Business News
Pitney Bowes Corrects Errors in WISH-TV News Coverage
Monday 11. May 2009 - Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI) issued the following statement today in response to a news report broadcast on May 7 by WISH-TV in Indianapolis and its reporter Karen Hensel:
“Pitney Bowes is not guaranteed to receive $37 million a year under its contract with the State of Indiana. The language of the contract specifies that the State can spend “up to” $37 million a year on the contract in total. In fact, the State has spent far less than this amount, and Pitney Bowes has received only a fraction of this lower spend.
How much has the State actually spent under the contract? In the 22 months since the contract was signed, the State of Indiana has spent a total of $29.5 million, broken down as follows:
Postage: $14.5 million – This is money that goes to the United States Postal Service, not Pitney Bowes. By contracting with Pitney Bowes, Indiana taxpayers have saved money on postage in two ways. 1) The State is now taking advantage of postage discounts that it formerly was not enjoying, and 2) Pitney Bowes pays the cost of the postage up front, and the State reimburses Pitney Bowes about a month later with no interest charges. The “float” that the State enjoys for this period of time is typically around $600,000.
Vended Print: $5.5 million – Pitney Bowes contracts with outside vendors, including minority-owned and women-owned local companies, to handle various printing jobs for the State. These vendors bill Pitney Bowes and in turn, Pitney Bowes bills the State for these services at no mark-up.
Document Services (Printing, Mailing, Imaging) handled by Pitney Bowes: $9.5 million – These services are provided to the State at a lower cost and with more advanced technologies than before due to efficiencies from consolidating the printing operations of several agencies.
WISH-TVs irresponsible claim that the State is spending $100,000 a day on this contract is false. In addition to this factual error, the report misrepresented the State and Pitney Bowes in three instances.
1) Pitney Bowes already does some document services work for the State Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and we are hoping that BMV will increase its use of Pitney Bowes services in the future. This will increase savings enjoyed by the State.
2) The company and the State denied WISH-TV access to the States print and mail work site per longstanding and appropriate restrictions in place to ensure privacy, security and confidentiality. We are quite sure that no State taxpayer wants a television camera focused on a bill he or she is receiving from the State Department of Revenue, for example.
3) The money spent to build out the central document processing work site was more than offset by savings the State enjoyed from space consolidations from five other existing print and mail operations at different State facilities. Some of these facilities have been repurposed by the State agencies, reducing the States overall real estate footprint. The State should be applauded for taking the initiative to consolidate operations, which not only reduces their costs, but also their environmental impact.
Pitney Bowes is a proud Indiana employer, with more than 1,000 employees living and working in the Hoosier State, an increase of 40% since 2006.
We are extremely proud of our work with the State of Indiana, as well as other state and federal government agencies. In Indiana, we worked closely with the State to see that all State employees affected by this outsourcing contract were either placed in other State jobs or provided the opportunity to succeed as a Pitney Bowes employee.
We have been placed on the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list by Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO) magazine nine times, and last month the company was named to the “Worlds Most Ethical Companies” list by the Ethisphere Institute for the third consecutive year because our values of accountability and integrity are ingrained in our culture and in the way we do business.”