Changing a School's Tech Disposal Policy?

An anonymous reader writes "I attend a state university where a new building has recently been put in, and a new budget put in place. They have decided to upgrade all the computer systems involved in the department, with a few slight exceptions. From my limited understanding, State policy is that we cannot just let things go, they have to be sent back to the state capital in order to take them off the books. Then they put them in the dumpster. I feel that this is a huge waste of useful machines (some are merely two years old), but I know not how to change this. Any suggestions, or does anyone know where Illinois dumps used tech?"

It's Called Google

This article http://www.txstate.edu/effective/UPPS/upps-05-01-02.html [txstate.edu] found in the first page when Googling "State of Texas Computer Disposal Procedure" will show that the AC truly does have a limited understanding of how things work.

FP?

Re:It's Called Google

This article http://www.txstate.edu/effective/UPPS/upps-05-01-02.html [txstate.edu] found in the first page when Googling "State of Texas Computer Disposal Procedure" will show that the AC truly does have a limited understanding of how things work. FP?

Maybe, but he has a phenomenal understanding of the difference between the state of Illinois and the state of Texas.

Re:It's Called Google

I don't know much about Texas or Illinois (limited understanding of geography?). But, in at least one branch of the Fed, they're sent back to a central office and taken off the books. Then, they sit in large metal containers and wait until they're approved for excess so that they can be put out for auction. Then, they're forgotten about and left to age until they can't be sold. Finally, they're sent out for recycling or landfill.

Re:It's Called Google

Wow... who designed this system, a Vogon? All that's missing is forms filled out in triplicate before being buried in a pile of bugblatter beast droppings!

Re:It's Called Google

See http://www.state.il.us/CMS/1_buying/statesurp.htm [state.il.us]

Most computer hardware is sold at surplus auctions four times a year in Illinois. I worked for Illinois government as a contractor for 9 years and saw countless pallets of PCs and Macs move through there. Lots of other cool stuff too, including a powered drafting table I picked up for $75. I locked the table flat and can raise and lower it depending if I want to work standing up or sitting down.

Re:

My employer (a fairly major Big East university) auctions off all old equipment. It's a way to get that final .01% return on their investments.

Great place to pick up old servers though.

Why tak ethem off the books?

They have decided to upgrade all the computer systems involved in the department

If they are only upgrading ONE department, why not find out what other departments withing the university might be able to use them?

Re:Why tak ethem off the books?

That's what we did when I worked as a student tech at Clemson University. Every year we made a bulk purchase of lab computers. Half the lab computers on campus got replaced. The next year the other half would be replaced (and it went back and forth such that lab machines were changed out every 2 years).

When a lab machine was retired from service, they were then distributed to the IT departments of the various colleges (though I'm sure most here understand this, I'll just explain: a University is usually broken down into smaller "colleges" even though they're all still the same school. I worked at the College of Business and Behavioral Science).

We then would clean up the machines, put a fresh image on them (since we got them in huge batches of identical configs they were easy to keep images for), and then send them out to the faculty that were running old machines. Naturally for faculty deemed special enough to deserve it they could also get a brand new computer bought during the purchase of the incoming lab machines as well.

When we finally got done with them, we'd send them to a surplus sale. The general public was free to come in and purchase them at whatever randomly low price the surplus department decided to ask for them (the prices are normally dirt cheap because we were essentially just ready to dispose of them, but since they're bought with tax dollars the public has to have a chance at aquiring surplus property).

I'm assuming that the disposal procedure is state law as I now work at another government organization in SC and the surplus procedure is pretty much the same. That can be a good place to pickup some parts though. 17" CRT monitors (which we're always getting rid of a few of since flat panels are all the rage now) generally get put up for $5. Pretty good spot to pick those up when someone needs one.

Re:Why tak ethem off the books?

At a non profit I used to work at we did something similar. Profitable devisions upgrade their pentiums, I'd take those to the "treading water" folks to replace their 486's, then I take those 486's to the dregs running 386's. Then one day the profitable decision decided they needed to get "credit" for their dregs. I wasn't around to see how that worked out, I jumped to a "Dot Com" around then...

Options

http://www.computersforclassrooms.org/ [computersf...srooms.org]

While the computers need to be taken off the books, that is accomplished by paperwork. There are computer re-furbishers and recyclers like the one listed above (a non-profit 501.c.3) that will take any and all computers as donations to be recycled or deployed to schools.

Usually the biggest pain is the stupid paperwork needed by the state to remove computers from inventory systems. They ought to just expire all computers from inventory after 5 years (or whatever), automatically.

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As one who attended a State of Illinois school, I did find out that once or twice a year they have a huge auction in Springfield where they will sell off old stuff including computers. I do also know that a lot of the stuff we sent down from Northern Illi

Re:Options

Usually the biggest pain is the stupid paperwork needed by the state to remove computers from inventory systems. They ought to just expire all computers from inventory after 5 years (or whatever), automatically.

Having worked at virginia tech's computer science department in the past for a few years, I can tell you that what you're saying is logical, but impossible in the current government system.

The inventory people basically accept goods in, give them to you, and expect to get them back. In our situation, after that happens, they auction them off (VT auctions are like every other month, in an old warehouse looking building). The paperwork is intense. But the long and short of it is that the department cannot do anything with the computers.

Problem two is that the inventory system at Tech doesn't account for depreciation. At all.

Case in point: We had a professor create what he called a "pedoplex", which was this huge gazebo (shoot arrows into it?) looking thing that was just banks and banks of hard drives. In 199X or whatever, it cost $1.5 MILLION DOLLARS pinky to lips. Now? We'd be hard pressed to sell it for scrap metal - and I'm not kidding. Well, anyway, the guy that was the contractor that built it for the professor after a while realized that the prof wasn't using it anymore, and was like "this thing is neat, I built it and I'm proud of my work". The professor basically gave it to the guy. He moved to Pennsylvania.

SO... every year, during inventory, someone would have to go UP to PA and walk into a storage locker and go "Pedoplex: One each, check!" and drive back. Not kidding at all. Then the guy moved to Austrailia. All of a sudden, in 2005, this freaking thing shows up in our inventory, marked as "missing", with a value of negative $1.5 million. Meaning even if we had been able to locate TWO (not to mention one) of everything on our inventory list, we were still waaaaaaay over quota for dollar amount of missing equipment.

What ensues? Did we call the guy and ask if we could get into his storage locker? Did we write the piece of equipment off? Did we mark its value to be, say, $5,000? No, none of those things. The administration called the guy a thief (he was given the device), said that we lost valuable state property and should be held accountable (wtf, i'm a sysadmin, not a gopher, and this was before I was employed), and started a bickering shouting match between inventory, provost, and the department.

Your tax dollars at work!

's ok, though, after the 2nd year in a row when the professor who makes $220,000/yr for 5 hours of work per week who's my boss told me "sorry there's no money for a raise, we'll just keep paying you the legal minimum we can pay you in your pay grade", I left all that crap behind and got a job working for Rackspace, which is waaaay more awesome.

~W

Are you sure they're thrown away?

You might want to verify that they put them in the dumpster. I work in state government and all agencies here send old equipment to state surplus, which lesser funded agencies can get things out of and the leftovers are sold to the public at auctions. If your state government is just tossing all its surplus then you should contact someone in your state legislature about changing such a wasteful practice.

Re:Are you sure they're thrown away?

Me again. Um, yeah, you should spend a little time on your state government's website before asking Slashdot.

Buying from Illinois - Purchasing State Surplus Property [illinois.gov]

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TIP: State and/or university surplus auctions are often GREAT ways to get used equipment. A friend of mine walked out with an unpopulated server rack + all mounting hardware from a University of Michigan surplus auction for like $40.

Re:Are you sure they're thrown away?

Damn, could use one of those in my lab ... at the University of Michigan.

Suggestions?

I feel that this is a huge waste of useful machines (some are merely two years old), but I know not how to change this, any suggestions?

Dark clothing + ski masks + pick-up truck @ 3am ...

From what little I know of Illinois politics,

after the equipment is taken off the books, it's sold to the brother-in-law of some administrator for $0.50/ton. He then cleans up the PCs and sells them to government schools (via a contract he has with the superintendent, who happens to be his nephew) for 150% of what their new value was.

Govdeals.com

Have you looked at GovDeals at all? I work for a state agency in Missouri, and all of our equipment ends up being sold to the public through that site. I also notice that Illinois has a good deal of equipment there also.

CMS auction warehouse on 10.5th St. in Springfield

Go to http://www.state.il.us/CMS/1_buying/statesurp.htm [state.il.us], which is the firs tlink on Google when searching for "Illinois state surplus auction" for more info.

Go to our state online auction site [state.il.us] to see if they end up there, too.

There's a reason Central Management Services exists -- it's to provide the central management of the services all state agencies need to kkeep duplication of effort to a minimum. One thing all state agencies need is to dispose of surplus equipment.

At my local university...

...which is a large Big 12 school, the biology, chemistry, and physics departments generally find it easier to just put the computers out in the hallways and wait for them to disappear. I've gotten all kinds of weird old hardware from them. There are also disgruntled IT staffers that have been here a while that will happily provide hardware to friendly fellow geeks instead of sending them to the dumpster. Those folks have gotten me AUI transceivers, a few SGI workstations, and a huge box of SGI software, including several releases of IRIX 6.5. Some of the other departments will pull a computer out of retirement to serve a specifc purpose. Since I work at a spinoff of the university, I asked nicely and got a P4/Celeron box to use as a server for a joint project, and a fully equipped, mint condition, never used Sun Blade 2000 for my desk...er...for another server. :)

I'm patiently waiting for the university to retire/throw out its 8-node Origin 2000.

Politics.

Normally a lot of the problem is about accounting.
If they are returned vs. given away vs. stolen. all accounts differently in the books for tax purposes. If your university is state owned it is probably an issue that it is easier to trash the computers then give them away because then you will get groups saying they need them more then other groups. No it is not fair or easy but thats the governemnt.

Sounds fishy...

I work at a college in illinois (chicago to be exact) and we don't throw out old systems. Every few years when they feel necessary or professors complain they will replace our department computers. The computer support people delist them from use and mark them as storage. Then they sell the systems for dirt cheap to students and faculty (who get them for free). I don't know of any policies in place regulating how many systems employees can take but I'm working on acquiring number two right now. I assure you, at least not at this college, they are not tossed in the garbage. Not only is this wasteful and stupid but it is also against the law IIRC. Computer components are very hazardous to the environment. You can't just throw that stuff out. It has to be recycled or disposed of properly, like any hazmat or chemical material.

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In fact, here is the state law that governs this process: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=555&ChapAct=30%C2%A0ILCS%C2%A0605/&ChapterID=7&ChapterName=FINANCE&ActName=State+Property+Control+Act [ilga.gov].

Re:

standardizing on a few machines and tossing them out when another technology renewal is due is *good*. It makes management easier and allows IT to keep things running smoothly.

Sure, it's an easy fix in the short run. But 100 years down the line when the average surface temperature is 105 degrees Fahrenheit and gasoline costs $70 a gallon, you'll be defending your water tower and solar panel arrays from the hordes, running low