A message from Bob Tapella, Public Printer of the United States:

In what may be my last appearance before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, I was able to deliver some good news on GPO's budget. Sadly, as the saying goes, only bad news sells newspapers (or drives television ratings), and my good news did not make national headlines. But for those of you in the GPO community, I thought this news would be of interest.

GPO finished FY 2009 with an independent audit (KPMG LLP) that rated an "unqualified" clean opinion with net income of $1.2 million on total revenues of $934.1 million. Our net income was down from FY 2008, a difficult year for most organizations, but GPO is on track to recover to previous levels. Our new product introductions should drive income growth and our continued digital conversion of content into FDsys should continue to reward taxpayers with expenses held in check.

I'm also pleased to note we booked positive net revenue, and funded major sustainability initiatives, that will pay dividends for future generations.

Speaking for all GPO employees, we can be proud of our stewardship of taxpayers dollars. Although GPO's budget is a small fraction of the total Federal budget, we showed net income in our $1 billion – and that is still real money, even by Washington standards.