Last week, the new (and former) California Governor Jerry Brown said he had learned that the state was paying for 96,000 cell phones for state employees. He issued a statement saying that "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all state employees must be equipped with taxpayer-funded cell phones," and ordered half of them to be turned in by June 1.
Which led to the question: How many state cell phones do Washington, Oregon and Idaho have?
We posed the question to the three states. The one responding so far is Oregon, where a Department of Administrative Services spokesman advises us via email, "that number is 17,142."
Which on a basis of per-capita population in the states, means Oregon state government has considerably more. Could be interesting to hear if there's a good reason for that.
We'll check in again with Washington and Idaho too.