County board approves five-year lease for 56 copier/printer machines; staff recommended Kiosera over a local bidder

Tazewell County supervisors on June 24 approved a five-year lease and service agreement covering 56 copier/printer machines after staff recommended Kiosera machines serviced by Watts.

Mindy, who led the procurement review, said the county received seven bids and narrowed the options to three unique manufacturers. She said staff reviewed monthly, annual and five-year costs, counted overage charges, checked vendor references, and hosted demonstrations. "I'm recommending Kiosera machines to be serviced by Watts," Mindy said, citing modern features, reliability and favorable service reviews.

She described features staff found useful, including an option to produce immediately searchable PDF files from scanned documents and improved automatic image corrections for skewed originals, features staff said would streamline public access to county records. "One of the things... would allow us to as we scan in documents it makes them immediately PDF searchable," she said.

Some board members urged consideration of a local vendor. One member said Watts has significant local presence but that NCI (a Tazewell County business) could be favored for local economic reasons even if its proposal cost slightly more. Representatives of both vendors were present in the chamber for questions: Jeff Brock for Watts and Doug Fair for NCI.

A motion to recommend approval of the copier lease (agenda item 2611) was made by Max and seconded by Eugene; the motion carried on a voice vote. The transcript records no roll-call tally for the item.

The board instructed staff to proceed with contract finalization and noted that the finance office and the county print shop would coordinate deployment and recycling or disposal of replaced equipment.