MONTPELIER -- There is a “high likelihood” the state will maintain a presence at the 100-acre office complex in Waterbury that was home to 1,500 state workers until floodwater damaged buildings and displaced the workers seven weeks ago, a top Shumlin administration official said Thursday.
Jeb Spaulding, the secretary of administration for Gov. Peter Shumlin, said “the chances of us being totally AWOL in Waterbury are very slim.”
But exactly how many workers will return to the central Vermont town won't be decided soon.
“There will be no decision announced on what the plans are going to be relative to going back into Waterbury or moving somewhere else – or doing a blended option – anytime in the next few months,” said Spaulding.
Spaulding made his comments during a press briefing in Montpelier where the administration discussed the future of the Waterbury complex.
About 110 state Department of Public Safety employees have already moved back to their Waterbury offices, and the administration used them as an example of workers that would likely remain.
The administration announced at the briefing the formation of a seven-member advisory committee that will examine three permanent options: renovating the Waterbury buildings and moving workers back; leaving Waterbury and building a new state-of-the-art complex elsewhere in central Vermont; and a “blended option.”
The blended option could entail moving some employees back to Waterbury and others to existing buildings in or around Montpelier, Shumlin said.
For more on this story check out tomorrow's Times Argus and Rutland Herald
-- Thatcher Moats
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