Kansas Wants to Unload $10 Million in Unused Computer Equipment

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cageymaru

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In 2016, Kansas purchased $10 million in computer equipment to develop a centralized storage system for computer information. This was part of a $17 million effort by the state to create Kansas GovCloud. After state IT officials decided that the effort wasn't cost effective, the focus turned to a cloud based solution from an outside vendor. This has left the state with a $2 million bill left to pay and the excess equipment. Now the government is attempting to donate the surplus equipment to a university and sell some to businesses for pennies on the dollar. "The point is, equipment after a while just becomes obsolete. If somebody can use it, great. If you can get some money out of it, fine," Holland said.

Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, said the state's short-sighted approach to IT was illustrated by the storage cloud debacle. "We keep changing our IT philosophy as a state. Knee-jerk reactions. We need an overall picture to understand the direction the state needs to go," she said. "I'm tired of watching re-occurring car crashes," Holland said.
 
Damn how old is the equipment that they're fire saling it?

The decision to contract with an outside company to store data on remote servers accessed from the internet left the Kansas Department of Administration with a truckload of surplus equipment.
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I pity anyone in the state of Kansas who's ever used government services whether it's getting a drivers license to being the owner of property... this won't end well.
 
Sounds like work...I cant understand it, but budget wise it must make sense.
End of fiscal year comes, everyone rushes to spend the last piles of company cash they have at there disposal, but not marked for a project or anything..

Geez...we just found brand new HP G5 series servers, in the box, never opened, never used, just because someone had to spend cash at end of fiscal, same with a shrink wrapped skid of HP Z220 machines, again, never used.
 
HEY !!!! Tell Kansas that Denmark have the patent on inept hardware and software purchases, and childlike IT implementation.
Which are pretty freighting as we are one of the worlds most logged people.
Right now some Danish hospitals are trying to implement a American piece of software for hospitals, a piece of SW so bad on American hospitals they had to hire people to do all the computer work, but here the doctors have to do it and so only have half of their time to actual work with patients.
The system are so bad doctors and nurses are quitting their jobs, both groups of skilled people we sorely need here.
Some computer systems here still run on punch cards or damn near to that, and this alongside a plethora of other more modern systems.

Some years back they wanted to upgrade the polices ancient system, they spent a half billion DKKr on it, tried it on a single police station for some month, found out it was pretty much useless, and then threw it out, and left the police to soldier on with their ancient system.
 
I'm 99% sure that all this equipment that they're discarding was purchased from some Kansas legislator's friend or relative, as well as the purchase of the cloud storage. Somebody's getting a ton of cash at the taxpayer's expense.
 
Yeah they probably purchased it all, then said OK now we start, only to have Microsoft say “hey we just finished this shiny data center 2 counties over, we can sell you storage and services cheaper than the electrical bill for that pile of stuff you have there”.
 
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and i bet its all old dell and HP computers that are worthless.. they wanna get rid of that were already outdated when they bought em ..and sill think they have value ?
 
LightsOut41 said:
Everyone at the top of their IT chain of decision making needs to be fired. Tomorrow. On Christmas.
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I've met the State's IT "pro's".... I lost IQ in the process. As for those who made the decision to go ahead with this, either you are into politics, or you have common practical sense.

Someone bought into this hardware and couldn't implement it. Happens a lot. Don't even get me started on their Java based Contract Management System K.D.O.T uses. Had to have been written by a 10 year old.

Tiberian said:
So how can I get some of this free or really cheap hardware? :D
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Go to Topeka. There is a place there where they unload all the used State stuff. Patrol cars, DOT vehicles, equipment

nightfly said:
I'm 99% sure that all this equipment that they're discarding was purchased from some Kansas legislator's friend or relative, as well as the purchase of the cloud storage. Somebody's getting a ton of cash at the taxpayer's expense.
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What? No way. A gubment official taking advantage? More than likely, but prove it.

sfsuphysics said:
Damn how old is the equipment that they're fire saling it?


I pity anyone in the state of Kansas who's ever used government services whether it's getting a drivers license to being the owner of property... this won't end well.
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More than likely it's mediocre hardware that was sold at a premium. Taxpayers were probably shafted then. It'll end fine with no interruption. Besides the fact that this money was spent, nothing changed. Daily business as usual.

I worked around that bureaucracy for almost 20 years, even worked for the State once upon a time. Gubment does what gubment does......
 
DogsofJune said:
What? No way. A gubment official taking advantage? More than likely, but prove it.
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I don't live there. Not my problem. Of course, if you're willing to foot the bill for an investigation, let me know. I can spend money just as well as they can. My salary will start at $200,000.00, plus expenses. I require 50% up front. Let me know when you want me to start.
 
I do live here, and I don't give a fuck. The government will continue to do what it wants. Not sure why it's even news or worth worrying about. It's but a drop in the bucket of transgressions.
 
this story is lacking the required link to relevant info. like when is the auction? where is it taking place? and how do we bid? ect? im always down for cheep hardware :D
 
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why not just dont they justdonate most of the hardware which could be used for schools or other community projects
 
maxius said:
this story is lacking the required link to relevant info. like when is the auction? where is it taking place? and how do we bid? ect? im always down for cheep hardware :D
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There is no auction. They're working with a university to unload it all.
 
I'm going to bid on their hard drives. Then I'll sell all the Kansa citizens' information (names, birth dates, addresses, tax receipts, jobs, bank account numbers, etc.) to Google or Facebook.

I'm sure they deleted everything... /s
 
You can always tell the less smart (aka stoopid) people in the room. They blame one party or the other like good little puppets.

Then there are those who are wise and understand that *all* professional politicians are crooks and that they all will spend *your* money.

Don't be played by those fools. ;)
 
It would be funny if it were institutions like this that over bought the original SkyLake Chips, causing that initial shortage years ago. Hopefully we see these pop up on eBay.
 
If you want to buy stuff from the federal government, https://gsaauctions.gov and https://www.govsales.gov/.
If you want to buy stuff from a state government, just gotta pick your state here, https://www.usa.gov/state-surplus-sales, results will vary.

Depending if the hardware was mandatory sourced, the prices could have been pretty decent, but I don't know what the details of their order are.


Edit: Be ready for shit like this, https://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/arizona,az/auction/view?auc=2246818

A pallet of corkscrews. Have to buy the lot. 620 lbs. Of corkscrews.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
If you want to buy stuff from the federal government, https://gsaauctions.gov and https://www.govsales.gov/.
If you want to buy stuff from a state government, just gotta pick your state here, https://www.usa.gov/state-surplus-sales, results will vary.

Depending if the hardware was mandatory sourced, the prices could have been pretty decent, but I don't know what the details of their order are.


Edit: Be ready for shit like this, https://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/arizona,az/auction/view?auc=2246818

A pallet of corkscrews. Have to buy the lot. 620 lbs. Of corkscrews.
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Well, you can shove them up your ass. One daily to keep the government from fucking you. At least you'd know when and where it's happening.
 
Classic case of a lack of resonable accountability and planning. Sombody made a shitload of money while the Tax payers get to grab their own ankles.
 
No politics outside of the soapbox people. It is a very simple rule. If you can not follow it then do not post in this thread.
 
I saw this on the news the other day. I am tempted to see what they have. I live five minute from the Capitol Building. I can see it from the entrance to my neighborhood.
 
I checked Kansas and can't seem to find anything listed as surplus. What's up with that? :S

Extra-Titanian said:
If you want to buy stuff from the federal government, https://gsaauctions.gov and https://www.govsales.gov/.
If you want to buy stuff from a state government, just gotta pick your state here, https://www.usa.gov/state-surplus-sales, results will vary.

Depending if the hardware was mandatory sourced, the prices could have been pretty decent, but I don't know what the details of their order are.


Edit: Be ready for shit like this, https://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/arizona,az/auction/view?auc=2246818

A pallet of corkscrews. Have to buy the lot. 620 lbs. Of corkscrews.
Click to expand...
 
Oldmodder said:
HEY !!!! Tell Kansas that Denmark have the patent on inept hardware and software purchases, and childlike IT implementation.
Which are pretty freighting as we are one of the worlds most logged people.
Right now some Danish hospitals are trying to implement a American piece of software for hospitals, a piece of SW so bad on American hospitals they had to hire people to do all the computer work, but here the doctors have to do it and so only have half of their time to actual work with patients.
The system are so bad doctors and nurses are quitting their jobs, both groups of skilled people we sorely need here.
Some computer systems here still run on punch cards or damn near to that, and this alongside a plethora of other more modern systems.

Some years back they wanted to upgrade the polices ancient system, they spent a half billion DKKr on it, tried it on a single police station for some month, found out it was pretty much useless, and then threw it out, and left the police to soldier on with their ancient system.
Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with Epic. There are bad Epic implementation, but the software is sound. The army of people who are working on the adaptation for Denmark are good people.
 
c3k said:
I'm going to bid on their hard drives. Then I'll sell all the Kansa citizens' information (names, birth dates, addresses, tax receipts, jobs, bank account numbers, etc.) to Google or Facebook.

I'm sure they deleted everything... /s
Click to expand...

Google and Facebook probably already have all of that.
 
I remember installing a new server & network for a county agency many years ago. So long ago they where using ethernet with coax cable.

We need some floppies to copy the driver files to the new client systems, and their IT person gave me a box of ten, saying if they didn't work, let him know and he'll get me a couple more boxes.
Seem that someone in purchasing thought the name brand floppies everyone were ordering where too expensive, so the bought a train car (his words) load of generic floppies.
About 75% would fail to format, but that was all he could get until the warehouse ran out. So, they would just order 2-3 time as many floppies as they needed and throw the bad ones out.
 
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