Los Angeles County Has Been Buying $40 Pens, Wasting $162,000 a Year. Los Angeles County officials recently eliminated thousands of pricy items from the county's official government office supplies catalog – but only after years of allowing county workers to buy $40 pens and $131 floor mats.
Chief Executive Officer Bill Fujioka said he "wasn't aware" that county workers have had the choice of buying fancy pens instead of 24-cent ballpoints. He said that under the new purchasing options, the county's annual pen bill will drop from $195,000 to $33,000.
The county spends $6 million a year on office supplies, and a county official estimates that purchasing lower-cost items will trim 25 percent to 30 percent off the bill. That estimate came from Joe Sandoval, a purchasing manager who recently went line-by-line through the 18,000-item office supply catalog and trimmed it in half.
Cal-Tax Vice President of Communications and Research David Kline was quoted by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, saying: "It just boggles the mind that anyone would consider a $40 pen a wise use of taxpayers' money. It's sad that it took a major recession for them to even scrutinize this list and eliminate the wasteful spending." (Source: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, February 16.)
Cal-TaxReports, February 22, 2010
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