Veterans Commission, Stark DD reap big savings on new office space – The-review

The agencies will spend about a half million dollars to build new office space for staff.

PLAIN TWP. The Stark County Veterans Service Commission advises veterans on how to apply for veteran benefits.

The service officers connect them with job placement programs.

They guide them through the complex process to get the medals and honors they earned but never received.

But with their crammed offices at Whipple-Dale Centre, the commission staff hasnt been able to give veterans much privacy.

Space is so scarce that veterans often have to explain their private situations in the lunchroom. Many offices are shared by two staffers, so when a veteran comes for an appointment to meet with one, the other has to leave.

So the commission has teamed up with Whipple-Dales other tenant, the Stark County Board of Developmental Disabilities to solve both of their space issues.

By merging their renovation projects together, it allowed them to save on costs and create enough office and conference room space for dozens of employees. Cavanugh Building, competing with seven others for the work, submitted a bid of $466,000, $159,000 less than the architects estimate.

Cavanugh Building began to demolish a former public restroom to convert to Veterans Service offices. They project theyll finish the work by mid-March.

Expanding mission

De Ann M. Williams became the executive director of the Stark County Veterans Service Commission in January 2017. This was shortly after the commission moved from the County Office Building in downtown Canton to Whipple-Dale at Whipple Avenue NW and Hills & Dales Road NW.

The past three years, Williams has expanded her staff from about 13 to 24, so they can provide services to more veterans, connecting them to employment assistance, drugs and alcohol addiction rehabilitation and housing. Williams said in 2016, her agency served about 3,000 veterans, and this year it had 15,767 appointments first 11 months of 2019. Her goal is that all 25,151 veterans in Stark County will be aware of all the benefits and services her agency offers.

The current Whipple-Dale space was too small. In some cases, three staffers rotate use of a desk. The conference room is too cramped for staffwide meetings or training sessions. The end result is less productivity, less privacy for veterans seeking advice for personal matters and the use of a large Stark DD kitchen area for medal presentations.

"Everyones hanging out in the hallways," said Williams, adding that staffers often couldnt eat lunch until others were done meeting with veterans in the cramped lunchroom. "The staff was like, My foods in there. What do I do?"

So earlier this year, Williams initiated discussions with Stark DD Superintendent Bill Green about a joint renovation project.

Green jumped at the opportunity. He and Stark DD leadership had been planning on moving his agencys Early Intervention staff of 18 from its Eastgate facility in Louisville because Whipple-Dale is a more central location.

The staff, which made home visits to families with infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities, would have fewer miles to drive. But Stark DD needed new office space in its former workshop area to house them.

"Just by that move were saving 13 miles of being on the roads. Thats going to give them more time to spend with families," Green said, adding that the cost could have been $289,000 instead of $156,000 if they had done the project on their own. "We didnt have this renovation planned this year."

Stark DD used to operate a workshop for adults with developmental disabilities at Whipple-Dale. Years ago, closed the workshop and helped clients get funding to get adult care and workshop services from nonprofit organizations.

Much of that space went to the Veterans Service Commission on the buildings Wise Avenue NW side. The commission inherited two large public restrooms that Williams said it didnt need.

Because much of the original workshop space was being unused, Green agreed to turn over 934 square feet of what was still in Stark DDs area over to the commission that adjoined the commissions space.

Sol Harris/Day, the architect for both agencies hired for $41,000, determined that the restrooms could be converted into two offices, a janitorial closet, a conference room and smaller public restroom. And the 934 square feet, now unused space, could become five standard offices, a smaller office and a storage room. The smaller office will be designated for nonprofit organizations to meet with veterans.

Cavanugh Building will get $310,000 for the commissions portion and $156,000 for Stark DDs part, which includes construction of three office areas in the former workshop area for Stark DD staff. As part of the work, Cavanugh will also realign the current space so a conference room and lunch room are enlarged. In total, the commission will get 10 more offices.

Green said 10 more employees of the Stark County Family Council will also move to Whipple-Dale from Eastgate.

Williams said her agency has digitally scanned nearly all its veterans records dating back decades, freeing up storage space that can be used as office space.

Williams gave the Stark County commissioners a tour of the space in June. The commissioners did not want the commission moving and paying more to rent space. They approved spending the $310,000 out of the countys permanent improvement fund for construction and about $22,500 for the architect.

Commissioner Janet Weir Creighton said, "I believe that we owe it to the veterans to provide as many services (as we can) in a discreet and professional manner. ... And we had the funds available. And I like the idea of repurposing places we already have without having to go and buy more real estate."

The commission will spend an additional $15,000 on furniture and repainting the walls a calm hue of soft gray.

"I want people to feel like theyre at home when they come here," said Williams. "That its a professional environment and not that theyre in a government agency."

Reach Repository writer Robert Wang at (330) 580-8327 or robert.wang@cantonrep.com.

Read the original here:
Veterans Commission, Stark DD reap big savings on new office space - The-review