Cash-short printing office gets new life

Thursday, April 17, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- Business at the state Printing Office in Carson City has been declining, and some lawmakers suggested at the beginning of the Legislature that the office should be abolished.

But a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee Wednesday approved a $6.9 million budget for the office for the coming two years. The printing office's current biennial budget is $8.7 million.

Subcommittee members told state Printer Don Bailey that he should start soliciting new business.

Bailey's staff dropped from 38 employees to 28 in the last two years as state agencies, short of money, have not been ordering publications or other printing jobs.

Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, the chairwoman of the subcommittee, told Bailey she wants periodic reports on what government agencies are being approached to do business with the printing office.

Bailey told her he was the "only sales force." He said his top deputy is off work due to illness and he is short of staff. Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-North Las Vegas, said she would encourage the University and Community College System of Nevada to look at contracting with the printing office as long as the cost was competitive.