November 22, 2007
Lincoln County Eyeing eBay Account

By Dave Maxwell

County Commissioners at their November 5 meeting gave approval to County Manager John Lovelady to investigate creating an eBay account for the purpose of acquiring items and selling excess equipment.

One prime reason for having such an account is that it is proving to be a better source for acquiring equipment at a better price and also to “sell some of their own equipment at a higher price and recoup costs on it, as opposed to surplusing it or donating it,” said County Planning Director Clint Wertz. He also said they had one “situation with a piece of equipment where we would have gotten double the amount selling it on eBay as opposed to getting a trade-in on it.” He said everything from vehicles to office furniture can be sold on eBay. “It works pretty well,” he said.

A government account can be established with eBay, however, there are limitations of up to $5,000 that can be sold Wertz thought.

“It would be good,” he said, “especially with some of the technology items. We have a GPS unit that is 3 to 4 years old and it’s still a functional unit, but the software to support it is not readily available anymore.”

“We found, on that item in particular, that if we traded it on a new item we would get $1700, but on eBay the same units are selling for $3,000 to $4,000.”

It’s a net benefit to the County when an item needs to be surplused, for example with computers, since technology is changing so fast. It retains a higher value to sell the items now on eBay. “It’s another option to get more money for an item than we would get otherwise,” he said.

At present there are controls on the Courthouse computers that do not allow personnel to access private sites. Such issues would have to be worked out so access would be available. Having a dedicated computer in the County Manager’s office might be one solution, but others may also be found.

“Up until a few months ago the County didn’t have a policy of disposing of items,” Wertz said. “Everything that the County owns as an asset is part of an inventory. And things from the last 20 years have accumulated in the basement of the Courthouse, and some no longer have functional life. We would like to sell some things rather than have to throw them out,” he said.

Commissioners said they would like to have the eBay policy coordinated with the disposal policy so that “we know items that are gotten rid of meet certain criteria.”

Wertz said there are many buyers online who would be very interested in buying a number of items the County could put up for sale. Clint said he has had experience in other places he has worked, where they even sold vehicles on eBay. But, as mentioned earlier, government accounts do have a limitation as to the value of items that are sold.