County makes photocopying deal to save more than $1k per month
By CAITLIN HEANEY
Evening Sun Reporter
Article Launched: 09/26/2008 11:16:05 PM EDT
A new agreement for supplying Adams County's government offices with copy machines will save the county more than $1,000 a month.
The county will pay Eicholtz Co., of New Oxford, $1,876.70 each month for three years to supply its government offices with copiers under a new contract the county commissioners approved Wednesday. The agreement is for 19 copiers in the courthouse and other county properties.
The county had agreements for copiers spread among several suppliers, and some deals had expired. Weikert said bringing 19 copiers under a contract with one supplier will save the county more than $1,000 a month.
The agreement provides county offices with new copiers, some of which also can scan and print and therefore will allow the county to do away with desktop scanners and fax machines, Weikert said.
The county considered cutting back on the number of copiers it has in certain areas, he said, but concerns about copier locations and distance from offices led it to scrap those plans.
"We don't want time loss with (workers) walking 100 yards to get copies made," Weikert said.
Adams County downgraded a few of its machines as well. Weikert said some copiers were capable of making 50,000 copies a month but were only making 6,000, so they were replaced with smaller, less expensive units.
"We had several that were much, much larger than were needed and were costing us a lot more per month than was needed," Weikert said.
The county has
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a few other copiers whose contracts will expire over the next two years, and Weikert said the county plans to bring those under a similar agreement with Eicholtz.
The county leases copiers rather than buying them because of changing technology and because it would have to create maintenance agreements for repairs or fix the equipment itself, the commissioners said. With a lease, the company supplying the copiers handles repairs, Weikert said.
"If you buy a copier and technology changes in a year or two, you've got a beast ... there that's as big as a car," he said. "And if we're leasing it, in three years we can turn those over to the newest technology and not have a loss of the value of the copiers if we purchased them."
And the new contract will keep business in Adams County.
"We tried to keep it with a county firm where the dollars can stay in the county," Weikert said. "That's always a No. 1 priority for me: Can we use county-based businesses to do our business?"
Contact Caitlin Heaney at cheaney@eveningsun.com.
Original Post