Auction helps fill county coffers

When the dust settled and the checks had been written Saturday, Columbia County had pulled in more than $100,000 from a surplus vehicle auction.

The auction, held Saturday at the Columbia County Central Shop, attracted 150 buyers, said Columbia County Procurement Manager Greg Woodlief.

"We are quite pleased," he said. "It was a great turnout."

Forty-six vehicles - mostly culled from the fleets of Columbia County, Harlem and Grovetown - were sold for $105,054.95, Woodlief said. Last year - in the wake of Sept. 11 - the same number of vehicles brought in $41,000.

"Granted we didn't have a $30,000 Corvette," he said.

Actually, the 2001 Corvette was sold for $28,500, $8,500 more than Woodlief estimated. And a 2000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle sold for $10,700 - $5,700 more than estimates.

"I was being conservative," Woodlief said of his estimates.

The auction is a change from the way Columbia County had disposed of surplus vehicles. For years the county sold the vehicles by sealed bids - and, in some cases, got as little as $75 per car.

One change in the auction procedure this year also produced a little more money for county coffers. In previous auctions, the county paid the auctioneer's premium from total auction proceeds. This year, the premium was tacked on to buyers' totals, meaning the county didn't have to pay the $10,390 bill.

"The county came out ahead on several fronts," Woodlief said.

What's next for the county auction? Possible expansion.

"It would be nice to bring Thomson or McDuffie County into this next year," he said.