Va. Beach proposal calls for cuts at print shop

VIRGINIA BEACH

The proposed city budget includes a paper cut: reductions to Virginia Beach's longtime print shop.

Since 1970, the shop has provided countless copies of City Council agendas, city letterhead and business cards, and other documents. Now, supervisors say Virginia Beach can save money by downsizing the shop and outsourcing work in the fiscal year that starts in July, although some employees doubt that theory.

At a budget work session on Tuesday, Councilwoman Rosemary Wilson suggested a task force be formed to figure out what to do. A budget vote is set for May 10.

"I don't know what the answer is on the print shop," she said.

Some think technology has caught up with the operation.

"The electronic digitization of files has certainly impacted their requests for work," said Kevin Fairley, the city's information services administrator, who oversees the print shop. "Things we used to print, people can print themselves on a city or school website."

Currently, there are 12 on the print shop staff - with one additional vacancy. The proposed budget recommends eliminating six positions and closing the offset-printing side of the operation.

That's responsible for specific jobs like business cards, forms for summer school registrations and envelopes used in return mailings for city departments.

Under the proposed cuts, those print jobs would be outsourced. Bindery services and "reprographic" work would still be handled by the remaining print staff.

The five downsized print shop employees would be placed in other city jobs.

Richard Pulley, a nearly 29-year employee of the City/School Printing Services division, said over the years there were many late nights spent trying to make tight printing deadlines. In 1997, the city and Virginia Beach public schools began a joint services agreement for printing services.

Pulley recently wrote to the City Council about the impact of the proposed cuts, recounting years of praise: "In many instances both City and Schools have experienced the loyalty of staff dedicated to a job done right, and a job done within time constraints."

The cost-cutting move is expected to save the city $309,000, Fairley said.

The shop charges the city or schools for jobs through an invoice system. And the revenue that brings has increasingly declined, he said. Fairley said that since 2007, fewer print jobs have come into the shop.

Fairley also said the school division has had discussions about printing services and may proceed independently in the future.

Scott Sowder isn't sold on outsourcing. "I think it costs more in the long run to send everything out," said Sowder, a 24-year print shop employee.

For the past two years, the organization has pulled from its reserve fund to make up for its deficit, Fairley said. But after this year, the reserve fund - which is also used to replace print shop equipment - will be nearly eliminated.

"So we were faced with figuring out what service to reduce," Fairley said. "The city and schools have to be efficient with less funds, and that's what we're going to try to do."

Pilot writer Aaron Applegate contributed to this report.

Rita Frankenberry, (757) 222-5102, rita.frankenberry@pilotonline.com