TO: Honorable Members of the Board of Supervisors

FROM: Office of the Legislative Analyst

SUBJECT: Employee Suggestion No. 79: Eliminate Mail Delivery of the Department of Public Works (DPW) Quarterly Newsletter

The Department of Public Works (DPW) publishes and distributes to all DPW employees a quarterly health and wellness newsletter. The employee suggests that DPW discontinue mail delivery of the newsletter to save postage costs and thus reduce departmental overhead.

DPW publishes and distributes a health and wellness newsletter out of concern for the health of employees. DPW recently began mailing rather than distributing the newsletter in its offices in order to promote increased readership. The OLA recommends elimination of direct mailing for cost savings to the City.

For the past 17 years, DPW has published and distributed to its employees a quarterly health and wellness newsletter. The newsletter highlights the latest health information and provides diet, exercise and disease prevention tips. The purpose of the newsletter is to encourage DPW staff and their families to make healthy lifestyle choices. The newsletter contains about 8 pages of information, in black and white print, and is published in house rather than contracted out.

Last quarter marked the first time that the DPW newsletter was delivered to employees by mail. Prior to that, employees received the newsletter in the office, along with their paychecks. A DPW Deputy Director made the decision to mail the newsletters rather than distribute them on payday following a string of employee deaths due to heart disease and other preventable illnesses. The Deputy Director felt that more employees would read and possibly benefit from the newsletter if it was mailed directly to their homes. Roughly 1,400 employees received the newsletter at a cost of $0.37 per newsletter (about $518 per quarter and $2,072 per year). DPW used funds from the Director’s general fund budget to finance this mailing.

DPW has already taken steps to reduce the costs associated with mailing the health and wellness newsletter. First, the department will no longer send the newsletter to all employees. Only Operations staff, who work in the field and lack a central office location, will continue to receive the newsletter via mail. In addition, DPW will begin using bulk rate postage for further savings. The quarterly expenditure to mail the newsletter will thus be reduced to approximately $166.50 (900 employees x $0.185 bulk rate postage per newsletter) or $666 per year.

The OLA recommends that DPW finance its mailing with non-general funds or eliminate direct mailing altogether to achieve cost savings of $666 per year.