"Like all governments, compared to 2009, our customers' budgets are flat or decreasing as much as 6%," explains Dave Mosher, manager of Larimer County's Print Shop in north central Colorado. "Customers are taking a very close look at their expenditures."
 To compensate, the four and a half-person in-plant has aggressively pursued new print avenues such as the production of color evidence photographs that can be used at trial by the district attorney. "They were paying a premium for a local commercial color lab to print these," Mosher explains. "After some testing and review by the deputy district attorneys, it was determined that the quality produced on our Canon color copier/printer was sufficient to use at trial." This switch is a win/win, potentially saving the DA's office a lot of money on photo processing and delivering more revenue to the in-plant.
In addition to "CSI"-type photos, the in-plant prints and mounts large format maps of crime scenes. In fact, maps of all kinds including those that display county roads, voter precincts, zoning and new development, as well as state house and senate districts have become a popular print product for the seventh largest county in Colorado.
Demand is also increasing for wide format color posters and training materials. During the H1N1 response, Mosher and his team produced color posters for immunization clinics and offices focusing on flu prevention strategies. "As a county government in-plant, we support everything from law enforcement to public health to human services to employment services." They continue to broaden their reach to include local courts, probation departments, municipal police departments, and several nonprofit agencies. "We do a lot of work for the Eighth Judicial District of Colorado and are seeing more requests from local municipalities and United Way agencies." They have even obtained permission to do personal print jobs for employees, who are charged 15% more than internal departments and required to pay sales tax.
All of the insourced work accounts for a little less than 30% of annual revenue. "We plan to open up a version of our web based ordering to the external world soon. This should make ordering easier for those external customers and provide more revenue from outside organizations."
All of these projects are in addition to the traditional jobs such as brochures, agendas, reports, business cards, envelopes and letterheads that the in-plant handles daily. Not having first right of refusal means they compete job for job with commercial shops in the area. "We are a complete chargeback enterprise fund and must recover all salary and benefits, operating supplies and equipment maintenance and replacement." But Mosher isn't complaining. He knows, compared to some shops, they are fortunate.
The 2500 sq. ft. print/mail shop, conveniently located on the 4th floor of the Courthouse office building, offers lots  of windows and a sensational view of the Colorado Rockies. The in-plant is equally fortunate that Larimer County has a long standing policy that provides for a scheduled replacement plan for equipment in all departments. "For us that means items like our press, copiers/printers, bindery and finishing equipment, mail room equipment and courier vehicle are on a regularly scheduled replacement plan. This helps us keep up with technology and increases efficiency."
Even in today's economy, Mosher has been able to uncover a few silver linings. "As an agency of Colorado government, we are eligible to purchase from the state contract and other group purchasing agreements. But given the state of the economy, we have found some vendors are willing to match or beat those prices."
Having recently purchased a punch with interchangeable dies, double loop wire binding has been added to their plastic comb binding service. "More and more customers are changing over to wire binding, believing that it provides a more professional look than GBC-type plastic comb." They have also been researching software such as PrintShop Mail in an effort to offer more variable data services. "We'd like to become more of a one stop shop that can print/address/fold/insert/mail the entire project for customers."
 Currently the Mail Center and courier function processes over 450,000 pieces annually, traveling over 21,000 miles per year using just one van to pickup/deliver to remote campus locations.
In partnership with an outside vendor the Mail Center provides a daily presort  program to customers, who rarely have enough mail to qualify for presort rates. "Under this program, we can meter 1, 2 and 3 ounce letter size mail at the 3 digit automation rate. The vendor picks it up, co-mingles it with other mailers and processes it. We don't have to do any sorting in-house. We pay a small fee per piece to the vendor, but still save 2.2 cents over the one ounce first-class rate. We save more on 2 and 3 ounce pieces. The effort is minimal, but over a year's time we save some mailing dollars." Equipment includes: Two networked Canon ImageRunner 7105s with saddle stitch finishers.
MicroPress/Print Station Manager print queue management Canon Color ImageRunner 4580
ABDick 9910 XECD offset press with T-Head and AMC 2000 envelope feeder
Presstek D-Stat digital platemaking system
HP5500ps postscript plotter
Challenge Titan 200 cutter
Challenge Handy Drill
Baum Ultrafold XLT folder
Rhin-O-Tuff HD 7000 binding punch and wire closer
Mighty Lam 25" roll laminator
ISP Booklet maker
Seacap SI 3250 folder inserter
Neopost IJ80 metered mail machine with Neopost MAS mail accounting software
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