CHAMBERSBURG, PA -- Private sector printers would welcome opportunities to do more government printing, according to William Gindlesperger, founder and president of e-LYNXX Corporation and its Government Print Management division. In some cases, he said work that private sector printers could do and would welcome is never put up for public bid, because it is being done in-house by government printers.

"Of course, the government needs a 'print' capability. Any organization of any size needs to be able to make copies to be administratively efficient," Gindlesperger said. "However, efficiency is lost when an agency goes beyond 'convenience copying' and attempts to become overly self-reliant. This may be happening with the federal government. Let me emphasize the words "may be", because I am basing my comments on year-end production statistics from the U.S. Government Print Office (GPO) coupled with trade press that I have read about how the GPO is modernizing and expanding its operations."

More than $400 million in print work comes through the GPO each year and is awarded to private sector vendors -- printers with proven credentials and pre-qualified capabilities.

Gindlesperger said the idea of the GPO being a one-stop print shop for the federal government works only if print jobs are channeled to private sector printers. What concerns him and others in the print industry is the flow of work outside the GPO seems to be slowing.

Look at the statistics, he pointed out. In 1992, the total dollar value of work awarded by the GPO to private sector printers was just over half a billion dollars. Last year, that total was $440 million and the five years prior it was in the $380 million to $390 million range. That is roughly a 27% drop in income to private sector printers comparing 1992 to the six year average from 2003 through 2008. Factor in inflation and the drop is even more significant.

Gindlesperger said it gets worse when individual orders are examined. In 1992, GPO awarded -- in round numbers -- 63,000 print jobs to the private sector. That work flow has been cut in half with jobs for the 2003 to 2008 period being only an average of 30,000 per year. Orders on larger and longer term program work, called print orders, dropped from 200,000 in 1992 to a six year average since 2003 of 81,000. In 2008, only 78,000 GPO print orders were awarded.

"Given these numbers, we can conclude that more work is being done by in-house government shops within the departments and agencies and/or within the GPO itself, and less is going to the private sector," Gindlesperger added. "This is indeed troubling at a time when private sector printers of all sizes are scrambling to get work. It also is troubling when you consider that private sector printers are giving the government preferential prices."

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