Colorado Springs Utilities went on a paper chase three years ago and ended up saving a bundle on printing costs.    The city-owned agency, analyzing use of printers and copiers at its locations throughout the city, found ways to:- Eliminate 340,000 pages of copy paper a year.- Save $221,540 annually in paper and printing costs, based on eight months of data.- Reduce the “carbon footprint” by 228,150 pounds of paper a year, or 2.1 million pages. That translates to 24.9 trees per year not used on copy paper.”Good job,” Mayor Lionel Rivera told Utilities staff after the Wednesday Utilities Board briefing about the project.Rivera said he would share the project at U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting this weekend to show that Colorado Springs is finding ways to “save the environment”.    Before the project started three years ago, Springs Utilities had 537 printers.    Now there are 231. About 300 were eliminated and another 100 replaced, said Dawn Roth, general manager of Utilities’ information technology department. One floor of an office building alone had 12 printers, which was scaled back to four.    She said the agency had agreements with a dozen vendors. Some printers were leased; others were owned by Utilities.    Now, Utilities has deals with only two contractors, Hewlett-Packard and Xerox, she said.    “They cost less, they’re faster, they can fax, scan, print and copy,” she said.    Cost savings per year include: $14,578 for paper; $81,294 for toner; $35,201 by reducing the number of printers; $65,000 in reduced lease costs; $15,467 in electricity; and $10,000 in maintenance costs, Roth said.    She estimated an additional annual savings of $399,867 in “soft costs,” which include IT support, worker productivity and time spent contracting, ordering supplies and paying bills. She said the paper project played a role in staff reductions in the IT department, which has eliminated 14 positions since 2006.    A good share of the paper and toner savings resulted from programming all printers to print on both sides of a page, Roth said.    Although pleased with the savings, council members say they want to cut costs even more.    Councilman Scott Hente noted printing and mailing costs associated with bills, which could be eliminated if customers paid online.    Roth said the second phase of Utilities’ new customer billing system includes online billing, which will be assessed in the next two years.    The city’s general fund agencies analyzed printing and copying costs five or six years ago and cut the number of machines to fewer than 75, contracting manager Steve Gess said.    “It seemed like everybody had a desktop printer, and almost all departments had a copier,” he said.    Gess didn’t know how much money was saved by the reductions but said it might be time to revisit the issue.    “There’s probably some efficiencies we can look at again,” he said. CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazette.com

Alexis Bates performed Saturday as part of the Millennium All-Stars at the Juneteenth celebration at Hillside Community Center. Photo by