases were in holdover. Holland criticized the department nonetheless, saying many of the holdovers are more than five years old, and "the department has not assessed effective utilization of the space and has not negotiated terms that may be more favorable to the state." He pointed out that the agency spent $912,000 in 2007 on several private contracts, including architects, to assist with internal leasing operations. Monthly lease, utility and other costs were sometimes late, prompting several disconnection notices from utility companies, a situation that has continued since 2006, Holland’s report said. Under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, CMS took over management of all state facilities, paying the rent for space leased by other agencies and collecting reimbursements from them. But the audit found reimbursements were not adjusted to reflect indirect management costs for several years, leading to cash shortages in some years. Some agencies had not paid their allocations for 2008 by December. CMS responded that it is billing agencies much sooner than it used to and that the state budget crisis delayed payments from user agencies. For nearly two years, the agency has used a computerized tool to help analyze space and determine the most efficient way to use it, officials said. ______ Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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