Audit Determines In-house Printing is Cheaper

The Department of Administration has been contracting with Spherion Corp. for printing and mailing services. It conducted a cost-benefit analysis and calculated it would save $950,800 over five years by continuing this contract. But the Legislative Audit Bureau said the administration used outdated data (from May 2007) to reach that conclusion, the Journal Sentinel reported. Replacing Spherion workers with state employees would actually save up to $616,500 from mid-2009 to mid-2014, auditors wrote. Contracting would cost $10.2 million over five years, while using state workers would cost $9.6 million, auditors estimated.