By Jeff Colburn
Flagstaff Resident

The State of Arizona wastes hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars each year. According to the state procurement laws it is required to, but all this can be easily changed. Not only could this waste be prevented, but additional money could be saved with just two simple steps.

For two and a half years, I worked as a computer specialist for a state agency. I was responsible for requesting computer hardware and software, then installing and maintaining this equipment. During this time, I noticed a tremendous amount of money being wasted in my department alone. If the two main causes of this waste are corrected statewide, then the state could easily save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

From my observations, the first problem is the current state procurement laws, and the other is a complete lack of a money saving incentive program.

The state procurement laws are set up to prevent kickbacks, graft and favoritism. While this is a good goal, in so doing tremendous amounts of money are being wasted. These laws require the state to buy products only from state authorized vendors, even when these same products are available at a lower cost from vendors that are not authorized vendors.

It also costs $80 to process each purchase order. You may wonder why it costs this much, so let me walk you through the steps I had to undertake to order something.

1.      I would receive a request for a desktop computer.

2.      I would fill out an order form.

3.      I would give the order form to the director's secretary.

4.      The secretary would give the form to the director.

5.      The director would review the form and approve or deny the request.

6.      The form would then go back to the secretary.

7.      The secretary would give the form to me.

8.      If approved, I would give a copy of the form to the in-house representative from the state purchasing department.

9.      He would research equipment and vendors and put together a bid, get prices and prepare the proper paperwork for the purchasing department.

10.  The paperwork would then be sent to the purchasing department.

11.  People in the purchasing department would then duplicate everything that the in-house representative had done.

12.  They would then approve all non-computer related items.

13.  They would send requests for computer items to the Information Technology (IT) department.

14.  The IT department would then research and approve computer equipment.

15.  This paperwork was sent back to the purchasing department.

16.  The purchasing department would give final approval to the entire request and place an order. However, the purchasing department may return everything to me or the in-house representative if something was not done properly before they received it, even though they would redo everything. This would start most of the entire process over again. This paperwork may be returned in a few days, or a couple of months, delaying the ordering of requested items.

            Here are some examples of how dealing with state vendors wastes money.

*         We purchased a computer desk for $130 from a state vendor, when a similar desk was available at Staples for $90.

*         Another time we purchased a four-drawer filing cabinet for $150 from a state vendor, when Office Max had them for $100.

*         Kurzweil, a software package for the visually impaired costs $1,000 from the manufacturer, however the manufacturer is not an authorized state vendor and there is only one state vendor that carries the product. From this vendor we have to pay $1,300 per unit. I would order 10 to 20 units a year, which is a waste of $3,000 to $6,000 a year.

Some employees buy their own desks, filing cabinets and other office supplies because their conscience will not let them waste taxpayer money this way. After all, they are taxpayers too. 

When an employee would call me to place a computer order, it would often take three to six months before the equipment would be delivered. I have waited over a year for some computer equipment to arrive. All this while an employee is waiting for equipment to properly perform their job.

Following are some examples of what the state currently pays for various items, and what I can get these or similar items for at various stores or from the Internet.

Using the above prices, if I had been allowed to buy computer systems from local stores, I could have saved over $11,700 in 2000, and over $13,500 in 2001. That's an average savings of over $12,600 a year for just one department at one state agency.

When a company becomes a state-approved vendor, they don't make all of their equipment available on state contract. Companies with high end equipment, like computers, printers, scanners, copiers, etc. often only put one or two models on state contract, and these are usually their highest priced models. For example, the purchasing department told me that the $800 Dell desktop computers that were being sold all over town were not available on state contract. Instead, we had only a few models to choose from, and they started at $1,200.

The other problem is that there is no incentive to encourage employees to save money. When I worked for the City of Buena Park in California, they had a program in place where an employee would receive a percentage of any money saved. I was able to change a computer procedure, which saved the city 576 data entry hours (about $8,000 in salary) a year, and I received a check for $629 and an award from the City Council. This was the largest award ever given by the city, but many other employees found ways to save both money and time, and were also rewarded. These awards were published in the city's newsletter, which in turn motivated other employees to find ways to save taxpayer money. A similar program has existed in many private sector companies that I have worked for with similar results.

            When I would place computer orders, the cost of the computer was the last thing on the minds of the people in the IT Department, who had the final say on what make and model of computer were purchased.

The IT department puts standardization of computers above cost or function of computer equipment. At one point, when laptop computers were going for about $1,500, they wanted to buy several for $2,200 and one for $3,200. A conference call connected the people of the IT department and myself, my director and her secretary. For over an hour, we complained about the prices IT wanted to pay before they begrudgingly said they would look at other models. I reminded them that I had just purchased an Acer laptop on state contract for about $1,200. But they didn't like Acer computers. So they went with Dell for $1,700. They wanted to buy the best computer, which they determined was Dell. The people in the IT department told me that they decide which computer is the best not by quality of product, customer satisfaction or low incidents of repair, but by which computer company sells the most computers each year. The company that sells the most computers is usually the company with the best advertising department.

The first year I worked for the state they felt Compaq was the best, the next two years they switched to Dell, and constantly said that Compaq was a very bad computer.

            An incentive program would have averted this situation completely.

At a time when budgets are being cut, and jobs are at risk, the above mentioned cost cutting steps would be very helpful not only for saving taxpayer money, but to improve job security, moral and productivity.

Jeff Colburn is a freelance writer who lives in Flagstaff.