Politics & Government

How Steve Jobs Helped Frankfort Save Money

This summer, the village bought iPads to help cut costs on paper. Instead of printing up documents for the board, everyone can check them out on the electronic tablet.

took a step toward the future at its Monday, June 7, meeting when Mayor Jim Holland used an iPad instead of the traditional board packet to conduct the meeting.

Holland was part of a test project that is expected to lead to the Village switching all trustees and staff to using iPads in the future.

“We did purchase the iPad for me to test at this meeting and it seemed to work just fine,” Holland said. “We bought it because we believe that we can save money by using the iPad.”

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The Village of Frankfort is continually looking for ways to save on costs Holland said and that iPad use could save the village money. Using the iPad, he said, village meetings could go paperless in the near future and the money saved on printing would easily cover the costs of iPad or iPads purchases.

“The paper, the printing, the copy machine itself, could possibly lead to a cost of 10 cents a copy. We average about 50 pages at this type of meeting, so that's maybe $5 a meeting,” Holland said. “I certainly have at least six of those meetings a month, so that would be on the order of $30 a month and you can see you could pay for an iPad in less than a year at those types of rates.”

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Holland added that because the Village is using free programs, including “Drop Box” and “PDF Notes,” there would be no additional costs associated with the technology.

Holland said that he was impressed by the abilities of the iPad but added that although he would like to, he will not use the iPad for personal use.

“I don't consider that appropriate for me to use for personal purposes," he said. "Frankly I would like to, I'd like to order a book on it and put my email on it, but I do not plan to do that because I do not consider it appropriate.”

Because the iPad uses only the flick of a finger to turn pages, add notes and select apps, he said that there was not a steep learning curve for the technology.

“I have found that paging through on an iPad, is very similar to paging through a document where the pages are printed,” Holland said. “It goes quickly, it goes very similarly to going through a tablet of paper on your desk. … It's very easy to use.”

Holland said that Trustee Dick Trevarthan also began using an iPad for village business and that he believes the village has already ordered more for trustee and staff use.


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