State audits have found frequent abuse and mismanagement of cell phones, making them an obvious item to cut.
"When the budgets get really tight, that's when a lot of the silly stuff goes away," Missouri Auditor Claire McCaskill said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell hopes to shave more than $1 million from the state's annual bill for more than 5,000 cell phones. For starters, he will try to consolidate the myriad contracts entered into by state agencies to get a better deal.
"If we accept the premise that we need such a heavy reliance on these cell phones, why in the world are we not making these cell phone companies compete for a bulk deal?" asked spokesman Ken Snyder.
Similarly, Maryland plans to put its cell phone contracts up for re-bid later this year.
In Rhode Island, where state agencies spent nearly $270,000 on cell phones last year, Gov. Donald Carcieri recalled all executive branch cell phones while he reviews their use as part of an overall cost-cutting plan.
The move follows similar action in the Rhode Island Statehouse, where House legislative aides are sharing five phones, down from the 22 they used to carry.
The mayors of cash-strapped Atlanta and Kansas City, Mo., have also ordered broad recalls of city cell phones, telling workers to justify their need for them.
Many public agencies fail to take advantage of falling monthly rates, keep track of personal calls or review who really needs the devices, audits show.
The St. Louis Election Board, for example, failed to collect 90 of 387 phones distributed to poll workers for an August election, leading to $35,000 worth of unauthorized calls. The board also kept service on between elections for the past two years, accumulating $350,000 in bills.
"A grand jury determined that a crime was committed, but records were so bad that they couldn't tell who committed it," McCaskill said.
A former labor department official in Pennsylvania -- fired in November -- made more than 1,000 personal calls on his state cell phone to a friend in Montana, the auditor's office found. One call lasted nearly 7 hours.
Excess chatter is not the case everywhere.
In Maryland, a recent audit found about a third of the state's 6,700 cell phones went to people who used them less than three hours a year, at an annual cost of $122,000, and the state could save at least $500,000 a year by keeping better track of things like contract terms, excess usage and reimbursement for personal calls.
"People couldn't even tell us how many phones [their agencies] had, much less whether they're getting paid for personal phone calls," said legislative auditor Bruce Myers, who estimated the state spent $5.3 million on cell phones last year.
The audit showed, for example, that 74 high-volume users paid $164,000 for calls that would have cost about $34,000 under plans with higher calling limits.
Wireless work calls will not completely come to a halt. Cell phones are essential for emergency workers and are seen as a cost-effective tool for others.
"You can't do these management and productivity analyses with a cleaver; you need a scalpel," Pennsylvania's Snyder said.
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