Agencies Will Choose Their Printing Contractors Federal agencies will be allowed to choose their own printers, but the Government Printing Office will still collect a middleman fee under an agreement announced by GPO and the Office of Management and Budget. The agreement settles a yearlong dispute between the printing office and OMB Director Mitch Daniels Jr., who wanted to end what he called GPO’s monopoly on government printing. The settlement was announced June 6, Daniels’ last day in office. GPO will set up a multiple award contract modeled after the GSA schedules to pre-qualify printing firms. Agencies will choose a printer from the list and negotiate contract terms. Participating printers will be required to give the government their “most favored customer” price. The system will be Web-based, permitting agencies to post requirements and printers to bid online. There will be no small business set-asides, but GPO spokesman Andrew Sherman said up to three-fourths of the government’s printing work is currently done by small firms. GPO contracts out about 80% of its printing orders. GPO will charge a 3% fee for managing the program, down from the current 7%. The office said the fee could be reduced depending on the cost of operations. GSA schedules charge a 1% fee on their purchases, to be cut to 0.75% next year. The program will be tested in a yearlong demonstration project in one agency in fiscal 2004 and is scheduled to roll out governmentwide in 2005. “Federal agencies will now be empowered to select printers that provide the best deal for the taxpayers’ dollar,” Daniels said in a statement. The new program was endorsed by Printing Industries of America, the largest trade group. Some industry officials had earlier expressed concern about the cost of marketing to each agency individually. The agreement requires agencies to “substantially limit” their in-house printing operations, which have grown as new technology replaced expensive and bulky printing presses. OMB will require audits of those operations. The GPO spokesman said that should steer significantly more work to contractors. Printers will be required to provide electronic and paper copies of all documents to GPO so the documents can be distributed to public libraries. Federal law requires agencies to go through GPO for their printing needs. But the Justice Department under both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush issued opinions saying Congress had no authority to dictate that policy to the executive branch, because GPO is a legislative-branch agency. Some members of Congress disagreed and had threatened to block any policy that bypassed GPO. The new agreement satisfies the law by continuing GPO’s administrative role. The dispute over how to handle the government’s printing needs has been around for decades; both the Reagan and Clinton administrations had tried unsuccessfully to limit GPO’s role.