Plans for DHS relocation seem to be scrapped

by Peter Jakey– Managing Editor

It?s been nearly a year since officials from the Department of Human Services (DHS) announced that they would be seeking a new location for Presque Isle County?s office, as a way to save the state agency money. After expending numerous hours of time and energy, it appears there will be no relocation of the West Third Street, Rogers City office.

There could be some changes to the office space at the current building, but no move, according to Doug McCombs, DHS director for Presque Isle and Alpena counties. To avoid a consolidation with the Alpena office, and to keep a DHS physical presence in Presque Isle County, local governing officials were looking for a new location with little or no rent.

MCCOMBS SAID the Onaway Area Community Schools was the most promising location, before the Department of Management and Budget (DMB), the agency pushing for cost-saving measures and the closing of DHS offices across the state, put the brakes on any relocation plans locally, and instead turned their attention to reconfiguring the Rogers City office building. DMB directed local DHS officials to find a way to reduce the usage of their square footage. McCombs submitted a new floor plan to DMB last fall, but all has been quiet since then. ?They appear to have reached a conclusion that they are not going to push us to co-locate, or do anything other than try to reduce the amount of square footage we are currently leasing from the current land owner, thereby coming up with a savings,? said McCombs. ?I think we are safe in terms of our current location for as far down the road as I can see.? Since sending in the floor plan last fall, McCombs hasn?t heard any news or been asked to do anything else by the DMB. He said the new floor plan would offer enough space for the current employees.

?THAT IS something we struggled with all along — that we don?t want to just have a presence in Presque Isle County, we

want our full compliment of staff to remain there so we can function as we have been,? said McCombs. The proposed floor plan would include relocating the break room/lunch room and cutting a conference room and adjoining offices. The plan would be to convert a room used for the storage of filing cabinets as a break room/lunchroom and moving the filing cabinets into a large manager?s office. The current front entrance, reception desk, and waiting room would remain in its current location, although some of the waiting room may be used for storage of other items with the loss of space on the other end of the building.

?If they go with that, we would be giving up space but keeping all of our people,? said McCombs. He added that there are some details that would need to be worked out, including a possible renegotiation of the terms of the lease. McCombs said the only positive is they are no longer investing their time looking for a new building. The bad part is final plans, if there are going to be any, are still in limbo.