Your printer is wasting more than $300 million a year in taxpayer dollars. Well, yours and a bunch of other ones.
The General Services Administration thinks it can recoup that money — and more — by changing the way the government buys and uses printers, copiers and fax machines.
Scheduled to begin in fiscal 2011, this governmentwide “strategic sourcing” initiative is one of several that GSA and the Office of Management and Budget are coordinating.
The goal is to consolidate agencies’ buying power and adopt the best acquisition practices of government and industry, in order to squeeze industry for better deals.
OMB says the government is already saving about $857 million in fiscal 2010 through other strategic sourcing initiatives — both government-wide and agency-specific in scope — and that number could increase in future years.
“There is enormous opportunity out there,” said Dan Gordon, head of OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy. “I view this as an area ripe for future savings.”
Printers are just one area of opportunity:
• GSA in September awarded a contract for domestic shipping services to UPS. The deal is expected to save $1 billion over five years, with costs 6 percent lower than a previous shipping contract also negotiated using strategic sourcing.
• Agencies will save an estimated $192 million over four years through 12 office supplies contracts finalized earlier this month. Vendors agreed to deeper discounts on 400 products under a new version of a strategic sourcing deal signed in 2007.
• GSA is also trying to use strategic sourcing to change the way agencies buy cell phones, smart phones and other wireless services. Objectives for that contract include negotiating better rates, standardizing plan types and giving agencies better information on how to optimize their use of wireless devices. GSA is bringing federal acquisition and information-technology workers together to develop the wireless initiative.
Via: coburn.senate.gov