As stated in Administrative Guide Memo 5.2.4-Surplus Property Sales, the Surplus Property Sales office (SPS) is the only entity authorized by the University Board of Trustees to sell university assets.  SPS is organized under the Property Management Office (PMO) under Research Financial Compliance & Services (RFCS).  It was reorganized as a self-sustaining Auxiliary in 2005. 

SPS serves the university and the surrounding community by promoting reutilization through weekly sales of excess university assets.  The operation seeks to support a sustainable environment and green campus while aiming to provide affordable options to both departments and the general public by selling the broad array of items which become excess to university departments and projects each year.  

SPS strives to return the maximum proceeds to departments for assets which are sold.  We are dedicated to continuous program improvements and growth which will support the university’s needs related to the value of its excess property.

When a department has a piece of working equipment that is of salable quality and no longer needed by any campus department, the SPS department should be notified.  SPS will make an attempt to locate a buyer for the equipment.  An excess request must be generated, including an appropriate account number (PTA-Project/Task/Award) which will be credited by SPS with the department’s share of the proceeds, if enough sales revenue is generated to warrant it.  If the item was acquired with funding from a sponsored award and the award is still active, the proceeds should be credited back to the award.  Otherwise, the account should be an unrestricted account.  For additional information see the Surplus Property Sales Fee Structure section later in this chapter.

Occasionally, departments ‘sell’ unneeded equipment to other departments.  This is not considered disposition, as the item is not leaving Stanford, but is simply transferring from one department to another.  In such cases, a journal should be generated to transfer the funds, using Expenditure Type (ET) 58510 for both the debit and the credit.  In all cases, the funds used in these transactions must be from unrestricted accounts.  A sponsored account may be credited (and must be if the acquisition was originally on a sponsored project that is still active) but only unrestricted accounts may be debited.  Contact SPS or PMO for additional information as needed.

For assets being physically disposed, the Department Property Administrator (DPA) must initiate an excess request in the Stanford Property Administration Resource Center (SPARC).

The SPS department collects the majority of excess equipment and materials at no charge to departments, usually within 10 business days of the request being generated. Large or heavy items or other circumstances may require additional labor assistance, in which case the department may be required to pay for these services. Contact your University Property Administrator (UPA) for guidance in such cases.

SPS will evaluate the condition and salability of the items and make a decision regarding the final disposition method (e.g. sale, recycle, or scrap).

Refer to the Section 4.2, Disposition and Transfers, and the Sunflower and SPARC User Guides for additional information and instructions on disposal requirements and generating excess requests.

Vehicles require additional processing, and must be delivered to the Fleet Garage for decommissioning and notification to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.  The Fleet Garage will determine whether the vehicle is considered roadworthy and eligible for reassignment to another department or sale.  If determined to be unroadworthy, the vehicle is to be scrapped.  If transferred, PMO will update the accountable department.  If sold, SPS will contact the last accountable department to obtain proceeds directions (if any).  If scrapped, PMO will retire the record.  When your department has deemed a vehicle to be excess, contact your UPA to have the record transferred to a holding code, pending the determination of the vehicle's final disposal method.

For additional information please see Administrative Guide Memo 8.4.1: Vehicle Acquisition, Ownership and Disposition and Administrative Guide Memo 8.4.2 : Vehicle Use.

Larger electronic items will be collected by the SPS once an appropriate excess request is received.  SPS will remove and wipe or destroy any hard drives that are in computers being picked up as excess.  They also destroy all hard drives being disposed of separately from a computer. They will then process them appropriately for either resale or recycling following EPA and California DTSC approved methods.  

This does not absolve departments from the responsibility of ensuring that "non-public" Stanford data is removed from the system.  Non-public files should be deleted before requesting the computer be collected for disposal.  This should also be done prior to transferring a computer from one user to another within Stanford.  Please see the Data Classification Guidelines  on the Information Security Office website site for details. The safeguarding of non-public data is a high priority for Stanford, and the responsibility for ensuring this remains with the user of an individual system, including the deletion of files deemed to be non-public in nature.  While Surplus Property Sales will take the necessary precautions to protect the collected computers and process hard drives according to requirements, it does not take responsibility for the failure of users to remove such data prior to collection.  For additional information, please see the Computer Equipment Transfer and Disposal Guidelines on the Stanford Secure Computing Website and Administrative Guide Memo 6.3.1: Information Security for more information.

When a department has furniture that is no longer needed, and it needs to be removed, the DPA must process a request to have it collected.  The furniture will be picked up and taken to storage or disposed depending on the condition of the items in question.  The SPARC system has an online request form to have the furniture removed to Surplus Sales.  DPAs have access to the system (access is centrally controlled by PMO.)

Large quantities of furniture may require labor assistance, in which case the department removing the furniture will be responsible for the associated costs of transport.

Furniture that is in Sellable Condition

For small quantities of small furniture items, Surplus Sales picks up the furniture, usually at no cost to the department. In these cases, it make take up to 4 weeks to have the items collected (depending on current volume and projects), so please plan ahead.

In the event that more immediate removal of furniture is required or if a department has a large quantity to be removed, please contact Alex Perez in the PMO to make special scheduling arrangements for the removal.  In such cases, the department is responsible for the associated costs.  An excess request must be generated in SPARC and approved by PMO.  Surplus Sales will coordinate the collection and transport, and journal the cost to the department.

The SPS fee structure, as of 9/1/2012 is shown below.

Note:  This fee structure relates to the sales of individual items.  There may be exceptions where a sale of 1 lot of equipment is generated by a department (such as a PI transfer involving the sale of many pieces of equipment to another institution).  In all such bulk sales, the proceeds percentage will be subject to negotiation, and based on level of effort required and other cost considerations.

Complete Surplus Property Sales sales terms and conditions are as follows.