Printing office cuts price, wins bid to handle 2004 budget

The Office of Management and Budget has picked the Government Printing Office to print the fiscal 2004 budget after threatening to contract out the job if the printing office couldn't underbid private contractors.

An OMB spokesman said the printing office, a legislative branch agency that handles much of the government's printing work, cut its price for printing the budget by 23 percent, from $505,370 this year to $387,000 next year. In a Dec. 24 memorandum, OMB told GPO that the printing office could print the budget in 2003.

Had GPO lost the competition, next year would be the first time the printing office didn't print the annual budget documents.

OMB put the budget job up for bid in October, bucking a congressional order to give the work to the printing office. Congress included a specific directive about the fiscal 2004 budget in several spending bills this fall.

But Bush administration officials argue that Congress cannot force executive branch agencies to use the printing office. In fact, the administration is preparing a change to federal procurement rules that would end a century-old requirement that agencies go through GPO for most printing work. The change would require agencies to seek private bidders to compete with the printing office.

In putting the budget out to bid, the administration was, in part, trying to demonstrate that competition cuts costs and improves service. OMB Director Mitch Daniels has said that competition could save the executive branch $50 million to $70 million per year in printing costs.

The printing office has fought OMB's effort, arguing that centralization is the most efficient way to handle the government's printing. They say the OMB approach would require agencies to set up their own printing procurement offices to do the same thing GPO already does, costing the government hundreds of millions of dollars a year. GPO contracts with private printers for much of the work it handles for agencies.

Agencies may also run into trouble with the General Accounting Office, a legislative branch agency that oversees the use of federal funds. In a Dec. 16 decision, GAO General Counsel Anthony Gamboa said a Bureau of Land Management office cannot pay a $20,000 bill for copying legal files at Kinko's because it should have gone through GPO for the copying job. The printing office could have handled the job for only $6,000.

"Since there was no authority to contract with Kinko's for the photocopying services, the contract imposed no legal obligation on the government," Gamboa said. "The United States is [not] bound … by the acts of its employees in entering into, approving or purporting to authorize the contract even though the government may have received the benefit of the photocopying."

The printing office will print the fiscal 2004 budget in January. The Bush administration will issue the budget in February.