The Government Accountability Office’s Assessment of the Federal Buildings Fund

Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government uh will come to order. This hearing is titled GAO's Assessment of the Federal Buildings Fund. Members will have five legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the record. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. The General Service Administration, or GSA, maintains, builds, leases, or operates more than three hundred and sixty million square feet of space that houses thousands of federal employees in twenty-two hundred communities across our country. In addition, our constituents visit GSA managed properties every single day. Everyone from veterans accessing their benefits, disaster victims seeking assistance, to plaintiffs and defendants attending court enter a GSA property. However, GSA's management of federal real property has been on the Government Accountability Office, or GAO's, high risk list since two thousand three. And the scope of the crisis has never been clearer. The Public Buildings Reform Board, which oversees our public buildings, recently released a report indicating that the deferred maintenance in the federal building portfolio has become a fifty billion dollar liability. GSA's Public Building Service, or PBS, is responsible for the maintenance of the GSA managed facilities. Most of PBS's activities are supported by, through the Federal Building Fund. The FBF, as it's commonly known, is funded by agency rent payments to GSA. But as many of you know, the FB F is subject to the appropriations process. Over the last several years, the FB F has been used to fund other priorities. As a result, the FB F has been and continues to be insufficient to address the deferred and regular, uh, maintenance of federal real estate property. We need to have honest conversations about how we get these costs under control. It starts with disposing of federal properties with high deferred maintenance and low occupancy to reduce the strain on the FB F. Moreover, ensuring the FB F has the resources it needs to maintain

thank you very much mr. chairman uh i wanna thank uh thank you mr. Moroney for being here and joining us uh today We've heard much discussion of improving government efficiency and reducing waste this past year. All of us should share that objective. Although I have serious doubts about the administration's commitment to those goals, uh, we all ought to agree that those objectives ought to govern how we administer our federal real estate portfolio. We wanna make sure we have the right amount of space and the right type of space for our federal employees to do their jobs on behalf of the American people as effectively, and as safely as possible. I always say we need to right size the government, not increase, decrease, but right size, for the job that we give them. I recognize that no easy task, as I'm sure Director Maroney would agree. But it also cleared that the General Services Administration management of our federal real estate uh is wanting in some cases. I'd like to quote from Inspector General's report that was released just this week. And I have that report here. And I imagine you brought it with you. Like to quote from that, "GSA is not consistently addressing deficient security fixtures at GSA controlled facility and as a result is leaving the public employees and property at risk from security threats." That finding ought to concern every member of this committee and this house. Much of that report was redacted. Uh, but it indicated that, I presume for security reasons itself, but it is indicated that GSA's failure to make this crucial responsibility was due in part to the immense cost of installing and maintaining security measures. To see the perils of this issue, just look down Pennsylvania Avenue. The Trump administration is trying to move the FBI headquarters from the dilapidated and falling down J. Edgar Hoover building to the Reagan building just a little ways away. Moving the FBI out of one old, exposed and inadequate building into another old, exposed and inadequate building is not a solution. When former FBI uh Director Robert Mueller, who just died, approached me in twenty O nine about finding a new home for the FBI, he emphasized that the Bureau needed a new, secure and consolidated facility on a large campus. The Reagan building fails to meet the FBI's security and operational issues. it was not designed as a secure law enforcement facility, rather emphatically as an open, accessible office for both public and private tenants. As a matter of fact, I have an article here uh that reflects that objective. To use the words of Pei, Cobb, Fried and Partners, the architectural firm that designed the facility, quote, "The Reagan building emphasizes access and permeability." Access and probability are great features uh of an international trade center, which the Reagan building was designed to fulfill, but not a law enforcement and intelligence agency. An article in Chicago Tribune, published about the building in nineteen ninety seven, noted the very fact. It said, the Reagan building quote " will open the standoffish domain of the federal bureaucracy to the city and teach an important lesson to the post Oklahoma City bombing era when the temptation is to turn all government buildings into impressive fortresses. But the FBI headquarters needs to be impregnable. Even the Reagan building, where not located between two major thoroughfares, fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, it still would not meet inter-agency security committee facility security level standards. The GSA says it will take at least one and a half billion dollars to re- to retrofit the building. But anyone familiar with the GSA knows that project, these always cost much more, and the architect of the capital said it would be cheaper to build a fourth building uh for the house than to recloak locate members while s- repairs are being made to Rayburn into the Madison building. This ill-conceived effort to move the FBI into the Reagan building is indicative of the dysfunction that exists at GSA. Director Mon- Monroney, I'm gonna be asking you some questions as I told you I would and I imagine you share some of these concerns uh which are reflected in this report. Issues contribute to the mismanagement of our federal real estate. Thank you, Mister Chairman. I have thirteen seconds and I'll yield back.

Tremendous timing today uh. Ranking member Hoyer. Today we welcome the testimony of Mister David Maroney, Director of Physical Infrastructure at the United States Government Accountability Office. Mister Maroney, without objection, your full written testimony will be entered into the record. With that in mind, we've asked you to please summarize your opening statement in five minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Joyce, Ranking Member Hoyer, and members of the subcommittee. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss the Federal Buildings Fund and the future of federal property. For more than twenty years, GEO has identified the management of federal property as a high-risk area in need of substantial transformation. The federal government simply has too much space, with much of it in poor condition. The Federal Buildings Fund will play a key role in how effectively this problem is addressed. As you know, the fund is GSA's sole source of money to manage the buildings under its control. Specifically, GSA collects rent from tenant agencies, deposits it into the buildings fund, and uses that money to fund its real property work, subject to appropriations. For the past fifteen years, there has been a roughly one billion dollar gap each year between the amount GSA has collected in rent and the amount Congress has authorized GSA to spend. That funding constraint has made it more challenging for GSA to pursue large proble- projects properly maintain its building and dispose of unneeded properties. There are a variety of actions Congress and GSA can take to address this funding issue. For example, terminating unneeded leases and disposing of underused buildings, particularly those in need of large capital investments, would reduce the strain on the federal buildings fund and could free up money for GSA to properly maintain priority buildings that are being held for the long term. Congress could also consider alternative financing mechanisms for large projects and alternative budget structures. For example, Congress could modify the buildings fund to exclude certain major projects, and instead provide direct appropriations to tenant agencies for those projects. It could also appropriate funds specifically for the upfront cost for properties being prepared for disposal and for consolidating tenant agencies into better maintained and more cost-effective spaces. All of these options come with trade-offs. There is no silver bullet, but they're worth considering. That said, the fundamental issue goes beyond funding. The federal government simply has too big of a footprint, and a lot of it is in bad shape. Spending large sums of money to preserve that existing footprint just doesn't make sense. Instead, Congress, GSA, and other agencies need to ensure current efforts to dispose of underused property lead to results, while also ensuring that priority buildings are well maintained for the long term. This will take an upfront investment of money. But if executed in a sustained and well-planned way, the long-term cost savings could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars or more, and agencies could end up with better space to carry out their missions. Mister Chairman, that concludes my opening statement. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, sir. Uh, appreciate the quick opening statement, but you covered a lot of issues there. I now recognize myself for the first question. And you know, you brought up, Mister Moroney, uh that we talked about GSA's vast portfolio. It includes two hundred and eighty-five thousand buildings and structures with significant deferred maintenance problems. It seems this problem just keeps getting worse. As I mentioned in my opening statement, the Public Buildings Reform Board issued a report highlighting the real deferred maintenance cost of federal properties to be somewhere in the area of fifty billion dollars. These liabilities represent real cost to federal government and to the taxpayer. Uh, in your opening statement you talked about some of the things we can do, but why can't GSA get a handle on the deferred maintenance problem? And do you believe that fifty billion dollars is the true cost of the deferred maintenance?

So, starting with the first uh, second question.

Could you speak into the mike please?

So.

Starting with the second question first. Uh, fifty billion dollars, so we did work on this a few years ago. We found GSA's, based on their financial reports, to be about six billion. Uh, administrator Forst a few weeks ago testified it was twenty-six. uh public buildings reform board has said fifty billion whatever the specific number the trajectory is clear there is a lot of deferred maintenance that is growing significantly and then in terms of how is it to get a handle on that there is a couple of things driving that one is these buildings simply haven't been maintained well over decades over years some of that is funding some of that is how the process has worked out but there's also a significant factor that these buildings are old the average age of a gsa building is over fifty years And at that point, you are going to have issues, it's going to be more costly to maintain them and repair them. So it's a hard problem to get around. The key way to get around it right now is to identify those buildings that are both underused and have high liabilities and prioritize those for disposal, get them off your books. Uh, it's gonna cost too much to give them up to speed, especially if they're underused, there's not a reason to keep them.

Is there a market for those?

So it's gonna depend on the specific property. There can be a market for some properties. Particularly their location, the building itself may not be uh especially valuable. In other situations the building may be something that could be redeveloped by the private sector. It's gonna depend. In some cases it's not gonna be very valuable, but simply getting it off the books if it's not being used, if you have opportunities to consolidate, would still be worth it long-term because the operation and maintenance cost for that building is gonna dwarf uh the cost of getting rid of it over time.

In some areas you have properties that are probably worth more than the building, correct?

I think that's correct, yes.

And so, do we have the money for demolition to create the site for sale or is that something that you're you're hoping to sell in the market and let the, the buyer then take out those costs?

So again, it would depend on facts and circumstances. Generally, I think going to the market and seeing what you can get for the property, even if you're selling it as is, uh with the idea they would demolish it would be simpler. There may be some situations where demolishing the building uh could make sense, but you're gonna have to have the upfront funding to demolish, remove the materials, do any remediation and turn over to whoever buys the land location so generally speaking it would be simpler if you can sell it on the market even at a reduced price to get it off the federal government's books

now when you mention the the federal funds are you also talking about like the public service or public parks they might fall under interior is that part of the same umbrella

i'm i'm i'm speaking about the federal buildings fund specifically

yeah

uh different agencies have some ability to uh operate and maintain their own space but the same problem is consistent across agencies

right

the overall for the federal government when we did that deferred maintenance report it had more than doubled uh the liability since twenty seventeen to about three hundred and seventy billion dollars now that includes dod that is a big chunk of that number but still you can see it is a large and growing problem not with gsa buildings but across the board

uh if i heard you correctly in your opening statement you said that perhaps uh placing the responsibility upon say the courts to maintain their own facilities would be a good idea or better use of dollars is

uh we don't have a we don't have a position on the judiciary proposal to manage its own buildings i would say i can understand judiciary's frustration uh there are at times been issues with maintaining buildings not just judiciary across the board uh with agencies um i would say some things i would think about if i was congress is would we be duplicating costs by having judiciary run its own space uh does judiciary have the expertise how much would it cost to have that expertise brought in to manage what is the nationwide portfolio. And then last, I would look at the impact potentially on the federal buildings fund itself. Uh judiciary is a big portion of that, and if you took that revenue away you might uh lose some of the economies of scale that GSA provides. So those are I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer there, but those are definitely things I'd think through on that proposal.

Yeah, I'm getting down on my time, but the that's what I was wondering, that it's gotta be cost-effective when you have the leverage to be able to do this on a greater scale. versus independent agencies or departments then taking over the funding of their own buildings, cuz then you you're

That's sort of the thinking behind GSA, right? Is that you are consolidating now there are agencies that do manage their own property, that does that does happen, but GSA is there, has the has the expertise and it's doing things on a nationwide level, uh so it has economy.

Quickly, do they have the same problems?

Does do yes, this again is consistent.

OK. Chair now recognizes ranking member Hoyer for his questions.

Thank you very much and again thank you very much for being here this you're familiar with this report

yes i am

gsa is not consistently addressing deficient security features at gsa controlled facilities

yes

uh as you as you heard from my opening statement i'm very concerned about the proposals regarding the federal bureau of investigation you're familiar with the state of that building i take it

i am

how would you describe the state of that building

of the hoover building

yes

it's it's deteriorated they need to move

it's decrepit um now let me ask you a question with respect to gsa s uh focus on security much of this i don't know about this yeah much of this report

redacted

is redacted just so you don't really know what's happening it's it's a good report pretty long report about thirty pages but most of it is redacted um the security concerns were the reason robert muller came in to me after the murrah building in nineteen ninety five was destroyed by a single person in a step van uh and i'm i've talked to most members of the committee about this um and this report says that gsa is really not looking at the security concerns essentially sufficiently let's put it sufficiently um in your experience uh would the reagan building be uh difficult to make secure consistent with federal standards

it would certainly require a large investment of funds uh it was built to be a public-facing open uh building so you would have to invest a substantial amount of money to make it secure

uh can you cite any instances of retrofitting which is proposed any building to meet level five projection do we have any

i'm not aware of any i can come back to record for sure but i'm not aware of any

thank you very much um do you have uh any accounting on how much it typically costs to get the prospectus stage of a project

uh in terms of the cost of the time

yeah

uh so the time is uh nineteen to twenty four months generally from when a prospectus is submitted to get to the end the the cost depends on the project it's anything above four million basically has to go through that process.

Or maybe

Four million dollars has to go through the process.

And and we have uh uh uh uh uh I'm hopeful that we will ask before they move forward to uh give us a estimate of what the cost will be and how they will reach, if in fact they can reach the security five levels. Uh, do you think that's a rational thing to do?

It's good to have cost estimates and and a partial plan, yep.

Um. with respect to the staffing responsibilities and managing your the portfolio that you deal with um the reduction often move faster than the efforts to sell buildings or reduce lease space. I agree with you. And by the way uh one of the prime sites in Washington is the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue. So there will be an offsetting income from the sale of that and the chairman mentioned the property itself not the building cause the building's gone but the property itself is a very very valuable property which would be an asset for the federal government and in your uh testimony you said selling those would make sense

mmm

uh miss chairman i'm gonna stop with that i may wanna ask some other questions in the second round but uh i'll stop now

Very kind, Mr. Hoyer. Uh, the chair now recognizes Ms. Hinson for any questions she may have.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our ranking member for holding this hearing. Mr. Ramoni, it's good to see you again and thank you so much for for being here to answer our questions. And I think we had a good conversation about uh the federal portfolio last year. I look forward to building on that uh here today. And um when you look at what the GAO uh identified since two thousand three as a high risk of course with retaining underused space and the cost of uh the significant solution is to get rid of as many underutilized assets as possible but i i'm hearing some pushback from agencies that are saying you know they're continuing to have to pay leases on these underutilized spaces um even if they don't have staff there but they're running into some some barriers and in in your testimony you highlight uh gsa reporting that some of the uncertain funding has resulted in missed opportunities to eliminate leases so can you explain how Funding is directly tied to the ability to terminate leases.

Yeah. So. First, any time you terminate a lease, you have to relocate the folks who are in that space to a new location. So there's move-in costs. You have to return the space in a certain condition. So there's cost to do that as well. Uh, and depending on the term of the lease, if you're in the soft term, uh, which is after a certain number of years, you are able to terminate that lease under certain conditions, but more easily. If it's in the firm term, which is typically the first several years of a lease, uh, that is much more challenging and can incur additional costs. So, just terminating a lease requires having a plan for what you're going to do with the staff who are there.

What are the shortest term leases that we're signing versus, I mean, is it as simple as a couple of months all the way up to twenty years? What are what are the length of these agreements?

So, the normal lease is about ten years. You have some that are shorter, you might have some that are longer. Uh, the longer you're getting, uh, the trickier it might be in terms of funding at that point you should be asking should we be in own space if you going for significant long points of time

so do uh early lease termination costs play into um the recommendations here in terms of how it's been recommended for GSA to run the cost comparisons uh of terminating leases compared to like you were talking about just paying out the full lease term or whether it's ten or twenty or however long

right that should be part of your analysis do we gain from terminating this lease or not and do we have a plan for where we're gonna put those staff and when you compare the cost is it a does it pencil out as a net benefit or not

How how much is that actually happening right now in terms of running these numbers? I mean, is that an active process? I mean, can you get us numbers on how often this is happening?

So I do believe that that is part of the normal process that GSA is to follow. Um, I do not know right now, uh, how to the extent that that process is being followed, but that's the norm is they do try and pencil out the benefits versus the costs.

OK. Can you share maybe some of um GAO's other recommendations to specifically address the barriers to terminating leases for some of these spaces, um, outside of that that regular i guess you'd say list checklist that you're kind of going through right now

right so what you need to do is for your portfolio overall for whatever agency you're speaking about you need to understand what are my needs what are my space needs and what space do i have now and is it meeting that need or do i have too much and then going through you have to have some strategy going through and looking at ok i have too much space in you know in dubuque and

mmm

uh i can consolidate these two leases into a single location and save money and it's worth it because the cost of moving is less than that but you really need to look at a strategic level plan it out and make sure you have that funding to carry through your plans with both the lease side and in the owned space

ok um i have some more questions on security but i don't wanna dive into that um so we'll get into that in round two thank you so much i yield back

thank you mrs hinson uh chair now recognized mr pokan

thank you

mr. chairman appreciate and mr. moroney thank you for being here for the second year in a row in a public hearing i hope everyone that has oversight under this committee follows your lead and is here for public hearings every year appreciate that um i'm sure you know that uh gsa has marked the historic um william j cohen federal building as a candidate for accelerated disposal making available for sale and vulnerable to demolition this building has been referred to by uh new deal art historians as the sixteen chapel of new deal art uh it's listed in the national historic a register of historic places and has one of the most significant collections of new deal era public art uh in the united states because so much of this artwork is integrated into the architecture uh of the building there are significant concerns that improper redevelopment or demolition could result in the permanent loss of a major piece of american cultural history so uh the i guess the question i have is what actions can the gao what have they recommended congress take to ensure that all federally owned assets including artwork integrated into buildings like the cone building are adequately inventoried protected and considered before any sale or disposal happens

so i haven't done direct work on that topic but what i can say is uh gsa does have as part of historic preservation screening they are supposed to identify art uh that's part of that and they can include requirements in property sales that require the protection and preservation of that art now i can't say the process that's being followed right now but i can say that is uh the standard i would say just in general uh real property data overall is uh typically flawed and it wouldn't surprise me if art is as flawed uh because it actually can be moved so it's actually trickier some at least art can be moved and so it's trickier to uh keep track of uh so it is a concern what's the data do we know what's where and how we're preserving it

yeah and this building in particular i think integrated into the building much of it and um i know that uh last april doge forced most of the gsa's fine art and historic preservation staff on administrative leave do you know if any of those folks are back to do some of this work

i don't know if they're back but that would also be a concern you need the staff obviously to track it

if you could get back to us on some of that i would really appreciate it cause i know there's a lot of concern we'd like to preserve what's um in that building uh this question i i it wasn't something um my staff gave me so i'm gonna apologize in front as i uh ask this but do you have oversight at all over the white house i mean i think loosely you do the gao my question specifically is around the ballroom i know that it's funded allegedly by private donations but i believe the ongoing costs of maintenance and security would still be our costs is that correct

so i don't know uh if it is or not uh it very well could be

ok would this be under a gao that could do a a paper on this to get back to us on other costs

so we'd be happy to work with your staff to consider on that

that'd be appreciated just cause if there are a lot of costs that maybe aren't anticipated because it's a ballroom now instead of the east wing of the capitol uh certainly would be important for us to know cause i could see different security and maintenance concerns with that so um and then the uh last question i had uh is around the hud building which being relocated to virginia i know there was some concerns uh around the law uh where it uh i think the hud act of nineteen sixty eight said that the department had to be at the seat of government which according to us code uh says the seat of government should be exercised in the district of columbia and not elsewhere and uh that this um by being relocated relocated to virginia there's a question of whether this follows the law and how it's being paid for and whether there's any risk of appropriate funds perhaps being misused or congress not being properly informed can you give me any background on this

so what i can say is we have just started up work in the past month on a request from

ok

senate appropriations to look at the HUD uh headquarters relocation including some of those uh legal issues you meant so we don't have answers on that yet but it is something we're taking a look at um in terms of the process followed there are processes for relocations uh so we will be able to have information on that soon

great i appreciate it i yield back mr. chairman

thank you mr. kokokian uh jerry now recognize mr. edwards for any questions he may have

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, thanks for being with us. This is a very interesting topic that uh most of us have an in here in Congress have an interest in. Uh, can you tell me where do we begin? Uh, I think we certainly agree on the problem. Is there some prioritized list uh that we go to work on after this hearing or Where where do where do we start? Give us a little bit of perspective.

So GSA has over the past several years, they have developed a list of core assets, what they consider to be the key holds, the properties you would want to maintain. Um, they've also identified and have started to post properties for accelerated disposal ones that they've determined, um, are either underused, have high deferred maintenance liabilities, or both. Uh, so GSA has done some of that accounting. I'm not sure if they've done it across the entire portfolio, but there is uh some sense of the properties that have the highest they certainly they certainly know which properties have the highest deferred man's liabilities. And under the use it act which was passed last year, uh we should have in a few days utilization data for all federal's leased and owned space which will give a sense of how they're being used.

Well I appreciate that you brought the use it or lose it act up and the full act. I'm the guy that uh that that wrote those and got those incorporated. So I'm uh one of my next questions was where where are those reports? It sounds like They're all they're on their way.

That is a good question.

In the mail.

Our understanding is they're supposed to come March thirty first. Uh, we are waiting for them as well, so we'll look forward to them.

Alright. Who has the authority to make decisions to divest of uh uh real estate assets that are underused?

So, the agency itself that has the the a the agency itself that has the property first makes the determination of, we don't need this. And then depending, some agencies have the authority to uh begin

So my my math tells me there are about four hundred and forty or so agencies. So what I think I hear you saying is it's up to about four hundred and forty agencies, bureaucracies to make the decision whether or not to divest of uh the property that they're holding offices in right now.

And that has to a certain extent been the case until recently, under the USIT act, uh, that there are requirements for OMB and GSA if agency space is under sixty percent utilized uh to take steps to reduce that space. Uh, and so I would say in the past that would have been more true. I think now GSA and OMB have a larger role in helping to identify properties to remove and under the USIT act call for action for them to be disposed up. So it's a little, you still have the individual agencies defining the requirements and what they need, but I think GSA and OMB have a larger role now in uh looking from above at, not just GSA owned space, but federal real property in general.

Is there a strategy to move agencies outside of DC? I'm not talking about Virginia or Maryland. I'm I'm talking about Ohio or Nebraska, Nor- Nor- North Carolina. where maybe labor markets are a bit uh a a bit easier to recruit from and where real estate costs are far far less than they are right here in DC.

So I know there have been efforts in the past, USDA in particular comes to mind a couple of the sub-agencies there, uh but there have been other relocations as well. Um in terms of real property, I think it's an important consideration when you consider relocations, it's not the main one, the main one would be getting where does it make sense to have the people to do the work bank depending on what the work they're doing but there certainly could be potential real property savings depending on where in the country you moved it would be a consideration I just don't think it would be the the largest driver of a relocation

Does your inventory of underutilized properties include properties outside of the District of Columbia?

It will now so that was the problem when we looked at this in twenty twenty three first off there wasn't good utilization data anywhere uh we had to limit our study to headquarters buildings cause at least in DC cause at least we could get some data there uh but once you got outside of it very limited information under the user act now all federal owned only space whether in DC or in Alaska has to be uh monitored for utilization reported publicly and then GSA OMB and the agencies need to take action based on those numbers

Thank you Mister Chair I'll go back.

Thank you Mister Edwards, Chair now recognizes Mister Ivey for his five minutes of question.

thank you mr. chairman thank you sir for being here today i i wanted to follow up a little bit on the the courthouse piece the judiciary piece yeah go ahead walter and get some guidance from you on that i i'm guessing sale of courthouses wouldn't be an available option in the same way that you know say for the the fbi building might be given that what sorts of strategies are there to try and catch up with i'm i'm looking at eight point three billion repair backlog apparently for the courts um what's the strategy for addressing that and just out of curiosity what are some of the courthouses that are in the absolute worst condition

so first off there are some potential for sales they have sold some courthouses but it obviously requires building a new courthouse so you're making a major uh capital investment to get to that place for the others that are in uh uh not ideal state of repair the the process is targeting prioritizing right there are more courthouses that need repairs than there is money to fund them and so it's prioritizing which are in the worst shape and then for those that are in the absolute worst shape considering does this location still meet our needs can we get appropriate funding and other other alternatives to manage this space uh in terms of specific courthouses that are particularly in poor condition i don't have those at the top of my head but we can get you some examples

alright one quick question along those lines and i this is just from my memory but i recall I don't know, I think it was like ABC, probably twenty years ago, did a, a series of reports on, um, I'll call them boondoggle courthouses. That was sort of pointing out that they were very, you know, extravagant expenditures to build some of these courthouses and some of them really are extremely impressive structures. How did we have the scenario where we have courthouses run down into the ground where people are getting trapped on elevators and you know, you've got mold and Legionnaire's disease, and at the same time you're building, you know, courthouses that are, you know, uh, architectural, you know, masterpieces, I suppose, but very expensive.

So a lot of it comes down to age and the needs on that courthouse. Older courthouse, there are a lot of older courthouses uh that one, sometimes don't meet space needs anymore. Uh, the the court has grown in those locations, but the building hasn't expanded and they're they're old, and either they haven't been properly maintained over time, or they're just at the end of their useful lives, in which case it does make sense to consider building a new location. Now in terms of the quality of the newer facilities, newer facilities are gonna be nicer. There is a design guide that the judiciary uses in coordination with GSA to say, what can and cannot be included in those spaces, which is an important tool. We've done some recent work on that and suggested some changes to uh make it more cost-effective. But generally speaking, the newer courthouses are gonna be nicer because they will be, you'll be starting fresh. as opposed to these other courthouses that either through age or uh not enough maintenance overtime have degraded.

All right, and then I I guess there are some agencies and departments where GSA plays a role in helping with the property management piece, and there are others where you don't. Uh which category does DHS fall in, with respect to this?

DHS, GSA is involved in DHS property.

OK, so for rentals, for example, GSA would be involved?

Uh they they can be involved in leases. i'm not sure if dhs has independent leasing authority or not which would mean they could lease their own space uh but i believe they are involved in dhs leases to a degree

yeah if you could get back to me on that we've got a facility where there's at least rumors that uh ice wants to rent a facility in hyattsville which is in my district i'd be curious as whether i should be coming to you or or going to dhs about that and then with respect to some of the facilities the detention facilities that they built and uh you know alligator alcatraz comes to mind i don't know if that's in your The question I had there was. There are reports that, you know, SICA was not, the competition in contracting that was not followed in in construction of those facilities. And so you have in some instances allegedly really high expenditures for what uh looks to me like tents and fences, relatively inexpensive materials that were built. Is that under uh GSA purview or or no?

So, I don't know if it is or not, it's not, it's not under our GAO's pur purview, uh, GSA may be involved. But, DHS does have some independent leasing authority, like for instance the ICE centers you mentioned. I believe they are, ICE has the authority to lease those locations. GSA has been helping them find locations, but I don't believe they've been the one actually doing the leases themselves. I'm not as familiar with Alligator Alley and what they might have done with that process.

Fair enough. But in the general, uh, procurement process for construction of new facilities, SICA is the standard that is followed. Is that a fair statement?

I believe so.

All right. Thank you. I'll yield back.

Thank you, Chair, and I'll recognize Mister Alford for his five minutes questions.

Thank you, Chairman Joyce and Ranking Member Hoyer. Uh, the federal government owns and manages a massive real estate portfolio, hundreds of millions of square feet of space across the nation, yet we still struggle to answer some very basic questions about what we own, where it is, how it's being used, And that's a problem. GEO has kept federal real property on its high risk list for more than two decades, pointing to persistent issues with rate waste utilization and poor data management. At the same time, we're facing a growing deferred maintenance backlog that could be as high as fifty billion dollars while many federal buildings sit partially empty or underuse. We cannot manage what we cannot measure, and one of the core challenges here is the lack of unified, reliable and accessible inventory of federal property. Instead, the federal government Operates more than one hundred separate real property systems across agencies, creating fragmentation, duplication, and inefficiency. I think that's unacceptable for the taxpayers. Tools like the Federal Real Property Profile have the potential to bring transparency and accountability to the system, but only if the data is complete, accessible, and usable. That includes making sure it's geo-enabled, integrated across agencies, and capable of giving members of Congress and the public a clear picture of federal assets in their communities. This is not just about data. It's about making smarter decisions, disposing of unused property, reducing maintenance costs, and making sure that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently. Thank you for being here. It's been a year since we we spoke. Um, what has changed in the last year? What can give us an update? What has been some of the accomplishments, uh, in one year's time?

So I'd say the progress of the USIT Act. We still have to see the data and how good it is, but actually getting some indication some indicators of how owned and leased space across the country is being used is an important first step to then deciding what is worth holding on to what should be consolidated and gotten rid of uh so that's progress there have been some property disposals um uh including just this past week the regional office building in southwest uh being disposed of so there is progress there and i'd say uh there's still more to be done because at the end of the day these are not easy things to do they take money and they take time But the key is for the momentum that has been building for the past several years to right size the real property footprint that is carried through to results. My main concern is that the action continues because it's easy to get in a situation where there are delays, where time passes on, and properties are not actually disposed if they're held on to. So I think there's been good progress. Uh, the past several years, it's important to sustain that and move forward with the new data.

What challenge is it trying to predict the in-person labor force at these buildings?

yeah so it depends on the size and location of the building in sort of these big headquarters buildings in d. c. uh using badging data has become uh is a relatively straight forward in most cases to track attendance uh and also for purposes of utilization using that information to figure out once you get in into the field into smaller spaces again if you're talking an office building in a downtown that's relatively straight forward again badging uh but smaller spaces uh can be challenging but g. s. a. has identified a number of ways you can do that from everything from computer logins to uh surveys to uh check-ins just again the point is not for the data to be perfect the point is to get a sense of what are where are these buildings generally at in terms of the utilization and then you can drill down for the ones that are low number and figure out what's going on here should we get rid of this space

i noticed one of the challenges in this report is that agencies don't want to share space why is that

Cultural reticence is really not acceptable, but it is, it is a mindset in some cases where, this is my space, this defines the agency I am. Other agencies do. Other a, like for instance, at GO, Army Corps of Engineers headquarters is that GO building. Agencies can share space, sub-agencies can share space, it's just a a change in mindset.

One of the agencies I'm particularly concerned with is the USDA. I know they're moving some of their offices to Kansas City. They're looking at property, I think have already made some contracts on lease. uh, in Kansas City proper. I talked with the Under Secretary, uh, about that when we were in, uh, St. Louis at the USDA building there. Um, the USDA building, one of the buildings, uh, is up for sale here in Washington DC. How is that sale going?

So, I don't know how the sale is going. We don't have current information. I know it is up for sale and, uh, that will be a major property based on its location for, uh, GSA to market. Um. I don't know the current status.

Is it reasonable to think that that building is dilapidated as it is with windows rotting out that it would be torn down or revitalized for some other purpose?

Uh, depends on the price and what the market comes back with.

All right. Thank you, sir. I yield back.

Thank you, Mister Alfred, chair, and I'll recognize Mister Bishop for five minutes.

Thank you. Um, I was interested in the south building of USDA also. Um. i kinda wanna get your thoughts on the government's decision to sell it rather than to retain it uh is it possible that uh you can get the reasonable asking price considering the overdue maintenance and the condition that it's in uh does gsa typically take in account the unique and desirable location like in this case it's proximity to the national mall and other federal buildings uh do they take that into consideration uh when deciding to permanently relinquish holdings uh

they they

and if if for example the next administration uh decides to bring usga workers back to the region

they do

how would selling the property impact future efforts to provide space for those that may come back in the future

well well if you do relocate staff back to d. c. obviously if you don't have the building anymore that's going to be a challenge you're gonna have to find another solution somewhere in the area whether owned or leased uh but it is a a large workforce so if you made the move back uh it would take investment of funds and some time

obviously uh maintaining a building that is uh not occupied uh not getting full use uh is expensive so i understand the balancing that has to uh take place uh however uh when we are relocating workers uh it would seem to me that uh we ought to consider uh renovating and utilizing space that we have rather than uh building new space if if it's at all possible and of course that's an excellent location it's a very prominent uh location and it's it's historic uh and of course the department of agriculture i think is the oldest uh federal agency that we have and uh it's position on the mall uh probably should be uh uh maintained uh so i'm sad to see the disposition of the south building uh fortunately the main building is still going to be there but uh i'm just wondering whether or not uh we're being penterize and pound foolish with all of the uh um the uh the uh selling the sales of uh all of these uh federal properties

So you need to have a plan. Uh it has to be disposing of properties in a timely matter is important, and it's been a problem for a long time that disposals take forever. But you still have to balance it with appropriate planning. What's our strategy for this agency? What do they need? And what is the condition of the facility we have versus other space we could either build or more likely lease? Uh and that really should go on across all the agencies for all their portfolios, uh including USDA.

K so, how how are you going to be able to deal with uh the deferred maintenance that has been um in effect for such a long time because I know they're um many more properties than just the ones that are up for sale. All of them seem to be suffering from deferred maintenance uh how how how are you going to address that uh in the near term?

So it's a big problem and in the near term there may not be a perfect solution, I'd say in the near term it's about prioritizing uh gsa using facility condition assessments of the buildings they control to identify what are the highest priority items which are the buildings in the worst ava pair that we intend to keep and investing the money in there for facilities where the liability is so high particularly those where they're already underused taking penciling it out and say does it make sense for us to hold this building or should we dispose of it getting it down the pipeline um the other actions you can take are you can congress could provide more funding but i don't think at the end of the day more funding is gonna fundamentally solve this problem we have a lot of old aging buildings that have large liabilities so some of it can be uh improved annual maintenance can be improved in these buildings with more funding but the fundamental dynamic of older underutilized buildings is still there

some sometimes the uh the tenants uh don't get uh the best value for that dollar uh i can speak uh for that personally i had a congressional office that was located in a a gsa control building one of the federal courthouses and uh it was not very well maintained and of course uh we found it much more um economical and uh uh beneficial to locate a private uh property

one that's an example of the calculus that agency should be making just like your office did is it to our benefit to be in this location or not in terms of and is the property being maintained sufficiently i think it points to the problem of um there is there's only so many resources to go around these buildings are old and aging and you can prioritize maintenance to improve certain facilities and certainly for the assets you plan to hold for the long term those are the facilities to invest and to consolidate in other properties they've passed their useful lives it would be more efficient to either go into other owned states consolidate into other federally owned space or to lease in those conditions

my time as expert

Thank you, Mr. Bishop. Uh, obviously with the interest that's been shown, we wanna continue on and go to the second round. I wanna uh talk about something that you had brought up before, I believe to Miss Henson's question. And do we have when you said there was different variations of five to ten and twenty year lease, do we do that in a way that it's a lease to own or a turnkey operation?

So there have been some examples of that where there is a lease to own, like for instance the Department of Transportation Headquarters building.

Yes.

Uh that started out as a a leased facility and then uh the federal government exercised this option to buy so it's now a federally owned property. So it does happen. It's not a it is not a all the time condition.

It's not something you look for.

Right.

It it it's it's not something you look for.

I it's not something

They're trying to turn over our inventory, sell off the other things and do get new buildings and new ownership.

I I I mean you could uh that could be one of the tools in your toolbox. It's not the only tool in your toolbox but one could be so the advantage potentially of uh a lease to own option uh would be that space might have been better maintained because your lease payment your rent payment is covering the operations maintenance

right

it's being maintained by a private sector company that there's contract requirements for so when you're buying it you have a one you've been renting it so you have a very good sense of the product you're getting and it might have been better maintained than say an owned federal facility the downside is you've made all those lease payments over the years and so it may not pencil out depending on when you get to it you also have to have funding to actually purchase it at that point and it can be a big cost so there are trade-offs.

Hmm? Speaking of trade-offs now, do you do an assessment of the you're basically triaging old buildings so do you do an assessment of whether it's worth the dollars to fix the old building or you you're trying to move around the maintenance dollars to say keep those that you can in habitable or the best condition and start to write off those ones that are beyond repair or yeah their use of life?

So GSA certainly does, GSA certainly does uh with limited funds they do those kind of condition assessments for the buildings, they look at how those are being used, which properties are long-term holds that you would want to invest the most resources in and which properties are not long-term holds, properties you're probably gonna dispose of. You'd still need to do, there's still a cost, you can't just leave a building by itself, you still have to maintain it uh to use it to make it operational, but you're probably not gonna do major renovations if you're planning to get rid of a building.

And you were talking about the consolidation or putting two agencies in one building some don't like it i know everybody's involved in the turf war the the theory has to be who cares you know it's our taxpayer money and these people need to understand consolidation and fix the problems that we have instead of having a half used building just because of egos so in that light has there been an assessment done on space necessary and consolidation

so there under the use of acts for all the headquarters locations in the national capital region gsa and omb are supposed to provide a report in days uh that is identifying plans for those buildings in terms of what are some consolidation opportunities what are buildings we would hold as a federal government um and i think that's important because there are reasons why agencies might need their own space if they have a special national security mission specific functions where you need your own space but if you're doing general office work

right

you can have your own floor, right? You can have your own designated space where it's still your agency, but you're in the building. And quite frankly, once you get outside the national capital region, this is how federal buildings operate. You don't have, generally speaking, single tenant federal office buildings in downtowns across the country. You have EPA's there and OPM's there and whatever other agencies you can think of are in the same building, just dis- delineated offices.

And I love that concept, because I don't think they all have to be consolidated here. With my timeline interior removed, uh, Bureau of Land Management out to Grand Junction, Colorado, because all the people out West who used the BLM the most were flying into DC, for no valid reason other than coming to DC because they didn't wanna give up their space here even though they served people majority ninety some percent of their work was out West uh unfortunately the last administration then you know went gave up that lease and moved them back here uh when it was over but uh I've always been a fan of the idea that we're gonna take these back uh the Department of Agriculture doesn't necessarily need to be in DC. Uh, there are different agencies that could move outside and be a boom to other uh areas of our country, and make it a better facility by doing that because, as brought up before too, some of the costs are gonna be less expensive to be in Washington DC. But, uh, let's get back to yours. I got one last one I wanna try squeeze in here. You talk about some of these buildings that need to be torn down. What can we do to help you? And, you know, what problems are you seeing out there? Is it a zoning issue? is a local issue that you're having a problem with trying to uh uh do the destruction to get the property necessary for resale.

well so it would depend on. gsa s evaluation of individual properties so. in general they are not demolishing at least large scale buildings you might have smaller. you know very small structures that they're demolishing. there could be some locations where they determine that's worthwhile i think the challenges they would run into are cost right having the funding it takes upfront funding to do that. so having the money to demolish it. um there would certainly be environmental concerns environment they have to go through an environmental remediation process potentially historic preservation depending on the the quality of the building so there are some uh hurdles there that you go through as part of that process generally speaking gsa is not demolishing uh these larger buildings they're putting them for sale and then it's a matter of what's the price that the market will take it on without demolishing uh for that location and also penciling out does it make more sense for the federal government just to sell it at a lower price than spend the money to demolish and then sell

And just one last one, you should brought,

Yep.

where do those funds go? They go back to you, for the maintenance or do they go back to the treasury?

So if, if a property is sold,

Yes.

so the, the proceeds It depends on the location. Generally, funds go back to the treasury, but some agencies have retained, uh, authority to retain the funds. I'm not sure in GSA's case if they go back to the federal building fund or not. Do we know? We can follow up on that one.

Uh, no worries. Thank you. I apologize for going over. Now recognize Mister Hoyer for his questions.

No apologies necessary. The chairman ought to have that opportunity to do that. Um L let me ask you a question. Obviously, uh the overwhelming majority of federal employees work outside of the Washington DC area. Can you tell me the uh percentage of uh space that the federal government owns that is outside the washington d. c. area as opposed to in

so i know when we did our our review of the twenty four cfo act agency headquarters which is not all the space in d. c. but it was uh north of twenty million square feet and then overall for gsa alone gsa has uh north of three hundred and fifty million square feet uh and then the federal government beyond that has even more so

uh no make sure i understand twenty million in the washington

in the for the twenty four cfo act agency headquarters so that's a lower number than is the reality because you have other headquarters here beyond that but

what would you estimate cause you said three hundred and seventy

three hundred and sixty million or so for gsa outside owned and leased

outside owned and leased

uh was three hundred and sixty million overall for gsa owned and leased then you have twenty million or so that is in the d. c. area for just those twenty four headquarters agencies there's gonna be more space cause it's more than just headquarters in d. c. that number is low but if you just looking at that math uh and then that three hundred sixty is just GSA so you're not talking about all the other agencies that have real property that they own and control uh so you are looking at a large uh infrastructure outside of the national capital region

give me give me a ballpark but educated estimate are we talking seven eight to one

let me get back with you i won't give you a wrong number but it's a significant difference there'd be a lot outside of DC especially if you're considering DOD and other structures that just

would you ok yeah

It's gonna be significant.

OK. Thank you. Mister Chairman, I would like to at this time ask that this report be included in the record at this time, the GSA not consistently addressing deficient security features to the GSA control.

It's a word?

And I'd like to include two uh articles as well with reference to the underlying report.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman. Um. Done that. The USID Act, is is that what you were referring to, the USID Act?

Yes, exactly. It was part of the Water Resources and Development Act last year.

Right. Who signed that bill?

Uh, President Biden.

President Biden signed that bill.

President Biden signed the bill.

Uh, and I I think we all voted for the bill. It was pretty unanimous, I think, on both sides of the aisle.

It was it passed with high numbers, yeah.

It's a smart thing to do. Again, I reiterate, Mr. Chairman, as you know, I've said in terms of numbers, employees, I represent seventy seven thousand, but I tell them as well i tell the unions i tell what i want is a right size not a more or less but the right size so do you have uh any which is related issue um recommendation on what you started your uh testimony with because i know i spent a lot of time talking to the former director of gsa under uh president biden about a some funding mechanism will which will assure both the ability to construct needed buildings and to maintain buildings. Every government at every level and every household in America defers maintenance until the roof goes uh and then they have to pay more. And that's what we do. It's just everybody does it because why? It doesn't have a today effect. And so you say, well, we'll do that next year. Um, and I would like you to submit to the committee your opinion on what the best you you mentioned in your testimony, the best way to prepare ourselves to fund and implement maintenance and building in um the most efficient way possible. And let me say, I'm a strong supporter of the of you use it, and I I frankly, I went to some buildings which had uh very small numbers of people in it, and I I thought to myself, you know, what's going on here?

Mm-hmm.

Uh and uh we ought to make sure that we have space available and some swing space available, but not so much that it's not utilized and it's just gathering dust. forward of that and look forward to getting your recommendations on how best to do that.

Got it.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Thank you, Mister Hoyer. Now I recognize Miss Hinson for additional questions.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Um, I mentioned I wanted to kind of follow up on some security uh questions and um, specific to Utah and and I'm also looking forward to seeing what comes out of these user reports um and seeing where we can find government agencies that collaborate, and to our ranking members' point, make sure we're utilizing all of that space effectively um it's about obviously getting these people back into the office making sure they're working collaboratively um as we discussed in our hearing yesterday um and making sure that we uh have the proper um utilized space in our federal buildings but so when we're talking about not just using um both federal agencies but potentially private sector partnerships as well um for some of that space and local entities um have you considered uh at gao some of the potential security concerns with uh maybe some of those proposals costs with the shared property um if we do engage with private sector or some of those other local entities

so that's a consideration you would definitely have to work it out as part of the uh agreement being very clear in your contract who's responsible for what including security and ensuring you have an appropriate level of security

ok but so that is being considered as you have those conversations

so this is something gsa would take into account as they're going through these arrangements

are there certain agencies that you think would be better suited for those kinds of public private partnerships in terms of the space or do you think it

I don't think it applies universally, I think it depends on the mission of the specific agency and the sub-agencies you're talking about and even within for instance DOD uh which obviously has the national security mission there may be aspects within it offices that could share space and others where you definitely wouldn't want to so it depends.

Right, if it's in the interest of protecting national security, obviously we need to be very careful about who we're partnering with and who could potentially access that lease space and I certainly,

Right.

uh I agree there we have to do everything we can to to make sure again it it applies to the right agencies. Uh, from your testimony it seems though that this is something, you know, in terms of the proposals for potentially sharing space with the private sector that GAO has been considering for um more than a decade, I think since twenty fourteen. So, um, have you heard from GSA on why they have not more aggressively pursued this? Uh, do you think it goes back to what you said earlier, I think in response to Mister Alford's question of well, well, this is a turf battle, right? And these agencies wanna protect their own turf. Where do you think that lies?

i don't think it's a a turf battle when it comes to gsa they have tried some of these alternative financing mechanisms in the past um there are some limited examples i think it's a challenge uh figuring out the funding piece figuring out the score keeping uh piece of this

mmm

uh can be a challenge too so i think these are still mechanisms worth exploring and gsa should but it's going to depend again on the facts and circumstances and find the right private sector partner in the right location so it's one of those things they should have their ears open to i suspect they do have their ears open to Uh, but it's not gonna work in every situation.

OK. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much, Miss Henson. Now recognize Mr. Ivey for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just curious, uh, just based on some of the questions and and answers from a moment ago. So, I know in the private sector, after the move towards remote work, there were a lot of private sector companies that decided to stay on that track. And They brought a lot of people back to work, but some, you know, twenty five to thirty five percent of their employees frequently work remotely. And I know one of the reasons they did that was because they could reduce the size of the office space that they needed. Um, and so from a private sector's standpoint, they thought that they could get savings actually from remote work. Now, I don't wanna get into debate about, you know, what's more efficient or not. Um, you know, I think generally speaking I'd pick Microsoft over the federal government, but we'll set that to the side for the moment. But is that something that's calculated and, cuz my my recollection was that there were some buildings, there were federal buildings that were being built, moving towards, moving away from the concept of every employee has an office of his or her own to shared office space or a what is it called a hotel um eh eh eh where what's the status of that

Mm-hmm. I know, yeah.

now and and how the federal government is making these decisions?

so it's always a consideration of how you so desk sharing hoteling that is an important tool to get to the utilization rates required under the user act especially for staff who uh even if they're coming in everyday some of the people's jobs are not in that building everyday and so you don't need to have that one person if they're in one day a week because they're on site four days you don't need to have them have their own office you can share it across uh folks so those still make sense now they make more sense when you have a higher level of telework Because then you have a larger opportunity to do that type of desk sharing. But it still makes sense today, even with a return to office framework, because again, many workers are not in that location every day based on their jobs. Even if they're in office, they're in office might be a construction site, a testing site, things like that.

Well, I just. Just thinking it through and that, you know, I I'm not even sure what my my final position on this would be, but it does occur to me that there's a fluctuation right now in have sort of political considerations or policy judgments, not to be judgmental about it, but about whether people should be back in the office or not. But then you make relatively long-term decisions that are not susceptible to this policy choice about how many offices you're gonna have per individual employee. And so how you balance that out,

It is challenging.

that's why you get paid the big bucks, right?

It is challenging for, for GSA to do that, for any agency that has real property to do that. You're making decisions based on the policy you have at the time you're making the decision. Um, it's one of the reasons to consider, particularly leasing in some situations where you have uncertainty, leasing for at least the short term can make sense, if you're not sure what your requirement's going to be long term. If you have a longer sense of this is the way we're going, long term, we need this space on a more permanent basis, then owning tends to make more sense. Uh, so it is a challenge. It is a challenge, especially if you're talking about uh potentially moving back and forth to what your space needs are. But either way, whether you're talking about a more telework model or more in-office model, you should still be looking at things like desk sharing, like how much space we use and how much extra are in some of these buildings that can account for both full in-office or a telework model, just you know, working through the system. So it's a challenge.

All right, and then new topic, um. Previous comments were along the lines of if you move things out of Washington DC or the DC area to other parts of the country. It costs less, and so it's easier to put people there in the standard of living as though. That's not automatically true. In fact, I think with respect to the agriculture discussions, with respect to uh the Ag- Agriculture Research Center, one of the findings was that um actually it's more expensive to move people to some of the sites that they'd chosen than it is to leave them in Prince George's County, which has um a less expensive uh standard than uh you know cost from the standpoint of uh uh rent and the like then d. c. and other parts of uh the d. c. area so i hope that will be part of the consideration as those evaluations are done

and and there are multiple costs but yeah i mean real property is one cost you also have to build in the cost of moving relocating cause there's a cost to that as well um so you really for even it's again facts and circumstances you have to pencil out for the project and then even i would say more important than real property it is a

Yeah, and a transfer of employees as well would be another big one. I think the last time AG did one of these, like half of the staff didn't move to the new sites, uh, because of the challenges of, you know, having to relocate and the like. But, I'll leave it at that. Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you though, especially, sir, for coming in and testify for two years in a row. We appreciate it.

Certainly do and uh the distinguished ranking member might have a question left in the, he wanted to address.

This is not, I understand, directly in your purview because you deal with infrastructure. But, I think we really do need good information on what um What do we call it? Working at home, that's not the phrase. Telework.

Telework, yeah.

Um. What GAO, some branch of GAO ought to tell us

Mm-hmm.

what was the productivity impact of doing that? Because a lot of private sector does it because it's more productive and they save on cost of uh you know headquarters or office space. Um, and I don't know whether GAO has done such a study But we hear a lot of debate about it and there's a lot of difference of opinion, uh, how effective that is.

Mm-hmm.

And the average supervisor, if he doesn't see the person believes that somehow they're not working as productively. That may or may not be so, I don't know. But I would ask you to see if somebody in your shop has, whether they've done a study of that and whether they give an answer to that.

So, so I can answer that, we have, uh, not not my group specifically, but GAO has taken a look at telework.

Right.

productivity both I believe in the private sector and in federal agencies. I'm happy to connect them with your staff and provide the relevant information.

Right. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.

Thank you, Mr. Hoyer. And uh Director Maroney, you you've been a treasure of bad news for us. Uh

Sorry.

and certainly appreciate that. And and uh as Ranking Member Hoyer had brought up, this is a wonderful hearing, uh be able to have this kind of interchange with you. Uh, so is it, before we clock out here, wanted to give you an opportunity. Is there something you would ask Congress for that could help you do this job better?

So I think a few things that Congress could do that would help the momentum here. Uh, one, provide strong oversight of the implementation of the USED Act. Do we get the reporting? What's the quality of the reported data, uh, from the executive branch? And then is there follow through? Uh, the act requires after a two year period for any buildings that are under any space that's under sixty percent utilization for omb gsa to uh work with the agency to reduce that space making sure that actually happens so that's one over side of the user act implementation uh another would be for congress to take a look at the prospectus threshold that's a particular issue with gsa right now it's about four million dollars um that captures a number of repair projects that are not they're not new buildings not huge when you're talking about a huge building that you have to say replace elevators in, you're gonna pass four million dollars and the prospectus process provides important oversight but it can also add time to the project what ultimately adds costs so just taking a look at that it's obviously a policy choice cause there's a balance here between the flexibility you give the agencies and oversight uh but something at least to consider that might smooth smooth it works.

Mm-hmm.

I'd say considering how to designate funding in some way for optimization efforts, where you are both providing funding specifically to get properties ready for disposal, so you can move those quicker, have that funding ready, but also ensuring that funding is going to those priority properties that you're going to hold, so that those properties don't degrade over time. And then we're not talking five years from now about those holds being in bad shape. Um, those are, those are important things, they're challenging things, but I think those are areas where Congress could definitely, uh, provide some value and, um, i guess the last one i would highlight i don't think it makes as significant of a difference but taking a look as a congress authorizing committees in particular the disposal process itself the steps involved in uh which are important steps uh involving environmental remediation historic preservation considering if state and local agencies uh could use the building i'm not saying those are bad steps but they do at some time it's not the main reason my disposals are slow but it is a reason and taking a look do those make sense in all cases are there some flexibilities that could be potentially given there

oh good

at least in specific circumstances. Again, it's a policy choice. I can't tell you what way to go there, but at least it's worth taking a look at.

They're great, all those are great suggestions and uh hopefully we can uh get around to following through on them, and make both of our jobs easier. Uh one, you just, I don't wanna uh keep going but, you you just brought up something about, so what you're saying is that, say we have building X, we should tie the maintenance funds for building X to that building, versus giving them into a central pot?

Well, you could still keep it through the federal billing fund and just say we're appropriating at a higher level based on what GSA's estimates of what it costs for that billing to be I mean I think a key distinction here just theoretical.

Yeah.

When you're leasing space, the rental payment includes operating and maintaining that space. So you're just paying a single fee, just like if you're running an apartment, right? You're not taking care of generally the maintenance of that space. So that that's built in with owned space, with federally owned space, that's not as built in. The in theory, the federal billings fund is there to provide that operation maintenance costs for GSA owned buildings, and other agencies get appropriations from their subcommittees to do that, but it's easier there for that to be deprioritized. And that's where you can get in this problem of building's age, it's reality. And to your point, Mister Ranking Member, it's also it's something not all deferred maintenance is created the same. Some things it's fine to defer, and other things you're creating a big and potentially expensive problem for yourself, down the road. Being able to create some mechanism, where when you build a new property, or you're just retaining a a hold property going forward, and better ensuring that the needed operations and maintenance funds for that building for that year go to that building. So you're keeping up with it consistently over time, as opposed to, you know, some years maybe there's enough, other years there's not, and so things get put off and it gets worse over time.

Fair enough, I hear you.

Thank you, Chairman. Uh just there

Mike.

the figure I have and

Uh uh you you may know.

is they're spending two hundred and fifty million dollars per year on maintenance of the FBI building. Alone. And that's not for it it it just maintains it from getting worse, it doesn't make it better.

Right. Oper operational maintenance long-term is gonna way be more expensive than actually the cost of building that facility. If you're talking about a building you're holding for thirty, forty years, the amount you spend on operation and maintenance is just gonna dwarf it over time, which is why it's important to maintain it. it's expensive, but if you don't, then that bill gets worse and worse, and more importantly, you lose the value of the asset. Both of you are gonna dispose of it, but for the mission, which is ultimately what this is all for, right? We don't have buildings to have buildings, we have buildings to serve the mission of the agencies and the American taxpayer. And so that's why it matters.

And with that, I know all good things must come to an end, and I'd like to thank you, Mister Moroney, for being here today. There may be some members who would like to submit additional questions, and then please for the record, submit any questions for the record. uh to the subcommittee within the next seven days and this subcommittee now stands adjourned.