WASHINGTON STATE WANT TO SHUT DOWN STATE PRINTING OFFICE

[Anonymous]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2014134581_edit07printer.html

WASHINGTON STATE WANT TO SHUT DOWN STATE PRINTING OFFICE
The
Seattle Times editorial board supports Senate Bill 5523, by Sen. Rodney
Tom, D-Medina, to close Washington’s state printer.THE Legislature
should have closed the state printer years ago. Sen. Rodney Tom,
D-Medina, proposed this last year and his colleagues did not have the
backbone to do it. This year they should back his proposal, Senate Bill
5523, to close the printer by July 1.The state’s Department of Printing
runs an offset print shop, bindery and envelope manufactory for other
state agencies and for some outside customers.

The latest audit
by the Office of Financial Management — a fellow state agency — gives it
fairly good scores, but criticizes it for having no measures of
productivity in its work for the state. The measures it does use, OFM
says, are mostly “from the agency’s perspective rather than things that
matter to customers.”Until last year, state agencies were required to
use the state printer, and still they are charged part of its overhead
whether they patronize it or not. The Senate has not been required to
use it and, Tom says, “We don’t use it. We use an outside printer.”

There
is no advantage to the public for state agencies to have a captive
print shop run by government employees. Without it, state agencies will
have to shop around like everyone else. If they do this well, they might
even save some money — and they will support companies that pay
taxes.There is another reason. In the state’s financial crisis, the
state printer is low-hanging fruit — and one of the few such ones left.
Politicians’ willingness to support Tom’s bill is a measure of how
serious they are in their talk of reforming government.If the
Legislature cannot do this now, it is useless.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2014134581_edit07printer.html

[Author]

February 9, 2011 at 9:51 AM