Health & Fitness
Unnecessary Waste Considered a Triumph?
How can the Department of Public Welfare's "cost saving measures" be considered a "triumph?"
Earlier this week, Patch reported that:
Governor’s Innovation Office reported that it helped secure $84 million in savings in 2012 through various operational efficiencies.
One such triumph: Changing default settings on Department of Public Welfare printers, saving a cool $1.1 million in paper and toner costs. Settings were changed on 2,300 printers to print double-sided pages, and 200 to print in black and white.”
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While I am pleased that we were able to cut back on paper and toner in any way, I am completely horrified that these “operational efficiencies” were not put in place years ago.
I’ll be honest and admit that sometimes these settings are not the easiest to install properly. I won’t pretend that I have never had issues with getting a printer to work the way that I would like it to work, or that I haven’t had to reprint any publications because I had the wrong settings. I've had my share of tough times adjusting the margains.
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But printers have been a rather mainstream office tool since, well, they were introduced into the office setting. I would be hard-pressed to locate a workplace, or even a private home, that did not have at least one of these tools onsite. The sheer availability and useage of printers in the standard workplace makes it difficult for me to grasp that the Department of Public Welfare has only just realized that there are several ways to cut printer costs through simple, elementary-level settings changes. It frankly disgusts me. This isn't a difficult task. This isn't adjusting the wi/fi settings or altering the resolution quality of the printed project.
I don’t know how long the DPW has been printing and I don’t know the total printing budget since that time. I would assume, however, that they have at least had ink-jet printers since at least the mid to late 80s. My questions are: how much money could have been saved within the DPW overall had these simple measures been implemented in the first place? And how many other governmental agencies are currently throwing away money by neglecting to make use of basic cost effective strategies?
