He has the cost of equipment and some of those scanners are not cheap.  If he can find a way to improve his profit line so be it.  If he is not using county equipment or costing the county any employee time or money then he should not pay.  I see them - don't resent them - just envy them lol!  The equipment is on my never ending list - how about yours?  Like everyone is saying it is not only to save costs of copies but to save time, etc to return the finished product to the client which is very important when you are running rual counties because you just can't go to every county every day so the time gap is always bigger than metro counties to begin with.  And like I said somewhere down the line - the county already gave away their copy revenue.