Dueling copier companies at the Falls County Commissioners Court expanded from two to three on July 22.
Shawn Hunt of Documation, who represents multiple copier and printer companies but specializes in Kyocera and Ricoh, visited commissioners in late June. That was after Celina Schultz of Xerox had talked to commissioners.
At the commissioners’ July 22 meeting, Brad Record of CTWP joined the parade.
The county is considering various ways to reduce its overhead for copier and printer costs.
Hunt went first, expanding on a briefer presentation from last month. His program is based on replacing the county’s current mix of leased and owned copiers and printers with an all-rental system.
He made one issue clear. Due to current contracts with various vendors, the county is overpaying on per-print costs. He said the county, to the degree it’s billed for any leased copiers or otherwise pays charges based on number of prints, but in a range rather than an exact number of copies, the county is overpaying. He said it’s paying for more than 98,000 copies per month when it’s actually making only about 23,000 copies, on black-and-white copies.
He said his audit of county use said that the county’s total cost of usage for copiers and printers was about $2,400 per month. He then explained details of how he got those numbers.
He said Documation wanted to install 25 machines, total. He said all machines would have two-side printing, and would be set up to use that as the default.
He then said total copier and printer costs would be approximately $2,165 per month, which would be about $100 a month less than now. One copier at the jail, only a few months old, would not be replaced. His plan would give the county more than 30,000 prints per month. In addition, Documation would waive the first three months of the three-year lease.
County Judge Steve Sharp said he wanted good assurance that Documation and its copiers would be able to network well with Net Data, which maintains programs for a lot of the county’s data files.
Brad Record of CTWP went next. He said he thought the county didn’t need to get rid of any of its printers, especially ones that had been bought instead of leased. Instead, his plan was based on replacing the county’s copiers, and managing use. He said usage would be billed on a per-copy cost of 6 cents, rather than being billed on a usage range. He said that, although his program was just based on replacing copiers, all copiers could also be used as printers.
He said he estimated he could save the county as much as $6,000 per year. His program would be a five-year lease, versus Documation’s three-year lease.
He said he thought there would be no major problems with Net Data, but, unlike Hunt, wasn’t willing to make guarantees.
Xerox’s Schultz then gave an overview of her previous presentation, which she said had not changed.
Schultz’s presentation is based on part on consolidating some equipment so various offices can use combination copier-printers. Like Record’s proposal, it’s based on replacing copiers and then getting them to be used as printers as well as copiers.
She anticipated Sharp’s Net Data question by noting that the county already had Xerox machines interacting with Net Data, therefore that was not a concern. Her per-copy costs were just a touch above those of CTWP.
She then said that, if the county still wanted to use some of its printers, she had a sidebar proposal for Xerox to take over maintenance and supplies, or an alternative to that, to replace any printers the county wanted.
Schultz’s proposal for Xerox, like Record’s for CTWP, is for five years.
With Xerox’s original presentation, Commissioner Ryan Ford had wondered if county employees could be made to use the copiers as printers, which is part of CTWP’s proposal, too.
Hunt said that due to physical constraints and other things, he doubted that this would happen. In some cases, he said he was sure extra work and money would be needed to make this happen.
Hunt and Record then sparred over how the county could get out of a longer lease, and for what cost.
Commissioners took no action on any of the three proposals.