Best Practices at Other Campuses
Some campuses have programs dedicated to the exchange of surplus equipment such as UCLA and Syracuse University:
University of California Los Angeles maintains a web based program where equipment can be exchanged. Until a home is found for the equipment it is stored with the original owner. Check out the UCLA Dollar $aver or learn more about their Excess and Surplus Property (ESP) Program
Syracuse University has an Excess Property Program with a coordinator who works in the purchasing department and doubles as a purchasing agent.
The Excess Property Program is part of the Purchasing Department which has responsibility for the sale or disposition of University owned property. The program provides guides for handling excess property, and incentives in the form of credits to participating departments from sale proceeds.
The program's mission is to ensure the maximum utilization of University assets, especially capital equipment, within the University community. To this end, thorough investigations into the capital requirements of University departments are conducted. The program's objectives include encouraging participation by crediting sale proceeds to departmental accounts, controlling loss of assets through misappropriation or unauthorized sales, preserving the traceability of capital equipment, discouraging inappropriate use of space, and offering excess goods to students, faculty, staff, and the general public at reasonable prices.
Learn more about their program.
At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, their Property Administration Office as well as occasionally their department heads are able to directly sell the items and then provide a bill of sale. The funds sometimes return to the department and sometimes to the general fund.
Willamette and Pacific Lutheran University run surplus exchange programs through existing campus infrastructure with the proceeds returning to the general fund as oppose to individual departments.
Other campuses have policies overseen by an existing department such as purchasing:
Ithaca College has created a surplus equipment policy which is overseen by the Purchasing department. See their policy.
The LabRATS Program would like to thank the Green Schools Listserve hosted by Brown University and all of the people who responded to our query over the listserve for this information. If you are not currently on the Green Schools Listserve, I highly recommend that you join it!
