Columbia finds fresh use for old PCs

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Year in and year out, the city government buys dozens of new computers and auctions off old ones for modest sums.

Now, the city's purchasing director has found a better use for the outdated machines: Clean out any sensitive data, install new programs and donate the computers to needy families.

Tony St. Romaine said he got the idea while attending a national purchasing conference in Nashville, Tenn. There, he met an official from Broward County, Fla., which had a giveaway program dealing in surplus county goods.

"I kind of took that information and said, 'Who really needs these computers?'" said St. Romaine, who buys the city an average of 150 computers a year. About the same number of computers are removed from city offices each year because they're outdated.

City employees typically would gut the computers, reducing them to piles of chips and frames, keyboards and monitors, and auction them off by the pallet for $50 through the University of Missouri-Columbia.

St. Romaine and his wife, Penny, have children in Columbia's public schools and knew that the city has hundreds of needy families who could put the computers to better use. Their own children sometimes have assignments in which a computer would be helpful, and St. Romaine thought it only made sense that poor children get a chance to own computers.

Bob Simms, director of the city's information services, bought into the idea, and he's directing the municipal information technologists to purge the drives of potentially sensitive information from surplus computers and refurbish them.

Simms expects the program will start small, with perhaps 35 computers being fitted for reuse in the coming year.

The computers' Microsoft operating systems will be restored, Simms said, and the city plans to outfit the units with a free shareware that offers word processing, spreadsheets, power-point programs and other Microsoft-compatible documents.

When the program is up and rolling, Simms foresees 130 computers making their way to the Voluntary Action Center for distribution to the disabled, poor and at-risk families on its roster.

"I guess what I'm hoping for is that other businesses or places will donate computers or modems at the end of the year as well," Simms said. "I hope businesses get good PR donating them, instead of spending all their time stripping them down."

Simms also hopes to secure donations of Internet connections to complement the donated computers.

"It's a much better deal for people who need computers," Simms said. "It's much better than $100 a pallet for the parts."