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Say goodbye to a summertime tradition.

For years, the Tucson Unified School District would hoard all its kinda-junked-out and mostly-used-up school equipment and unload it all at one big auction, complete with previews of the merchandise and a fast-talking auctioneer.

Imaginative sorts concocted a number of uses for old school buses with 10 years and 400,000 miles under the hood. Around the TUSD facilities office, there seems to be a vague recollection of one guy pushing two together to make a restaurant or an art studio. There's a much clearer memory of a man who wanted to take the wheels off one and use it as a barn to store his hay.

"It's amazing what people will buy," said the district's chief operations officer, Rudy Flores, adding that TUSD has sold everything from pianos to physical-education equipment, playground pieces, computers, air-conditioning units and desks.

But this year, buyers are going to need an Internet connection if they want to bid.

After a trial run on the Web site Publicsurplus.com last year, which netted about $10,000 in bus and tool sales, the auction is going fully online.

On this particular site of government-surplus material, you'll see the city of Tucson trying to sell a Caterpillar Compactor, with a high bid so far of $110,000. The Kingman Police Department is selling a baseball card collection and a baseball signed by Nolan Ryan. The town of Oro Valley's highest bid for a computer desk so far is $10.50.

TUSD's asset-management supervisor, Pamela McFadyen, said it's too early to see how successful the switch might be. She plans to start posting items over the next week or so.

It does require more monitoring than the old make-a-bid-and-be-done system because staffers have to monitor bids. There is the added inconvenience of having to show the properties to folks who literally want to kick the tires before paying out. And even though the site explicitly warns bidders that they're on the hook for the purchase if they win the bid, there are always those who don't pay up and then have to be banned from future auctions.

On the other hand, being able to sell throughout the year instead of at one big event means there's less frenetic preparation time for staff and fewer things that need to be stored all year.

The annual auctions are netting TUSD about $45,000, a fraction of what the district paid for the items. In 2007, for example, the auction revenue was just 3 percent of the $1.5 million the district originally paid for the items. "We use our equipment to death," McFadyen said.

Amphitheater Public Schools started with Publicsurplus.com in 2006. In large part, the decision was driven by a downsizing of the district's warehouse space, said Scott Little, chief financial officer.

"Our goal is to turn these things around quickly so they're not taking up space," Little said, adding that kitchen equipment and Apple computers have decent resale values.

He has four buses on the site now, and if that goes well the district ultimately could put 100 on over the next few years.

But, he said, the site may not entirely eliminate TUSD's need for auctions. When Amphitheater wanted to get rid of older woodworking equipment, it held a specialized auction so it could target community members who might be interested. And sometimes, he said, districts are better off donating to non-profits than trying to dispose of the equipment.

"What they'll find is that it's just another tool. For us, it's just one of many ways we deal with surplus equipment."