McDonnell to set frugal tone with transition

RICHMOND — Inside well-worn state office space with bare walls and shabby carpet, Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell’s transition team is using leftover campaign office supplies and state surplus office furniture that is decades old.

Only parts of the administration’s future home in the Patrick Henry Building will get a fresh coat of paint, and the McDonnell family is looking to design on a dime at the Executive Mansion.

In these austere times, McDonnell already is trying to save money.

By slicing a few thousand here and there, the incoming Republican administration aims to save up to $40,000 of its $353,000 transition budget.

“They have taken a very frugal approach, saying they want to turn money back,” said Richard F. Sliwoski, director of the Department of General Services, which coordinates much of the transition work.

“If it’s good enough, they’ll live with it. They are looking at every nickel.”

The largest chunk of savings — nearly $30,000 — is anticipated to come from shaving moving costs. A company is donating its services to relocate the McDonnell family from their home in Henrico County to the Executive Mansion. The incoming administration thinks it also can save on the move to the Patrick Henry Building, said McDonnell’s communications director, Tucker Martin.

McDonnell, who from Day One will face a multibillion-dollar budget hole, pledged during his campaign to conserve taxpayer dollars and to make government work more efficiently.

“And that applies to the transition period just the same as it does to his time in office,” Martin said. “While the potential savings identified are proportionately small in the context of the overall state budget, they are symbolically important when it comes to setting a tone for how government must operate in these tough fiscal times.”

The governor or the General Assembly could direct transition savings for another use by amending the budget during the upcoming session, according to the transition team.

At noon Jan. 16, inauguration day, access to the governor’s office switches from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s administration to McDonnell’s staff. The same goes, technically, for the Executive Mansion, though Sliwoski said Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, “are being more than gracious to make sure it’s ready for the new governor and his family.”

The McDonnells can bring their own furniture to the mansion or choose from furniture in stock. Some carpeting in the second-floor family quarters will be replaced - after nine years and three dogs - and the family can select new paint colors.

If they use the beds provided, the state pays for new mattresses.

Martin said the McDonnells hope to save about $5,000 in that process.

As for the actual inaugural, the state has budgeted $240,000. That covers a variety of things, from bleachers and invitations to formal-wear rentals for members of the General Assembly’s inaugural committee, said House of Delegates Clerk Bruce F. Jamerson.

Jamerson, a member of the group that began planning for the inauguration months ago, said the planners want to be good stewards of state funds. He noted that they came in under budget for Gov. Mark R. Warner’s 2002 inauguration. It was budgeted for $180,000, and $177,000 was spent. (In 2006, Kaine was inaugurated in Colonial Williamsburg because renovations were under way at the Capitol in Richmond.)

Bleachers, which will face the South Portico where McDonnell will be sworn in, will begin going up tomorrow. Those seats will hold about 3,150 people; members of the public can find a spot by large screens that will broadcast the pomp and circumstance.

Other banks of bleachers planned for the event will be paid for with campaign money - as are transition staff salaries.

“A little bit here, a little bit there, it adds up after awhile,” Martin said. “If we can do it just as well but a little bit cheaper, then that’s our aim.”

Olympia Meola is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.