Property Management

Excess and Surplus Personal Property Transfers to Nonfederal Organizations Gao ID: GGD-88-68 May 13, 1988

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed: (1) executive agencies' procedures regarding the transfer of excess and the donation of surplus federal personal property to nonfederal organizations; and (2) whether the General Services Administration (GSA) conducted timely regional reviews of the operations of state agencies for surplus property.

GAO found that: (1) since the implementation of P.L. 94-519, federal agencies have acquired a greater percentage of excess personal property than nonfederal organizations; (2) although the amount of excess property donated to nonfederal organizations increased from $243 million to $371 million in the 2 years prior to implementation, the amount of excess donated property has not exceeded $54 million; (3) some agencies did not include all the required information in their annual reports or did not submit their reports to GSA within the required calendar quarter; (4) the Department of Energy (DOE) did not include the excess personal property furnished to its contractors in its annual report; (5) state agencies donated $35.6 million in personal property to three new categories, because the law encouraged donation to a wider range of eligible nonfederal organizations; (6) 44 state agencies donated a disproportionate amount of excess property to their 10 largest recipients; (7) 440 of about 29,800 organizations received 35 percent of the total donated amount; (8) about 25 state agencies requested less than their full entitlements, and 11 received 200 percent or more of their entitlements because no other states requested them; (9) due to a decrease in donated excess property, many state agencies had operating losses from 1983 through 1985; and (10) GSA reviews did not include the financial conditions of state agencies' operations.

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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