In-plant Exposed by NY Times

The in-plant for the New York State Senate has been getting a lot of scrutiny lately after being "outed" by the New York Times. The paper reported that, after Democrats took control of the State Senate, following 40+ years of Republican rule, they uncovered a number of perks and services that had reportedly only been available to Republicans.
Among them was the Senate's 75-employee in-plant.

That the public is so worked up at the "discovery" of an in-house print shop should be somewhat amusing to those of us who work in this invisible industry. Which of you has never heard the statement "I didn't know (fill in your organization's name) had a print shop"?

Still, what seems to have people in New York so irate is that, according to the Times, "constituent newsletters sent to Republican districts were printed in multiple colors, while those printed for Democratic districts were printed in black and white, with one color." Ouch! But then consider that most legislative bodies confer some special privileges on the majority party.

We'll leave the political bickering to the bloggers (and many have picked up the scent) and just focus on this: Those 75 employees. That is one large in-plant. It would rank number 16 on IPG's list of the largest in-plants by employees. Other than the GPO, the only government in-plants that exceed it in size are the three Pacific Coast state in-plants.

The story notes that the lease for the plant costs the state $632,460 per year, and that the payroll is about $2.7 million ($36,000 a person). The story says the shop has "three jumbo Xerox machines that can each crank out 180 copies per minute" but doesn't mention offset equipment.

Unfortunately IPG's crack editorial team could not find a phone number for that in-plant before our deadline.