Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 26, 1991 TAG: 9103260306
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Marquis J. Bolton, state property management administrator, said he was unaware that Barber was a sheriff when he met him four years ago at the state surplus property center in Richmond.
"He was out there in overall and jeans cutting metal," Bolton said.
Barber has never been one to waste a piece of material or a trip. When he has meetings in Richmond, he often travels by truck so he can bring back some surplus items for use in Montgomery County.
He was chosen from 1,200 users of the surplus property program as making the best use of it in the past year.
When he came to the state's other surplus property distribution center in Wytheville to accept his award for outstanding use of the state program, he and Road Crew Supervisor Fred Shores again drove a large truck, to carry back some conduit.
"We'll buy enough to do us for a year or two at a dollar a joint as opposed to $3 or $4 or $5," Barber said.
The truck had a trailer hitch that Barber and his staff made from surplus property. "We got 15 cents a pound in it," he said. It would cost $212 new.
Barber uses state surplus property to equip prisoner road crews with hand tools for litter control, light construction and other projects.
When the Montgomery County jail was remodeled in 1988, surplus property was used to furnish it and equip it with typewriters and other office machines.
The contractor wanted $15,000 to install jail beds, Barber said. "We bought 30 from the surplus property and modified them," he said, at a cost of $1,700.
Using steel and other materials bought from the surplus property warehouses, the sheriff's office staff also built 10 double bunks for a total cost of $200 to $300, he said. Tables and other items were built the same way.
He used such surplus material on a communications tower during a joint project with Blacksburg to do $76,000 worth of work for less than $20,000, he said.
Items in the state surplus centers are sold to government agencies for a fraction of their original cost on a first-come, first-served basis.
"The key to it is looking ahead," Barber said, to what will be needed, to buy it from surplus property when it is available and to stockpile it. He held up a foot-long high-pressure hose to connect some county equipment. The piece of hose would cost $18 new, he said, and 25 cents at the surplus property center.
The cost goes up to about $1.50 when the hose fittings are adapted for use with the equipment, still a nice savings. "If you multiply $16 enough times, you come up with a significant number of dollars," Barber said.
"I look forward to continuing to use the program. Those who don't are foolish," he said.
by CNB