Surplus Property

A. Transfer and Redistribution of Surplus Property

B. Disposal of Surplus Property

• Instructional equipment/materials
  • Offered to public school
  • Offered to school district
  • Offered to assistance organization designated by school district
• Information technology equipment
  • Offered to public school
  • Offered to school district
  • Offered to assistance organization designated by school district
  • Offered to an open enrollment charter school
  • Offered to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ)
  • Offered to Z-Tech (recycling items reduces disposal costs): Overflow computer accessories (such as keyboards, mice, monitors, shredded hard drives) and office phones (excludes cell phones)
• Surplus equipment/property not disposed using any method listed above (estimated salvage under $50,000): Offered via online surplus auction
• Surplus equipment/property not disposed using any method listed above (estimated salvage between $50,000 and $99,999): Offered via competitive bid
• Surplus equipment/property not disposed using any method listed above (estimated salvage value of $100,000 and above): UT System Board of Regents pre-approval required

State law requires higher education institutions that transfer surplus instructional materials or equipment to give preference to a public school or school district before disposing of the property in any other manner. Anything that can be used for instructional purposes is included in this legislation (computers, chairs, tables, bookcases, desks, file cabinets, laboratory equipment, musical instruments, etc.).

If more than one public school or school district seeks to acquire the same property on substantially the same terms, UTSA will give preference to a public school considered low-performing by the commissioner of education or to a school district with a taxable wealth per student that entitles the district to an allotment of state funds under the Texas Education Code. Current accountability ratings are available at the Texas Education Agency website.

Any computers/peripherals not sent to schools as outlined above must be transferred to the TDCJ. UTSA may not collect a fee for any surplus/salvage data processing equipment disposed of in this manner.

Sale of Equipment

Equipment may only be sold to non-UTSA organizations or individuals by auction (internet or public) conducted by Surplus Property. UTSA retains all sales proceeds to support operations.

For items that may have a substantial value, any sharing of net sales proceeds by the transferring department must be requested and approved in advance. Approval may be granted on a case-by-case basis as determined by the senior vice president for Business Affairs (SVPBA) or designee. To be eligible for consideration of auction proceeds sharing, the equipment must have originally been purchased with auxiliary or fee revenue and the anticipated funds from the sale of each single piece of equipment submitted must exceed $10,000. To obtain approval, the department should send a memorandum to the UTSA property manager with a brief explanation of the reason for the sale, a description of the item, inventory number, the manner in which it was acquired, acquisition cost (if purchased), year acquired, condition and expected sales price. If the item was acquired under a grant, the memorandum must assure the property manager that there is no further obligation to the sponsor. In all such circumstances, a 10% minimum charge will be retained to cover administrative costs.

C. Information Security Requirements

The sale, transfer or disposal of devices or items that contain sensitive information or data creates a potential information security risk for UTSA. These risks relate to unauthorized release of confidential, sensitive or personal information; unauthorized disclosure of trade secrets, copyrights and other intellectual property; and/or potential violation of software license agreements. To mitigate risk, the procedures listed below must be followed.

1. Electronic Devices

Surplus Property is the only office that may dispose of electronic devices. Devices that may contain information or data include (but are not limited to) mass storage media and all computer-related devices capable of receiving email, browsing websites or capable of receiving, storing, managing or transmitting data.

Information or data contained on the devices above and listed below can be costly to remove. Even after deletion, erasure or reformatting, user data left on disk drives removed from computers and other storage systems create a potential security risk or vulnerability that may not be apparent to the user.

The most effective way to eliminate the risk of having data compromised is to physically shred the hard drive and memory (if removable) or the device if the hard drive and memory are internal/cannot be removed. Surplus Property has equipment specifically designed to shred most electronic devices.

The following surplus electronic devices must be physically destroyed by Surplus Property to ensure data security:

• Mainframe hard drives;
• Server hard drives;
• Computer hard drives;
• Mobile/cellular phones;
• Device hard drives (printers, fax machines, copiers, etc.);
• RAM device memory (found in computers, flash drives, fax machines, copiers, printers, PDAs, mobile/cellular phone SIMs, etc.);
• Personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, smartphones (Blackberry®, iPhone®) with internal memory; and
• Digital storage media (software CDs, CD-Rs, DVDs, DVD-Rs, floppy disks, optical disks, flash/travel drives).

Surplus Property maintains a log of the electronic devices that have been shredded, should this information be required at a later date.

2. File Cabinets, Desks or Other Storage Property

File cabinets, desks and other items used for storage must not contain any documents, electronic media or any other form of confidential, official or sensitive information. The Surplus Property Turn-In Form has a section to certify that all items have been removed. Departments must complete this removal prior to transferring storage items to Surplus Property.

D. Sale of University Sourced Merchandise

Under limited circumstances, the university's athletic director may authorize the sale of surplus university sourced merchandise to an approved third party for resale, provided the resale is open to the general public.

University sourced merchandise includes (i) athletic memorabilia and (ii) university athletic game-used goods, excluding

• Items that include the name, image or likeness of one or more student-athletes;
• Items advertised as belonging to a particular student-athlete;
• Student-athlete autographed items; and
• All other items restricted or prohibited by applicable laws, athletic organization rules or university rules.

University sourced merchandise represents a distinct class of property; this is the only type of property authorized for transfer/sale outside the scope of this guideline.