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Issue
Should PIA support legislation to reform federal printing and print procurement?
Status
No legislation was considered in the 106th Congress (1998-99) to change
the GPO in any significant way. While no legislation was proposed in the
107th, actions by the Office of Management and Budget to change federal
print procurement policy raised the issue in a regulatory context.
Concerns
Each year, approximately 2,500 printers are awarded federal contracts
for printing and printing-related services. These contracts are often
less than $2,500. Competition for these contracts is significant, resulting
in very tight margins for companies that accept the contracts. The Government
Printing Office has been the agency responsible for the federal printing
procurement program. Centralization of printing procurement through GPO
has meant that printing companies throughout the U.S. have had an opportunity
to compete for federal contracts in a system that is generally regarded
as fair and open. Unfortunately, many of GPO’s “customers”
(federal executive agencies and the Congress) are not happy with the system,
which they see as slow and inflexible. In recent years, federal agencies
have begun to look more closely at procuring printing outside the GPO
or printing in-house as an option. The net result is that while there
is no evidence that federal printing overall is declining, the volume
of contracting through GPO has steadily declined. The congressional Joint
Committee on Printing, which has served as a “board of directors”
for the GPO has been changed significantly by Congress and is now merely
part of the Senate Rules Committee and the Committee on House Administration.
As a result there is very little day-to-day oversight of the GPO other
than through the appropriations process.
Position
PIA strongly supports open access to federal printing opportunities for
the private sector. However, the current system of centralized procurement
through the GPO may not be the appropriate model for the future. New legislation
should require open access to assure that printers have an opportunity
to bid on federal printing. It should also assure that unnecessary federal
printing facilities are subject to business planning to determine if these
facilities are cost effective. Additionally, modern federal procurement
techniques should be applied to printing to assure that new technologies
in printing and information management can be fully utilized by the federal
government.
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