The Public Buildings Service (PBS) is the largest public real estate organization in the United States, under whose aegis more than 1.2 million federal employees are provided with workspaces. The agency, a branch of the federal…
Category: GAO
A New GAO Report Questions GSA Savings Claims
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) leases private property at a cost of billions of dollars—$5.7 billion annually, to be precise, spread out over more than 8,000 leases. Every year, the agency claims, it saves taxpayers…
GAO Finds Fault with GSA’s Delegated Leasing
The federal entity principally charged with leasing property for the use of government agencies is the U.S. General Services Administration. In keeping with decentralization efforts in many areas of government, however, GSA long ago created a…
Aligning Facilities and Needs at the VA
The federal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) owns or operates 168 medical centers and 1,053 outpatient facilities that serve a population of 8.9 million veterans each year, ranking it among the largest healthcare providers in the…
Will Foreign Ownership Receive Greater Scrutiny?
Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released its report titled GSA Should Inform Tenant Agencies When Leasing High-Security Space From Foreign Owners. The title pretty well summarizes the report’s conclusion – that GSA should determine if its…
Who Really Has Leasing Authority?
Which federal agencies are authorized to lease property from the private sector? If you had asked that question of any federal official before last month, you might have drawn no more than an educated guess, if…
A GAO Report Calls for Heightened Building Security
Last August 21, federal workers in the heart of Lower Manhattan saw a terrible situation: A disturbed man with a gun entered a building in which passports were issued and immigration cases decided. He killed a…
Reining in Lease Extensions: A New GAO Report Promises More Oversight on Federal Leases
The federal government spends too much money, and it doesn’t keep tabs on what it’s spending money on. That’s the constant complaint, especially from critics in an election cycle—but it’s also a refrain that’s coming from the…
Building Cybersecurity, Homeland Security, and the GAO
Think of the many ways in which computers control buildings, from HVAC systems to electronic door locks and the flow of gas, water, and electricity. Now think of the many ways in which those computers can…
Federal Warehouses: Assets in Need of Better Management
Ninety million square feet. That’s about three times the size of Manhattan’s Central Park. According to a new report to Congress from the US Government Accountability Office, that’s also the amount of warehouse space the federal…