I recently wanted a copy of the 2008-2009 Budget and was told it would be .50 per page through our Town Office. This past weekend I went to Fed/Ex Kinko’s in Portsmouth to have some color copies made for a project. Care to know what Kinko’s rates were?
Black and white copies .09 cents and full color copies were .49 cents (color copies were on coated stock). Kinko’s even did the copies for me, placed them in a bag and inserted heavy card stock to prevent the copies from folding. It was all great service with a smile.
I ask you, how is it a store can operate solely to print and make copies be profitable at these rates and our Town Office requires more than 4 times the cost per page ( a full .41cents more ) ?
Why is the Town copy rate rate so high? We are told You are welcome to go to the Town Office and request information but when it costs you a dollar for every two pages, that’s ludicrous..and a major deterrent.
I don’t understand why we have to charge residents at all for document or report copies. If non residents want personal items copied make it no more than .10 a page. At .10 a page the town rate still would be 10% more than Kinko’s. I know it seems petty, but Town Document Copies are way too expensive in my opinion. Go ahead and wack the non-residents an exorbitant fee but not the residents and not for town reports.
To make things even clearer, I could purchase this Epson multifunction printer, scanner, fax unit and 500 sheets of paper for less than the cost 75 pages from the town office.
What do you think about copy costs?
3 responses so far ↓
1 David Olean // Nov 4, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I can understand the frustration with such copying costs, but I can also see the legitimate reasons that copy costs would be made as high as they are. You must look at how expensive it is to maintain a town employee in that office for each hour. Then you must factor in how much of the employee’s time will be taken up to make a few copies. If I am working on another project, and someone calls and asks me a question, it takes me about 5 minutes or more to get back to what I was doing when I was interupted! I think the real number is closer to 15 minutes depending on the task at hand. If you figure the time taken from the employee’s normal work to assist with copying documents, I would say that 50 cents per copy is cheap. You can argue that the town should “eat” the costs, but you can also argue that those who require copies should bear the burden and not spread it among all the taxpayers who do not use the service. It is a way to keep our taxes low.
The cost of a printer is very low. The companies make their money in expendables. The get the real cost for printing, you must factor in the time spent maintaining the printer, instructing users, purchasing supplies, and dealing with malfunctions. I just gave away a color printer because it was too expensive to operate for the small numbers of copies I was making.
This is an interesting subject. Maybe there is a better way to produce copies without using town employees. I guess it all comes down to how adept we all are at modern technology.
2 Glen Stadig // Nov 7, 2008 at 9:03 am
I see your point Dave and it’s well taken, The Town Employee rate is another matter though.
If you are deemed to have taken more time than is required for printing a simple report the Town Hall does charge a fee of $10.00 per hour and your copies are extra. Copies or printed reports are an additional .50 cents a page.
My point is really freedom of information and ease of access by resdients.
I could take my laptop and my scanner to the town hall as has been suggested and scan away, it just seems unnecessary and a bit much for a resident to have to do.
The concept of accessing budgets, minutes, tax bills and such via the website is an excellent one. It is one we have paid and are paying for, but have yet to seen realized.
Another alternative to information would be to print a report to PDF (portable document format) and email it to a resident. This would save trees and copies, but doesn’t apply to may things where a copy with a signature is required.
So I agree technology could serve us better, but I disagree the copy rate is fair and equitable.
3 Don Hollenbeck // Jan 21, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I know how ink is so important, but so expensive!
See how much it costs you, in your own home to print in just black ink!
Per page, .50 cents is more than it costs!
How about separating this unique task from the towns’ budget and using it as sort of a vending machine, where the proceeds go to a good cause, or, better yet; see how it does on it’s own circuit, (electric usage), and charge what it really costs to make a copy!?!?
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