Copier leases spark Town Board cost-savings clash
By Joe Darrow
October 02, 2008 | 11:59 AM
The collision of a desire to cut costs on one hand, with incomplete and conflicting facts on the other, has lead to a debate over office supplies on the Town Board.
Following up on her call last month for a new town department to oversee technological services and purchasing, Smithtown Councilwoman Pat Biancaniello sought to postpone a vote to lease $50,000 worth of new copy machines at Thursday's board meetings. But unable to attend herself, she asked her fellow board members to offer a motion to table the lease resolutions. None did.
The remaining council, absent Supervisor Pat Vecchio, voted unanimously to lease five combination copier/printer/scanners from Toshiba Business Solutions, one for each of five departments: town clerk, environment and waterways, tax receiver, school age child care and engineering. The machines are to replace a dated, town-owned copier and four approximately three-year old copiers currently under lease, which constantly malfunction, do not have scanner capabilities and are incompatible with recently installed software, town officials said.
In a memo sent to the other council members the day of the Sept. 25 evening meeting, Biancaniello suggested the town evaluate its departments' overall copier needs before agreeing to the leases. As far as she knows, the councilwoman said, no study of the individual paper needs of each department has been performed. Biancaniello argued that the town should avoid spending more for a faster copier where there's no need for speed.
"Not all departments need to print 35 copies per minute," she wrote. "There is a correlation between the cost of a machine and the speed at which it prints. We should not pay a cent more than necessary."
Lacking the technology department she advocates to oversee and coordinate such purchases, Biancaniello called for an independent, outside appraisal of the copying needs of the five departments. Town Purchasing Director Joe Kostecki said such an evaluation was possible, and could be accomplished prior to the next board meeting, Oct. 7, Biancaniello said.
Councilman Bob Creighton voted in favor of the leases Thursday, but said he had lacked sufficient information about the copier expenditures when he made a successful motion to table them at the Sept. 9 board meeting. As of that meeting, the town was only examining renting two copiers.
Creighton now supports the expenditures. "I've since been satisfied that this is about as reasonable a deal as we are going to get," he said. "I've been assured by Mr. Kostecki and others that the copiers that are being leased are needed."
In signing with Toshiba, the town is participating in a contract Suffolk County has with the firm, and taking advantage of a lower rate, Councilman Ed Wehrheim said. He said Kostecki informed him that joining the county contract offers a "substantial" cost savings for Smithtown, $1,404 per year on each leased machine.
"These departments that are in question have called me personally, asking me what's going on," Wehrheim said. Employees say the old printers are constantly breaking down, and are incompatible with time-saving computer software the town clerk's office recently installed, he said. "Rather than hold up these departments — primarily because there's such a great cost savings — I see no reason not to go forward with it."
But Biancaniello, who cited an email from Kostecki, says the annual $1,404 is saved only in instances where Smithtown replaces an Icon model printer with a new Toshiba model. In those departments where a Xerox copier is being replaced, the savings only amounts to $14 a month; moreover, in the case of the engineering department, the new printer lease will cost the town an additional $29 per month. Smithtown will also be taking on an additional expense by renting a copier to replace one it already owns, she added.
The confusion in facts over cost savings, with no clear sense of the copier demand by individual departments, highlights the need to slow down the decision-making process and make an in-depth needs assessment, Biancaniello said. And meanwhile the town could operate off its existing leases at no additional expense, she said. "I don't understand why we would have to rush into this."
Purchasing Director Kostecki had not returned calls for comment by press time.
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