Feds goof again, try to buy back their own printers
December 16, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
If you required users to return office equipment, would you pay them for bringing back something the company already owns? One government agency thought that was necessary.
When the federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the group that designs our currency, among other things) needed to cut costs, it decided to consolidate some of its office printers. To ensure sensitive information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, about 530 senior employees have their own personal printer.
In a smart economy move, the agency decided it could do with a few, secure networked printer, with low running costs. The new printers could be set to hold jobs securely until the employee who sent the print job walk up and entered a PIN number. A good plan, but here’s where things get interesting:
Instead of asking (or telling) the employees to turn in the federally owned devices, the agency offered $75 gift cards to employees for handing the printers over — essentially buying back their own equipment.
Some government watchdogs did the math and figured out it would cost taxpayers around $40,000 for something that could easily be done for free. Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said the plan “defied common sense,” the Washington Post reports.
After the outcry, the BEP cancelled the program — not just the gift card portion, they cancelled the entire plan to swap the printers. No word on exactly why.
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Tags: BEP, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, office equipment, printers
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January 12th, 2010 at 11:27 am
[...] 8. Feds try to buy back their own printers [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
So they cancelled the whole money saving program because they couldn’t give $75 bucks to 530 executives on the excuse of money saving. Now there was just no incentive. Might have cost the taxpayers less to keep the program over time. Of course it would have cost even less if they did hte money saving AND didn’t have to bribe federal employees to do the right thing and give back equipment they didn’t own. It’s amazing how people justify fraud in the workplace.