TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Report: Feds Could Save $1M a Day by Printing Less

Corinne Bernstein | Date: 06-04-09 | Comments

A survey of federal employees finds the federal government spends approximately $440.4 million each year on unnecessary printing. The report recommends converting documentation processes from paper trails to digital trails and holding employees accountable for their printing.

The federal government spends approximately $440.4 million each year�or more than $1 million a day�on unnecessary printing, according to a new report. That�s more than four times the amount President Obama recently requested that agency chiefs trim from their administrative budgets. It�s also a potential savings of about a third of the federal government�s nearly $1.3 billion in annual printing costs.

Yet the study, which is based on an online survey of 380 federal employees conducted in March by Lexmark International and O�Keeffe & Co., shows that 89 percent of the respondents said their agencies do not have formal printing policies.

Moreover, 54 percent of the study participants admitted to being unaware of the cost considerations when printing. The average federal employee prints 7,200 pages a year (or 30 pages per workday) and immediately discards about 35 percent of them the same day they are printed.

The yearly expense of superfluous printing is almost as much as the cost of printing U.S. currency, explains Brian Henderson, federal information solutions director at Lexmark.

Although 80 percent of the respondents believe they make conscious efforts to monitor their printing habits, 90 percent said they do not need all of the documents they print in a day.

The study also found that federal employees share similar printing habits, regardless of which agency they work for or how old they are. Federal Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y employees print and discard paper at nearly the same rate.

�I would have expected the younger generation to print less because supposedly they are more tech-savvy and environmentally conscious,� Henderson says.

The survey found that federal agencies overlook opportunities to save on printing costs. Study participants said only 20 percent of agencies have restrictions on color printing, 11 percent have policies on when to or not to print, 9 percent have automatic duplex printing and 5 percent require personal codes to print.

Additionally, 69 percent of federal employees believe their agencies �rely strongly on paper trails.� However, the same percentage of respondents said their agencies� documentation processes could realistically be converted from paper trails to digital trails, and 64 percent said they could print less.

�If we were to convert to a digital documentation system, printing could be reduced by 70 percent,� one study participant said.

Respondents commented that they could print less if they could do more editing electronically and could depend on electronic files more, if the government implemented non-replicable digital signatures, and if there were a reliable online filing system with easier access and retrieval.

In addition to converting to digital trails, the report recommends that federal agencies communicate guidelines and enforce standardized federal printing policies, deploy automatic duplex capabilities on all printers, and hold employees accountable by using identification cards or assigning personal identification codes.

�Making these changes would not be difficult,� says Henderson, adding that the private sector has similar opportunities to cut printing costs. He estimates that the private sector could cut printing costs 25 percent to 40 percent.