Technical Assessment of the Capital Facility Needs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (2023) / Chapter Skim
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Organizationally, NIST has three operating units: laboratory programs, management support services, and an innovation and industry services directorate. The laboratory programs carry out NIST research in six separate laboratories: • Center for Neutron Research • Communications Technology Laboratory • Engineering Laboratory 1 This report uses "world-class" in the sense of being among the best in the world.
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The study opened with briefings by NIST and evaluation of NIST-prepared project documents and cost estimates, particularly identifying whether there were deficient NIST facilities impacting the mission. The committee evaluated NIST's current strategies and tools for capital facilities assessment, and NIST's methods for determining annual funding levels for sustainment, restoration, and modernization.
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The committee concluded that these deficient functionalities of NIST's facilities constitute a major threat to its mission performance and thereby, to our nation's economy, national security, and quality of life. The following is a list of observed issues: • Substantive delays in key national security deliverables due to inadequate facility performance.
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Funding for operations comes from an internal NIST tax on expenditures for scientific and technical research services and other NIST activities. Funding for facilities sustainment, restoration and modernization comes from a single government appropriation of two general categories, the previously mentioned SCMMR, and construction and major renovations (CMR)
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Accounting for inflation, current SCMMR funding is significantly less than it was in 2002 when VCAT referred to the facility funding as "inadequate." In addition, OFPM is now responsible for the IT infrastructure, which has its own significant level of deferred maintenance. The committee believes that the solution to NIST's unsatisfactory existing facilities situation requires immediate, top-down attention and resolute action by leaders of NIST, DOC, and Congress.
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." The committee understands that the OFPM Draft Coordinated Recovery Plan is a work in progress and subject to change. The OFPM Draft Coordinated Recovery Plan began to take shape in October 2020, when NIST concluded its most recent routine updating of its traditional facilities master planning by formally submitting to Congress the congressionally mandated NIST 2020 Integrated Master Plans Implementation Report.
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Practices of Portfolio Management and Capital Project Planning The processes employed by NIST for portfolio management and capital project planning are consistent with DOC's Real Property Management Manual and are reviewed in detail in Chapter 5. For capital facility planning, NIST uses strategic plans and master plans.
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For FY 2019 Congress directed NIST to develop an integrated implementation report for the Boulder and Gaithersburg master plans. This report was created in 2020 and includes an implementation plan based on historically constrained budgets, leading to a ranking of projects for both campuses.
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This leads to the final recommendation: Recommendation 6-2: NIST should expand its current real property asset management strategy beyond condition assessment and deferred maintenance reporting and provide a proactive, life-cycle approach to real property ownership for the NIST real property portfolio that aligns with the Federal Real Property Reform Act of 2016 and the associated framework by the Government Accountability Office and the 2023 National Academies' report Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities. With these four strategies contained in the above recommendations in place, NIST will be in a position of having the physical resources for continued guaranteed excellence in meeting its mission to serve the citizenry and business communities of the United States.
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