Kaine calls for further reductions in state energy use

Instead of having DMV offices open 5 and 1/2 days a week, close them on Wednedsday and have them open all day on Saturday. This will benefit the consumer and save money in salaries and energy.

In addition to causing paper jams and service calls, does recycled paper still cost more than other choices?  Or I guess spending is not an issue to the level of the “green” agenda.  (Examples:  “corn” based gasoline, those swirlly light bulbs, etc.)  Wait til you see your electric bill after cap-n-trade!!

Actually we did save money… we originially had a lap top plus a desk top. So that is 2 times the vita charges plus a little more for a laptop as you mentioned.

Now we’ve eliminated our desk top and just use our lap top on the docking station. So we saved the state money by eliminating our desktop.

As for the printer, I see your point, but having a community printer would save money because people would probably be less likely to print for personal reasons, which in turn saves energy and saves paper. I am also certain that the money you can save in a year on vita charges on one community printer as opposed to 20 personal printers would be significant, even though using one may break down ever so often.

As for cell phones, it may not work in all agencies, but in a department where staff travel frequently, I would say more than 50% of the time, I think having a cell phone would be more beneficial since you would use it when you are in or out of the office. I don’t know how many times I have used my personal cell phone when I am out of the office, but I am certain it would maybe exceed or be equal to the amount of times I use my office phone.  Currently, my office phone sits there unused for 50% of the time while the department pays VITA charges on it. At the same time I do not know how much the state saves when I use my personal cell phone for work calls. I guess this would have to be weighed out.

Janet, you did not save any charges by switching from a desktop to a laptop.  VITA charges more for the laptop per month than the desktop.  They also know if you have a single printer for a group of people it will break more often requiring more maintenance calls that result in more replcament printers.  This makes more money for NG/VITA.  Remember VITA is just a state paid branck of Northrup Grumman.  Vita employees are totally under the control of NG.  Also cell phones are an additional charge because they also are controlled and charged by VITA who add and extra charge for its use. The state saves no money by the VITA/NG contract but has increased agency costs by over 30%.

If bottled water has such a negative impact on the environment, why wait over a year to ban it? Why not ban it immediately?

dswx is on to something. They don’t turn off the lights, change the temperature setting at my office or turn off the printers just because I’m not there.

I would also like to see a comprehensive study of the energy consumed by teleworkers vs officeworkers, but Kaine isn’t really concerned about reducing total energy consumption, just making silly, ineffective gestures.

I found the item about public transportation particularly amusing…instead of restricting governement offices to public transit lines, why not order public transit to follow government?  The Commonwealth certainly contributes enough in subsidies to have a say in where the bus stops are located. And why a quarter mile? Wouldn’t it benefit the health of public employees by requiring them to walk at least a half mile from the bus stop to their offices?  Maybe Timmy could turn off the elevators and make state employees climb the stairs.  That would save the state a lot of energy. Bet that the agency heads’ offices would move to the first or second floor real quick.