Topeka ? Every night, the 12-story Docking State Office Building is ablaze with light from within.

But it’s not because employees are working hard at their desks.

The building is usually vacant in the evening, but turning off the lights in the circa-1957 structure is nearly impossible.

Now state officials are preparing to spend a few dollars to install a system that will darken the building at night.

“We’re spending $100,000 to turn off the lights,” explained state Rep. Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, the House budget-writing chairman.

The funds are part of a $1.1 billion proposed budget for repairs and renovations of state buildings, including $5.6 million for Kansas University.

Under Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ budget proposal, the state would install motion-sensing controls for the lighting in Docking, 915 SW Harrison St., so the lights would go off when the building was not in use.

“The existing practice is for a number of lamp fixtures to be operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that expend a lot more energy than necessary to light the building for the needs of the occupants,” the budget report said.

The lights never go out at Docking State Office Building in Topeka. Lawmakers are proposing to spend 00,000 to make it safe to turn out the lights at night when office workers have gone home.

State officials say when Docking was built, light switches weren’t installed in the offices because electricity was inexpensive. The thought was it would be cheaper to keep the lights on, and in the winter, the lighting would help heat the building.

There are switches to turn off the lights floor by floor. But building workers have found that the switches sometimes emit sparks when maneuvered, so no one is willing to mess with them, lawmakers said.

Caleb Asher, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Administration, said the new lighting system would save the state $250,000 annually after the first year.

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“This is an instance where you spend a little to save a lot,” he said.

But Neufeld and other lawmakers familiar with the condition of Docking and the nearby Landon State Office Building said both facilities needed millions of dollars in remodeling to bring them up to date.