Since 1994, the General Services Administration has spent more than $8 billion to build 78 buildings under its Design Excellence program. Agency officials told us that some design choices—such as use of durable materials—decreased operations and maintenance costs. But others—such as multistory atriums— increased them. We found that the agency makes design choices without fully considering...

The Department of Homeland Security is planning to consolidate operations and thousands of its workers at the St. Elizabeths campus in Washington, D.C. Construction began at the site in 2009. Over $2 billion has been appropriated for the project since fiscal year 2006, which was less than requested. DHS and General Services Administration officials told us this led to cost increases and delays. ...

The 23 civilian Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act agencies reported various ways of considering and using telework as a space-planning tool, by, for example, implementing desk-sharing for employees who telework in order to relinquish leased space, or increasing the number of staff working in an existing space without increasing its size. All of the 23 agencies discussed telework in the context of...

Most of the 24 agencies with chief financial officers reported to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) that they planned to consolidate their office and warehouse space and allocate fewer square feet per employee as the key ways to achieve their space reduction targets. For example, the Department of Agriculture reported it will consolidate staff...

Geographic shifts in the veteran population, changes in health care delivery, and an aging infrastructure affect the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) efforts to align its services and real property portfolio to meet the needs of veterans. For example, a shift over time from inpatient to outpatient care will likely result in underutilized space once used for inpatient care. In such instances, i...

GAO's analysis showed that government-wide data were generally reliable for reporting on real property disposals for fiscal years 2014 and 2015.The General Services Administration's (GSA) Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) serves as the building inventory database for most of the largest federal agencies. FRPP's data on real property disposals were generally complete, reasonable, and internally...

GAO reviewed available information on the ownership of General Services Administration (GSA) leased space that requires higher levels of security protection based on factors such as mission criticality and facility size (high-security space) as of March 2016 and found that GSA is leasing high-security space from foreign owners in 20 buildings. The 26 tenant agencies occupy about 3.3 million square...

There is no comprehensive list of federal entities with independent leasing authority. The Federal Real Property Council (FRPC), chaired by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was established in 2004 through executive order to coordinate and share leading practices in real property management among federal agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. The General Services Ad...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the General Services Administration (GSA), and selected agencies have taken steps to improve the quality of data in the Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP)—the government-wide real property database. Those steps include issuing guidance and implementing various data validation procedures. Starting with fiscal year 2015 data, OMB and GSA are transitioni...

The Federal Protective Service (FPS)—which protects about 9,500 federal facilities—developed a Strategic Human Capital Plan ( Plan ) and engaged in related efforts that generally align with most key principles GAO identified for strategic workforce planning. Specifically, FPSsolicited input from key stakeholders, such as its employees and the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD)...

GAO found that the General Services Administration's (GSA) lease rates exceeded comparable market rates for many of 714 leases reviewed. Specifically, a review of these leases from 2008 through 2014 determined that about half exceeded their local market's average private sector rate for similar space by 10 percent or more. According to officials from all 11 GSA regions and private sector stakehold...

The Federal Protective Service (FPS), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the General Services Administration (GSA) have taken some steps to improve collaboration, such as drafting a joint strategy. While each agency has some individual policies for collaboration, the two agencies have made limited progress in agreeing on several key practices as described below. Reaching agreeme...

Officials at four selected agencies—the General Services Administration (GSA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Department of the Interior (Interior)—experienced challenges receiving full upfront funding for federal real property projects through the annual appropriations process. For example, due to budget constraints, GSA acquired one pr...

The General Services Administration's (GSA) 218 high-value leases GAO reviewed represented only about 3 percent of the total number of GSA leases, yet made up about one-third of its leased portfolio in terms of cost and size. GSA has reduced the costs of its high-value leases in line with the administration's goal to reduce real property costs. GSA's efforts include helping agencies improve space...

Several of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Protective Service's (FPS) guard requirements are generally comparable to those of the six selected agencies GAO reviewed, but FPS faces challenges in some aspects of guards' training. FPS and the six selected agencies GAO reviewed require basic, firearms, and screener (x-ray and magnetometer equipment) training for their armed guards...

The Federal Real Property Council (FRPC) has not followed sound data collection practices in designing and maintaining the Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) database, raising concern that the database is not a useful tool for describing the nature, use, and extent of excess and underutilized federal real property. For example, FRPC has not ensured that key data elements—including buildings...

Safe and accessible federal courthouses are critical to the U.S. judicial process. The Federal Protective Service (FPS), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Marshals Service (Marshals Service), within the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC), and the General Services Administration (GSA) are the federal stakeholders with roles rel...

The Office of Management and Budget's "Reduce the Footprint" policy promotes reducing federal office space and managing it more efficiently to help keep costs down. OMB and the General Services Administration (the government's main landlord) try to measure the policy's effects by tracking changes in the average cost per square foot of federal space. We found GSA and OMB didn't use readily availa...

Usually, the General Services Administration buys or leases the real estate that federal agencies use for offices, labs, etc. However, GSA delegates some of its leasing authority to agencies. GSA is supposed to ensure that those leases' rental values and rates are fair and reasonable. Our recommendations address several issues we found: GSA could better identify and correct errors that we found...

The General Services Administration (GSA) is authorized under certain circumstances to lease unneeded space to private businesses and other nonfederal entities—a process known as outleasing. GSA outleases at least 20 percent of space in six federally-owned buildings, as of June 2018, ranging from part of the space in two buildings to all of the space in four other buildings. In April 2018, GSA f...

In November 2011, GAO reported that, according to General Services Administration (GSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assessments, the FBI's headquarters building (Hoover Building) and its accompanying facilities in Washington, D.C., did not fully support the FBI's long-term security, space, and building condition requirements. Since GAO's report, the assessments have not materially ch...

Since 2012, the administration has taken steps to reform real property management and address the long-standing challenge of reducing excess and underutilized property. For example, in 2015, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued government-wide guidance—the National Strategy for the Efficient Use of Real Property—which GAO found in 2016 could help agencies strategically manage real...

Federal and state agencies have used public-private partnerships to dispose of unneeded property to a limited extent. General Services Administration (GSA) officials stated that public-private partnerships are explored on a case-by-case basis along with other options for disposing of a federal property and that partnerships are considered for fewer than 10 cases each year. While partnerships can t...

There is no comprehensive list of federal entities with independent leasing authority. The Federal Real Property Council (FRPC), chaired by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was established in 2004 through executive order to coordinate and share leading practices in real property management among federal agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. The General Services Ad...

In the early 1990s, scorekeeping rules on how federal agencies are to budget for leasing public buildings were adopted to ensure Congress and the General Services Administration (GSA) more clearly evaluated the full costs of acquiring a building at the time such decisions were made. These rules affected the treatment of lease-purchases—which include leases having a “discounted” purchase opti...

In 2012, the General Services Administration (GSA) began exploring a project, called a “swap exchange,” to exchange up to five office buildings located in the Federal Triangle South area of Washington, D.C., to finance construction services at GSA headquarters and other federal properties.  The purpose of the exchange was to dispose of excess federal property while providing over 11,000 feder...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) did not make cost-effective decisions consistent with leading government guidance for lease procurement and internal controls when planning for additional space in fiscal years 2008–2015. CFTC began planning for expansion in the fiscal year 2009 time frame—more than a year before the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act in July 2010. CFTC renewed leas...