New contract for copying services projected to save $100,000 to $156,000 a year over five years.
Erie School District Superintendent Brian Polito soon will have to adopt a new routine after he hits the “print” button on his computer. He will no longer be able to reach to his right and pluck documents from his desktop printer.
Polito will have to leave his chair and take a quick stroll out of his office and around the corner, where the large photocopier sits in the waiting area. Other employees at the 11,500-student school district will have to take similar routes to their buildings’ communal copying machines.
“We will have to walk a little to get copies,” Polito said with a smile.
The Erie School District is projecting the walks and related changes will save $100,000 to $156,000 in annual copying costs over the next five years.
The savings are expected as a result of the new contract for copying services that the Erie School Board approved on Wednesday night. The $2 million, five-year contract with the Ohio-based ComDoc Inc., a Xerox subsidiary, features a restructuring of the printing services at the Erie School District, which makes more than 25 million copies a year. The restructuring includes consolidating copying services at large machines and eliminating the use of desktop printers with their expensive ink cartridges.
Polito, a certified public accountant, had the district’s finance staff review the copying services shortly after he took over as superintendent on July 1. It was yet another example of Polito’s commitment to making the district more efficient as it recovers from its long financial crisis.
The review blamed much of the district’s high copying costs on its use of five vendors to lease and service what had been its 72 copiers. The new contract is for one vendor and is designed around the increased use of the most cost-effective copiers, particularly at the district’s print shop.
“A change of philosophy a little bit districtwide,” the district’s controller, Dave Niemira, told the School Board at a previous meeting.
The change will mean fewer desktop printers — even for the superintendent.
“I’m losing mine,” Polito said.
He’s ready to start taking the short walks.