State to close warehouses for surplus equipment

The state is getting out of the business of warehousing surplus cars, desks and other equipment to sell.

The state already mostly had moved from the old system of three or four auctions a year to selling its excess stuff on Web sites like eBay and GovDeals.com.

Now it plans to close warehouses in Tucker, Americus and Swainsboro, a move that will eliminate the jobs of 23 workers, said Brad Douglas, commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services.

Closing the warehouses could save about $900,000 a year, Douglas said. The state also would save $125,000 by selling its truck fleet used to haul surplus goods to the warehouses, he said.

Technology helped make the change possible, but the state’s budget crisis sped up the transition away from warehousing surplus property. State tax collections have been falling, and agencies have been asked to cut their budgets 6 percent. Many department directors knew budget tightening was on the way months ago.

“When the budget cuts started to occur, naturally, state agencies and universities started to hold onto many of the assets they would normally surplus,” Douglas said.

So the state didn’t have as much stuff to sell as it had in the past.

The other part of the equation is the expense involved in warehousing and selling surplus goods.

Douglas said 72 percent of the revenue from surplus sales comes from motor vehicles, such as cars and trucks. The state collects an average of $1,000 to $2,500 per sale, he said.

Meanwhile, a surplus desk might fetch $7 on the Web site GovDeals.com. It costs $27 in labor to pick it up, store it and post it for sale, Douglas said.

So the state is going to start having scrap dealers pick up money-losing items for the state, and car auctions will likely handle the vehicles the state wants to sell.