Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities (2023) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Doing Due Diligence: Government Accountability Office Reports on Renewal of Federal Facilities
Appendix D: Doing Due Diligence: Government Accountability Office Reports on Renewal of Federal Facilities
Pages 146-165
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From page 146... ...
GAO reports can help federal agencies do due diligence in managing infrastructure and real property assets, starting with a set of products offering guidance and leading practices. First, a GAO report titled Federal Real Property Asset Management identified an overall asset management framework based in part on International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
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From page 147... ...
Second, GAO has issued reports and other products offering leading practices and internal controls in government that are similarly helpful to agencies managing infrastructure and real property assets. • GAO's Cost Guide can be used to develop reliable cost estimates (GAO 2020a)
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From page 148... ...
The third group addresses disposal of unneeded or otherwise obsolete facilities to free up resources for uses more productive than managing or maintaining facilities that are not contributing to mission capability or service delivery. In addition, GAO had both federal real property and defense support infrastructure on the agency's High-Risk list of federal programs subject to waste, 2 GAO's guide for analyses of alternatives was previously included in a report on the planned acquisition of a certain military weapons system; see GAO (2015a)
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From page 149... ...
. SEVERAL APPROACHES TO FACILITIES ACQUISITION FOR ENHANCING MISSION CAPABILITY OR SERVICE DELIVERY The GAO facilities acquisition reports issued since FY2009 have focused on effectively managing facilities acquisition through better planning, project management, and cost estimating; improved leasing practices; consideration of alternative financing; and security considerations.
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From page 150... ...
However, it is fair to conclude that the recommendations encompass the concept that all federal agencies do due diligence by developing and implementing means to match the type, nature, size, purpose, operational considerations, and location of facilities to be acquired to the mission capability or service delivery needs that are the purpose of the facilities' acquisition in the first place.
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From page 151... ...
. Second, GAO reviewed three major DoD construction projects and concluded that the projects' cost estimates were unreliable.
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GSA officials told GAO that the agencies oversee their own delegated leases. Relatedly, GAO reported that GSA could not ensure that the leases agencies executed under the delegated authority meet program requirements and are within the authority granted because GSA lacked key procedures to do so.
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From page 153... ...
As a result, GAO recommended that GSA determine whether the beneficial owner of highsecurity space that GSA leases is a foreign entity and, if so, share that information with the tenant agencies so they can adequately assess and mitigate any security risks (GAO 2017c)
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From page 154... ...
Thus, GSA may have been missing opportunities for their clients to reduce or avoid costs, while both GSA and DoD may have been missing opportunities to leverage resources and enhance utilization of federal real property. GAO recommended that DoD and GSA collaborate to enhance routine information sharing concerning non-DoD federal agencies seeking workspace that might be satisfied at military installations (GAO 2015c)
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From page 155... ...
In an earlier report on the DoD privatized housing program, GAO reported similarly that several factors related to turmoil in the financial markets at the time of the 2009 report had reduced available funds for project construction, resulting in more renovations relative to new construction and reduced amenities at some newly
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From page 156... ...
Accurate and Current Facilities and Other Infrastructure Data Are Critical for Facilities Management First, GAO has reported that federal agencies have not had reliable data on the facilities in their inventory, which undermines effective facilities management, although some improvements had been noted in the government-wide Federal Real Property Profile and in DoD's Real Property Assets Database. Still, GAO has federal real property on the High-Risk list in part because of data
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From page 157... ...
Data reliability concerns affecting federal agency facilities data are a long-standing issue based on the GAO reports. For example, GAO reported in 2012 that the Federal Real Property Council had not followed sound data collection practices in designing and maintaining the Federal Real Property Profile database, raising concern that the database was not a useful tool for describing the nature, use, and extent of excess and underutilized federal real property at the time of the GAO report.
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From page 158... ...
GAO has also issued numerous reports on the extent to which DoD is adequately maintaining facilities to ensure mission capability. In one report, GAO stated that from FY2009 to FY2014 the military services annually spent about 80 percent of what was needed to meet estimated facility sustainment requirements, although DoD's goal was for the services to budget for 90 percent of sustainment needs (GAO 2016b)
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From page 159... ...
GAO recommended that the Department of Commerce initiate a government-wide effort to provide the best-available, forward-looking climate information to standardsdeveloping organizations for their consideration in the development of design standards, building codes, and voluntary certifications. Other GAO reports and testimony statements have suggested that enhancing resiliency to climate change impacts is necessary but has been limited.
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From page 160... ...
According to installation officials, this erosion had damaged roads, utility infrastructure, seawalls, and runways. Finally, another GAO report focused on climate change impacts at federal facilities, such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration campuses, and at state highways, and local wastewater treatment systems (GAO 2013a)
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From page 161... ...
Accordingly, GAO recommended that the Executive Office of the President work with agencies to identify for local infrastructure decision makers the best available climate-related information for planning, and to update this information over time. Generating Benefits from Unutilized or Underutilized Property GAO issued two reports that assessed the benefits obtained when federal agencies provide long-term leases of their real property to public or private entities to use the property, known as an "enhanced use lease." In the more recent report, GAO reviewed the enhanced use lease programs at VA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
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From page 162... ...
. GAO has further stated that they added federal real property to the High-Risk list, in part due to long-standing challenges that federal agencies face in managing federally owned real property, including disposal of excess and underutilized property.
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From page 163... ...
On the topic of complex disposal processes, GAO reported that conducting required environmental and historic reviews in a timely manner was among the challenges VA faced in its real property disposal process. Potentially compounding the problem was what GAO termed "VA's lack of clear procedures for property disposals" (2019j)
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From page 164... ...
. A second approach on which GAO reported consists of GSA exchanging titles to federally owned real property for other properties or construction services, known as "swap exchange," a form of public–private partnership (GAO 2016e)
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From page 165... ...
At the same time, other agencies' managing infrastructure and real property can benefit from lessons learned and documented in the GAO reports. Finally, the large set of recommendations contained in these reports suggest policies and procedures that if implemented may help federal agencies to have reasonable assurance their facilities and associated resources are appropriate for mission or service delivery needs.
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