Meetinghouse Technology Policy on Printers

A issue with a ward in the stake has has come up that I was hoping someone could help clarify. in the latest Meetinghouse Technology Policy it states;
"4.1.3 Local Unit Provided Equipment: Local unit budgets cannot be used to purchase computers".
The question has come up that it does not mention printers. Does anyone know if the policy includes printers (and other peripherals...monitors etc).
I understand that the FM group does provide printers, however if a ward because of problems with or lack of functionality wants to provide an additional printer, are they prohibited from using budget funds to do so?
Trying to keep in compliance, and would like to understand policy and intent.
Thanks.

A WARD should NEVER EVER EVER EVER use budget funds for something like this. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you have that much more money, give the Activity Day leaders a couple bucks to spend.

The real solution is to get the Library copier on the network, then the local ward can use the local printer for most things, and the inconvenient things can be sent to the material's center printer.

I realize the path of least resistance is to just use the budget funds unwisely, but it is better all round to do the right thing.

In fact, I did exactly that yesterday. I plugged the MFP in the meetinghouse library into the adjacent Ethernet port, then set it to use a static IP address. Now it is available to any computer in the building that knows its IP address (or hostname) and happens to have the correct drivers installed.

By the way, the default administrator password for the Xerox Phaser 3635MFP is "1111". I had to use that to change the IP address, Gateway, DNS, etc. within the printer's control panel.

Our ward needed a new printer in the clerk's office, and for reasons I won't go into here, the ward leadership desired a laser printer that also had scan/copy capability. Since the FM group did not offer such a printer to a ward, we were left on our own. With the permission of the stake president, we found such a unit on Amazon for a reasonable price and bought it. That was about 5 years ago and it has been a real blessing to the ward.

While it's preferred to stick with the standard equipment issued from the FM group, the decision to use budget funds for a different peripheral than what the FM group offers can be made by the ward and/or stake leadership.

I wonder if the Amazon price was lower than the Staples price. Probably.

drepouille wrote:In fact, I did exactly that yesterday. I plugged the MFP in the meetinghouse library into the adjacent Ethernet port, then set it to use a static IP address. Now it is available to any computer in the building that knows its IP address (or hostname) and happens to have the correct drivers installed.

By the way, the default administrator password for the Xerox Phaser 3635MFP is "1111". I had to use that to change the IP address, Gateway, DNS, etc. within the printer's control panel.

Do you know if a member is able to search for the Xeron Phaser 3635MPF as a network printer and see it?

I'm not sure if a search for printers would discover it, but it might. I usually manually enter either the IP address or the hostname of the printer when I configure a computer to use it.

My Branch President would also like to print on the clerk's printer. The printer used to be on the network, so he could print to it. The church changed addresses on the network recently, and the printer is at a fixed address that cannot be changed. The FM group says network printers are not authorized. No, the Branch President does not want to print confidential church reports on the Media Center printer. Is their a solution?

Our network printers are all hardwired and are on the isolated hardwired network. Our wifi users are isolated from our hardwired static ip devices by our design. If you configured the printer for access by your wifi group, theoretically, not likely, one could see what was being printed and this would not be well received. Can you use bluetooth pairing with your specific printer? That may be an option or else another private wifi network hub at the printet if you really want to find another means.

kd7ufs wrote:The FM group says network printers are not authorized. No, the Branch President does not want to print confidential church reports on the Media Center printer. Is their a solution?

I think it is obvious that network printers are authorized. Lexmark printers in FHCs are networked and given a static IP address. Apparently, your Media Center printer is also networked, since your statement implies it is available on your network.
In my stake clerk's office, the Xerox Phaser 3250 is connected to the computer, and shared. (I configured all admin computers to use the "Work" network type, rather than Public.) I also connected a Xerox copier in the stake clerk's office to the network, and assigned it a static IP address. So I can print to either printer/copier from my laptop.

In our small branch one 400 Euro Dell toner cartridge will completely use our budget. We can buy a very nice printer and 10,000 page cartridge for less than half that. Since the FM group will not supply anything but expensive Dell printers we are basically left with NO printer. You folks have to do better than this if you really want compliance with the guidelines. Either let us buy the printers or have the FM group BUY the toner cartridges for their printers.

ewingclark wrote:In our small branch one 400 Euro Dell toner cartridge will completely use our budget. We can buy a very nice printer and 10,000 page cartridge for less than half that. Since the FM group will not supply anything but expensive Dell printers we are basically left with NO printer. You folks have to do better than this if you really want compliance with the guidelines. Either let us buy the printers or have the FM group BUY the toner cartridges for their printers.

This doesn't make sense to me. If your branch needs a toner, and church rules say you must buy a Dell toner, and that toner will take the entire YEAR budget for the branch, then the High Councilan over Facilities, the Branch President need to have a conversation with the Stake/District/Mission President about the stake/district/mission picking up that cost. It may be that others don't know of the issue.

drepouille wrote:I think it is obvious that network printers are authorized..

https://www.lds.org/help/support/printe ... w?lang=eng says YES

Do the church supply toner? We are tied in to the church-sipllied printer and cheap cartidges run out so quickly. It would be useful if we could get them supplied centrally.

"Paper, toner, and other consumables are to be purchased with Ward or Stake budget." Quote from the Printer Overview section of the Help Centre.
https://www.lds.org/help/support/printe ... w?lang=eng

whitebandana wrote:and cheap cartidges run out so quickly.

I know in the case of HP, there are two different capacity cartridges. The low capacity will be cheaper to buy, but will cost more on a per-page basis.

I don't know, but can speculate that the reason the local unit has to pay for the toner is because it's up to the local unit on how much they copy.