Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato this week announced a contract with Imperial-based Amcom Office Solutions to replace the County’s 406 copier/printer/fax machines with modern, Energy Star-rated multifunctional devices.

The new equipment will save the County more than $400,000 annually or nearly $2.3 million over the five-year term of the contract. The contract is part of Allegheny Green, the County Executive’s comprehensive initiative to promote sustainable practices within County government.

"Since 2004, my administration has worked hard to change the way County government does business and to operate efficiently and sustainably in order to save taxpayers money," said Onorato. "Our new contract with Amcom Office Solutions, an Allegheny County-based business, achieves all of these important goals."

The new contract is a cost-per-copy agreement, which means the County pays a predetermined price for each copy. The cost is based on volume with costs decreasing as volume increases. Based on the County’s current volume of 3.2 million copies per month, the new contract will cost $2.6 million over the five-year term – a 47-percent reduction over the previous agreement.

To save paper and additional costs, the new devices are set to print double-sided by default.

Excess capacity was built into the agreement that will allow the County to transition print production from small, inefficient desktop printers to the more efficient and economical devices.

The County will realize additional savings as it eliminates the small personal printers and consolidates printing on the multifunctional devices. The new equipment will also provide functionality that is currently not available in many County offices, such as document scanning.

"Thanks to the County’s coordination of purchasing for other government agencies, we were able to aggregate volumes and combine purchasing power to save even more money," added

Onorato. "This is another great example of government cooperation and service consolidation saving taxpayers money."

Taking advantage of the County’s contract, the City of Pittsburgh will replace 105 multifunctional devices and will see its cost per copy reduced by 25 percent as a result of leveraging the County’s volume. This will translate into a savings of more than $38,000 annually for the City.

The Allegheny County Airport Authority is replacing 18 devices under the County’s contract. The Port Authority and Allegheny County Housing Authority are also considering participating in the program.

Since Onorato took office in 2004, consolidations and mergers have resulted in $21.7 million in savings.

This figure includes: $10 million in savings from merging five 9-1-1 centers into a unified County system; $7.3 million in savings from joint purchasing, including telecommunications, electricity and commodity goods; $2.8 million in savings from collapsing the City of Pittsburgh’s fingerprinting operation into the County’s; and $1.6 million in savings from consolidating six row offices into the County administration.

In March, the County and City announced an extension and expansion of their joint purchasing agreement. The County will continue to jointly purchase commodities, such as office supplies, uniforms and computers, and it will begin the joint purchase of non-professional services, such as plumbing repairs, electrical maintenance, and waste disposal.

The County’s new multifunctional devices are currently being delivered and installed, and all existing equipment will be replaced by early September.