How to better pay for shared computer supplies at a retirement village?
Why should users pay an additional fee for a service you said their dues already cover? If the dues cover the cost of the paper and ink, then charging people who use the printer more often isn’t fair or appropriate unless you abolish the dues and implement a per-use fee plan. People pay dues for unlimited use of the printer, and the service is available to everyone who needs it. Some people use it more than others, and I’m certain there are people who pay dues and never use the printer at all. If usage is increasing and the dues aren’t covering expenses, then either raise the dues (and explain why) or drop that part of the dues and institute a per-use fee plan. But you can’t charge dues and then ask people to pay for a service their dues already cover.
At my community college we all use our ID/library cards to put in money and use it to pay for printing, each page is 20 cents. When you want to print, it gets sent to a printer which has this program/application that shows which documents are in line to be printed. Click on your document, press ‘Print’ and then swipe your card on cardswipper thing next to the printer computer and it prints! Seems to work great.
