General Services Administration's Practices in Awarding and Administering Leases Could Be Improved

The General Services Administration (GSA) leases 90.5 million square feet of space at an annual rent of about $400 million to accommodate federal departments and agencies. Commitments for current leases total about $2.1 billion.

Deficiencies were found in GSA practices for awarding leases. These deficiencies involved some of the major functions of GSA in acquiring leased space and included avoiding the requirement for congressional authorization of major leases, inconsistent methods of calculating rent for determining compliance with the Economy Act limitation, failure to determine compliance with the Economy Act limitation, limited competition obtained in acquiring leased space, inadequate consideration of some offers, leasing space not ready for occupancy, and leasing more space than required. GSA also negotiated uneconomical rental adjustments for government assumption of the utilities and services costs previously furnished by the lessors and for vacating leased space. The government was also paying for utilities used by commercial tenants in government-leased buildings.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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