Politics And Printing

And even then, he adds, technology changes so fast that new purchases are quickly obsolete. The new computer system Bailey is working into his 2002 budget may not be very cutting-edge by the time he gets it, despite his research.

"It used to be simple," laments Gerald W. Wilson, division director of the Alabama Department of Finance Division of Printing and Publications. "You could buy a press and know it would last 25 years." Not any more, he says.