Secretary of General Services
As Secretary of DGS, Don was also responsible for the management of more than 11,000 state-owned buildings, including the State Capitol, as well as 1,400 Commonwealth leases. He oversaw the design and construction of the state’s non-highway capital construction projects, the state’s minority and women-owned business contracting program, the Capitol Police Department, the Bureau of Commonwealth Media Services and served as the state’s real estate agent and insurance broker.
As Secretary, Cunningham oversaw $4 billion of the Pennsylvania budget. He ran the Governors management & productivity initiative and saved the state $500 million in operating costs. Furthermore, DGS doubled the Commonwealth’s property insurance coverage while slashing premiums nearly in half, saving more than $4 million a year.
In the area of real estate, Don led the initiatives to save Pennsylvania’s taxpayers money by competitively selling off unneeded surplus state property and putting property back on the tax rolls, creating community and economic development in communities across Pennsylvania.
Cunningham also led the effort to more aggressively help local governments and school districts to realize purchasing savings by “piggyback” buying from state contracts on everything from vehicles to personal computers. Don’s business consolidation efforts also eliminated the redundancy of state warehouse facilities in the Harrisburg area, reducing the number of warehouses and supply centers from 17 to 4 and saving $4 million a year.
While in state government as Secretary of DGS, Cunningham served on the State Public School Building Authority and Pennsylvania Higher Educational Facilities Authority, as well as the Board of PENNVEST, the Capitol Preservation Committee, the Governor’s Homeland Security Advisory Council and the Agricultural Land Preservation Interagency Committee.
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