With Gov. Ted Strickland calling the Statehouse home these days, the panel that oversees the capitol wants to upgrade security.

The Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board has requested $200,000 to start the project, which will eventually involve replacing 96 surveillance cameras in and around the Statehouse. An additional $800,000 will be needed in the future to fully replace a system now more than a decade old.

The first security phase is part of a $2.7 million overall package the board wants included in the upcoming state capital-improvements bill.

"We need to protect the governor, who is now making his office at the Statehouse; the legislature; and the citizens who visit the Statehouse daily," the board said in its request last week.

Strickland's recent predecessors all used offices in the Riffe Tower, 77 S. High St., leaving the Statehouse for only ceremonial purposes. But since taking office a year ago, Strickland and most of his top staff members have used the Statehouse as a base of operations.

In a request prepared for the Office of Budget and Management, the Capitol Square board said it needs to buy high-resolution bullet cameras with infrared illuminators and digital monitors for the State Highway Patrol post beneath the Statehouse.

Unrelated to security, the board requested $540,367 to help with the creation of the new $2.7 million Statehouse Museum which is planned for the basement or "crypt" of the building. It is to open in 2009. Much of the money will be from private donors.

Other items on the board's wish list for capital improvements include a $200,000 emergency-lighting generator for the Statehouse underground parking garage as well as ramp repairs, sound-system upgrades for legislature hearing rooms, and furniture and upholstery repairs.

The Strickland administration will work with legislative leaders to come up with a capital-improvements bill. The last such measure was passed in late 2006.

A $121 million, top-to-bottom renovation of the Statehouse, now 147 years old, was completed in 1996.

Information from Gongwer News Service was used in this story.

ajohnson@dispatch.com