FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — When government agencies want to get rid of excess stuff — from busted helicopters to used computers — they’re doing it like everyone who cleans out a garage these days: they’re going high-tech and reaching out to bargain hunters online.

More and more governments are selling surplus goods on Internet auction services, where sellers can list items without moving them from their warehouses and people hunting for deals can bid with a mouse click from the comfort of, well, anywhere.

“It’s like eBay for governments,” said Roger Gravley, vice president of client services and marketing at GovDeals.com, a company that provides online auction services to more than 4,800 agencies nationwide. “We may sell anything from surplus chairs to surplus helicopters.”

Most of the buyers, Gravley said, are regular folks trying to sniff out a great deal. And they can find more than a few. A recent auction featuring 10 Dell laptops with docking stations and laptop cases was going for $1,081 with a day left in the auction. A StairMaster was going for about $10 on another site.

And there are big ticket items, too. The Palm Beach County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office is currently auctioning a damaged helicopter on GovDeals.com with a starting bid of $50,000. Broward County (Fla.) Schools had a salad bar and hospital bed on a similar site called PublicSurplus.com.

Items are sold “as is” and “where is,” meaning buyers have to pick things up or arrange shipping.

By using online auction services, “government agencies not only generate more revenue, but they’re also able to be more efficient and cut their overhead,” said Eric Heaps, chief operating officer of The Public Group LLC, which operates PublicSurplus.com.

The site was created with school districts in mind, Heaps said. Broward County Schools, which has used the online auction service for nine years, has auctioned everything from kitchen stoves to a back and abdominal workout bench.

Heaps said the online auction reaches a wider pool of potential buyers, sometimes attracting international buyers in the market for anything from school buses to used computers.

“We have a lot of school buses,” he said. “It’s not unusual to see them go to Central or South America.”

Gravley said some of the buyers are people looking to make a business out of flipping goods they can find cheap.

“We do have some agencies that buy from the site, but the majority is the general public,” he said.

The company targets potential buyers by advertising in sites such as Automobiles .com, if it is selling cars; or FirstResponders.com if it has firefighting equipment for sale, Gravley said.

The sites usually get a cut of the sale revenue. Heaps from PublicSurplus.com said it’s the company’s policy to keep about 10 percent of the winning bid amount.

For the governments, online auctions offer a larger pool of buyers.

“We used to have an annual auction, but it wasn’t cost-effective,” said Richard Hasko, director of Environmental Services for Delray Beach, Fla. “We used to use the Palm Beach County Thrift Store, but they have gotten selective with what they’ll take, and it would cost us money and man hours to retrieve what didn’t sell, or throw it away.”

Delray Beach has sold $525,000 worth of goods on GovDeals.com since it started using the service in 2008. West Palm Beach, Fla., earned $241,500 from the sale of a helicopter recently, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which currently has the damaged helicopter listed, has earned $172,793 so far this year.

Gravley said the online auction site has been able to sell $127 million in surplus goods for the government agencies it contracts with.

Other cities and agencies have opted to continue with a more traditional approach — local auctioneers or their own auctions.

Boynton Beach, Fla., waits until it has up to 10 items before sending them to a local auction.

“We have tried eBay in the past,” said City Engineer Jeff Livergood. “It’s a very cumbersome process to sell on eBay and not worth the effort.”

The Palm Beach County Thrift Store also contracts with several municipalities and local government agencies to auction goods on site several times a year, earning an average of $2 to $3 million a year, said Angelo DiPiero, an asset manager with Palm Beach County.

The thrift store also handles the auction of lost and found items from Palm Beach International Airport and sees its share of unusual items — including a small engine airplane that sold for approximately $115,000.