St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Virginia Young writes that the administration of Missouri Governor Matt Blunt is clamping down on new state purchases of BlackBerry devices.
For state employees directly under Blunt's control, they can only use BlackBerrys if their jobs involve lots of travel and a need to be reachable 24 hours a day.
If you are deskbound, you don't qualify, sorry. Unless, you are a a state IT department employee, a department director or a deputy director.
Blunt's commissioner of administration Mike Keathley told Young that Gov. Blunt does not want employees to covet BlackBerrys as status syumbols.
"The BlackBerry is like the golden goose," added Keathley's assistant commissioner, Rich AuBuchon. "Everybody wants one."
One notable exception to the Blunt administration's tight-fistedness: becuase many of the director of deaf services for the Department of Mental Health are deaf and use a BlackBerry for text messaging, he received a BlackBerry.
1. Matt Blunt today announced the U.S. Department of Labor has given conditional approval to his application for avoidance of $102.8 million in federal tax credit reductions given to Missouri employers. The request dates back to June 2006, when Blunt sent an Application for Avoidance of Tax Credit Reduction to the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
Posted at 12:36PM on Sep 28th 2006 by mesothelioma