by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Governor Youngkin has appointed Banci Tewolde as director of the Dept. of General Services (DGS). She will fill the vacancy created by the sudden departure last December of Joe Damico, who had served as deputy director for 16 years and as director for the last six years. It is a curious appointment for a complex agency that is in the middle of a turf battle between the governor and the legislature.
DGS does not have a high public profile, but, within state government, it is well-known and its operations affect every state agency in some way.
Tewolde is an attorney. Her career in Virginia includes serving on the staff of the Norfolk sheriff. From there, she joined the state Attorney General’s office as an Assistant Attorney General. Her duties included providing legal advice to agencies in the public sector, particularly the Dept. of Corrections, and representing them in court. She became a protégé of Marla Decker, the Deputy Attorney General for criminal issues.
After Bob McDonnell, the Attorney General for whom Tewolde was working, was elected Governor, he appointed Decker as Secretary of Public Safety. Tewolde soon followed as McDonnell appointed her to coordinate the development of his statewide re-entry initiative and she was assigned to Decker’s office.
Toward the end of McDonnell’s term, Tewolde transferred to the Dept. of Planning and Budget (DPB) and was named the manager of the section that oversees the budget development of agencies in the public safety area. [Disclosure: For the last several years in which I was a budget analyst in DPB’s Public Safety Section, Tewolde was the manager.]
Tewolde obviously does not have technical expertise or experience in any of the functional areas of DGS. However, I learned some time ago that one does not necessarily need experience in an agency’s subject area to be a success in managing it. During the Robb administration, Richard Burton, who was a senior manager in what is now the Dept. of Housing and Community Development was appointed executive director of the State Water Control Board (SWCB), then an independent agency. The SWCB executive director had traditionally been a water systems engineer. Richard was not. While chatting with him one day, I expressed my surprise that a non-engineer would be chosen to head the agency. He replied that he had technical expertise all around him; his job was to manage and “I know how to manage,” he declared.
That made sense to me. However, in the case at hand, Tewolde has no management experience in addition to no technical expertise. The most she has managed has been five budget analysts, all of whom had the same function and were within several steps of her office.
To provide some perspective, it is useful to review the main areas of DGS’s portfolio:
Capital process. The director of the DGS Division of Engineering and Buildings is, by law, the state building official. With the exception of highway construction, DGS reviews the construction plans of all state capital projects. The agency must approve a project’s plan before the agency can proceed to the construction phase (building permit) and must inspect the finished project before the agency can begin to use it (certificate of use and occupancy permit).
DPB staff and staff from the General Assembly money committees rely heavily on DGS to review and approve cost estimates for proposed capital projects and any changes in costs encountered during the planning and construction of authorized projects
Finally, DGS staff manage the actual planning and construction of many major capital projects. The agency was the project manager for the major renovation of the State Capitol completed in 2007. It was the project manager of the recently completed Capitol Square project, which included the demolition of the old General Assembly Building, construction of a new General Assembly Building, construction of an adjacent parking deck, and renovation of the Old City Hall office building. Next up will be the demolition of the Pocahontas Building and construction of a new building to house the Virginia Supreme Court and the Cout of Appeals. (Marla Decker is now the chief judge of the Court of Appeals and is probably pleased that her protégé will be heading the agency that will be overseeing the planning and construction of her agency’s new home.) Furthermore, the General Assembly has delegated to DGS project management for capital projects approved for the Dept. of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, including the $425 million replacement of Central State Hospital in Petersburg.
Facilities management. DGS is responsible for managing 33 buildings in the Richmond area that house 75 state agencies. In this role, it keeps the heat and air conditioning on, the elevators working, the lights on, the offices cleaned, the plumbing functioning, etc., as well as performs other miscellaneous repairs and services.
Real estate services. The agency manages the state’s portfolio of leases and the sale of surplus real estate. By law, it is responsible for assigning office space to agencies and coordinating expansion or contraction of agency space in buildings or moves between buildings.
Fleet service. DGS manages a centralized fleet of approximately 4,000 vehicles. This includes vehicles assigned to a central motor pool and those vehicles assigned to state agencies on a permanent basis. It also manages a short-term vehicle rental contract. Other aspects of this area include vehicle maintenance and repair, vehicle replacement, negotiation of bulk fuel purchases for state vehicles, and provision of fuel cards to be used by state employees while traveling on state business.
Procurement. DGS manages the statewide electronic procurement system used by state agencies. In addition, it negotiates contracts that agencies can use to purchase items commonly used by all agencies, such as copier paper. Furthermore, it oversees the compliance of state agencies with the Virginia Public Procurement Act.
Laboratory services. The Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, administered by DGS, provides testing for local and state agencies in numerous areas, including: new-born screening, infectious disease, foodborne outbreaks, substance abuse, drinking water, environmental samples, motor fuels, soil and sediment, food chemistry, animal feed, and fertilizers.
Personnel. In comparison to the five staff that Tewolde managed at DPB, DGS is authorized to fill 720 positions.
A fight between the governor’s office and the legislature over DGS and the control of capital projects and state buildings broke out into the open last fall. Youngkin had been putting pressure on DGS to find savings in the state’s procurement process. As part of this push, he had contracted with a national consulting agency, at a cost of $7.7 million, to study the state’s procurements. Also, he had created the position of Chief Procurement Officer, located in the governor’s office and had co-located the DGS procurement operations with those of the Virginia Information Technology Authority.
On the capital and building management side, at the behest of the governor’s office, DGS put on hold the planning for a new state office building previously authorized by the legislature to eventually replace the aging Monroe Building.
Furthermore, in the spring of 2023, Damico, the former director, had told a legislative subcommittee that it had not been decided what agencies would be moved into the renovated Old City Hall. The Gothic building, situated on Capitol Square between the General Assembly building and the Patrick Henry Building in which the governor’s office is located, has an ornate interior. After its renovation, it is highly desirable space. Damico’s statement came as a surprise to General Assembly officials, who had reached an agreement with the former administration to share the building equally. Earlier this year, the administration began moving state employees, primarily those in the Dept of Education, out of the Monroe Building and into other state office buildings. The Superintendent of Public Instruction moved into a group of offices in Old City Hall.
Alarmed at what it perceived as political meddling in procurement issues and unilateral overriding of capital decisions made by previous legislators and administrations, the General Assembly struck back by passing legislation that would move DGS our from under the supervision of the governor and make it an autonomous agency. It would be governed by a five-member citizen board, four of whom would be appointed by the legislature. The board would appoint the chief administrator of the agency. The budget bill passed by the legislature contained similar provisions, along with language reversing the governor’s moves regarding the new state office building. Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville), chief patron of the legislation, explained the motivation behind the bill this way: “We need to make sure we have an agency structure we can trust.”
In the end, the Governor vetoed the legislation and the budget deal negotiated by the administration and the General Assembly did not include that language. As for the new proposed state office building, the new budget bill limited the project to (1) demolishing the building previously occupied by the Virginia Employment Commission (which has already been done) and (2) DGS conducting a study, due November 1, of the feasibility of using that site or one formerly occupied by the Dept. of Transportation for the construction of the new state office building.
Youngkin had contended that there was sufficient vacant private office space available that the state could lease rather than construct a new building, but the budget language seems to preclude that option and to mandate the eventual construction of a new building. Furthermore, the General Assembly stated its intention in clear language: “No executive branch agency shall be relocated permanently from the Monroe Building unless otherwise authorized by the General Assembly.”
As for who gets to occupy Old City Hall, the legislature was clear about that, too. “The occupancy of Old City Hall shall be under the control of, and administered by, the Clerk of the House of Delegates and the Clerk of the Senate.”
Tewolde will be in a tight spot. With no management experience at the agency level and facing a steep learning curve related to the functions and personnel of her new agency, she and DGS will be right in the middle of an ongoing struggle between the administration and the legislature. Despite Youngkin’s touting her “proven track record in managing complex projects,” it is doubtful that people familiar with Tewolde could point to any complex projects she has managed.
The reaction of legislators to her appointment has generally been positive, for no other reason at least, expressing relief that Youngkin did not bring in someone with no experience in Virginia government as he is wont to do. “I’m glad to see someone within the government with state experience has been selected,” commented Sen. Jeremy McPike (D-Prince William), who was one of the legislators who clashed with the governor’s office over the attempt to cancel the construction of the new state office building. This will be an interesting experiment to watch.
Sources:
In the writing of this article, I relied heavily on the following articles from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
https://richmond.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/richmond-virginia-general-services-general-assembly/article_c0dcf11e-b548-11ee-86a4-ff80562de8b9.htmlhttps://richmond.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/virginia-general-assembly-james-monroe-building-youngkin/article_1fad9e04-dd9a-11ee-9893-1b64ad91db1e.html