Wood County Commission hires new company for mail processing

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PARKERSBURG — The Wood County Commission has chosen a new company to do its mail processing work after SW Resources discontinued the service at the beginning of the new year.
The commission voted this week to hire Chapman Printing, a division of Champion Output Solutions in Charleston, to pick up and process the county’s mail at a charge of $150 a month to pick up the mail daily during the week and 11 cents for each piece of mail to process it.
The county reviewed offers from Chapman and Sir Speedy. Officials said Sir Speedy would cost $10 a day to pick up mail and 15 cents for each piece of mail to be processed. Officials said most months, the monthly cost would be over $200 a month to pick up the mail.
They determined it would be cheaper to go with Chapman. The commission voted unanimously to do that. The agreement will last a year.
“We need this,” Commissioner Jimmy Colombo said.
County Administrator Marty Seufer has estimated the county has several thousand pieces of mail to send out a month and that covered the “day-to-day” things the county regularly deals with. Bulk items, like tax tickets, are handled differently.
There is a lot of mail processed through the Sheriff’s Tax Office and the Assessor’s Office. Wood County Clerk Joe Gonzales said during elections they had a lot of mail going out.
Officials estimated the county has been spending around $8,000 a month processing mail and for postage when they were working with SW Resources.
Goodwill Industries of Kanawha Valley Inc. merged with SW Resources in early 2024. At the end of December, the commission received a letter from David Mitchell, Director of Business Services for Goodwill Industries of Kanawha Valley Inc., stating that as of Dec. 31, 2024, they would no longer be able to process mail. The letter said the decision was the “result of unforeseen circumstances.”
The alternative would be for the county to get a postage machine, but there were concerns about the cost of maintaining such a machine and the amount of time an employee would have to spend getting the mail prepared to go out every day.
“We are not really geared up to do that,” Seufer said.
Some county offices outside downtown don’t have a lot of mail and officials said they could put stamps on those items and send them out themselves.
Seufer said Chapman is already doing a lot of work in Parkersburg, picking up mail with other businesses and organizations in the area so the county can be part of that process.