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Each year federal agencies donate, or sell at a discount, older computers that the government no longer needs. But red tape and a lack of information about the program have made it difficult for low-income families in rural towns to benefit from the practice, witnesses told a House panel this week.

Estelle Sanders, mayor of Roper, North Carolina -- population 625, and located in one of the poorest counties in the state -- described the frustration of navigating the process in her testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement.

"The process assumes that the bidder, in our case, the town, has someone who would know about internal components of a computer doing their bidding, which is highly unlikely," Sanders said. "Small, low-wealth communities cannot afford technology-savvy staff. Unfortunately, the bidder must assume all risks. Needless to say, small low-wealth communities cannot take the time, nor afford the trip, nor take the risk that the computers will require extensive upgrades."

In North Carolina, local officials must travel to the state capital in Raleigh, a two-to-three hour ride from most communities in the eastern portion of the state. Potential buyers are not allowed to open computer cases and are limited to reading a brief description of their internal components, she said.

Sanders and others said the process would be much improved through the passage of the Federal Electronic Equipment Donation Act of 2007 (H.R. 752). Sponsored by Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a Democrat from Sanders' district in North Carolina, the bill would direct federal agencies to donate their surplus electronic equipment to qualifying small towns, rural counties, schools, non-profit organizations and libraries. Federal law now dictates that schools and non-profits are given priority over communities.

The bill, which has been referred to the subcommittee for review, would supersede Executive Order 12999 . The order, signed by President Clinton in 1996, contains many of the same provisions as Butterfield's bill, but the new legislation puts towns, counties on libraries on equal footing with schools.

"The current system," Butterfield said, "is hurting the very people it is designed to help."

The General Services Administration, which administers the sale and transfer of surplus property, is studying the bill, but has not reached an opinion on its merits, said Becky Rhodes, the agency's deputy associate administrator in charge of the program.

GSA currently donates federal technology to educational facilities through the Computers for Learning Program. But critics said the program is outdated and should encourage the creation of regional technology centers for students without access to technology at home or school.

"It is estimated that the federal government replaces approximately 500,000 computers each year," said John Rosenthall, president of the Small Towns Alliance, a non-profit group. "With such a turnover, there should be no school in America with computerless computer labs."

Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., the subcommittee's ranking member, suggested that GSA stop using its "closed box" system and allow potential bidders to fully inspect surplus computers. Legislators also encouraged the agency to better publicize the program in small towns that may not be aware of it.

COMMENTS

• Complaining about it when you get something for free. Isn't that the American way?!! Retired Fed Posted February 19, 2008 10:30 AM
• Solving this problem will require a careful choice of words. It is important to distinguish between surplused PCs and peripherals that are still in working order, and those that are beyond any useful purpose. We should not set up a system that would permit or encourage agencies to pass off outdated equipment to towns and cities who would find them inoperable and then be responsible for their disposal. Our facility just completed the recycling of several hundred surplused items of non-functional "technology". To a passer-by who did not have time to investigate, the neat rows of monitors and PCs that were trucked away might have looked like a treasure trove for a city or town. But they were far from it. They were useless for a number of reasons: they didn't work, or had insufficient hard disk capacity to handle modern software or connect to the internet, or had emitted smoke and fizzled out on an employees desk. Sometimes feds don't donate surplused old computers because they are really and truly useless. EnviroFed Posted February 19, 2008 9:51 AM
• I lost track of the number of times I witnessed the Forest Service enter into computer life-cycle replacement contracts with major PC manufacturers that SPECIFICALLY required replaced Forest Service PCs to be turned over to the PC manufacturer rather than donated to local cash-strapped school districts. So long as Federal agencies go out of their way to avoid such donations in favor of other considerations, our rural communities don't have a prayer of benefiting from existing or potential donation laws. Administrative Officer Posted February 19, 2008 1:03 AM