Federal Real Property

S. 2805 would require the General Services Administration (GSA) to take a leadership role--in collaboration with the heads of federal landholding agencies--to publish and maintain a current set of real property asset management principles. H.R. 3285 would require GSA to establish performance measures to track executive branch agencies' progress in achieving property management objectives and would compare the government's performance with that of the private sector. S.2805 would also provide for a Senior Real Property Officer who would oversee all real property asset management activities and would work with the respective agency's Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, and head of human resources. The Senior Real Property Officer should be qualified through education, training, experience, and certification. A comprehensive, reliable listing of federal properties, as envisioned by S. 2805, is essential to overseeing and managing the government's large portfolio of federal assets. The bill also would amend current law to allow each agency to retain the proceeds of real property sales and deposit them into agency capital asset accounts for real property needs. The bill would also provide property managers with four new enhanced management tools: (1) interagency transfers or exchanges, (2) sales to or exchanges with nonfederal sources, (3) subleases, and (4) outleases. However, the 20-year limitation generally placed on outleases could significantly reduce the usefulness of this tool for properties that are historically significant or in economically depressed areas.

GAO noted that: (1) S. 2805 would require the General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator to take a leadership role, in collaboration with the heads of federal landholding agencies, to publish, and maintain a set of real property asset management principles; (2) these principles would be used by agencies as guidance in making decisions about property planning, acquisition, use, maintenance, and disposal; (3) GSA believes that these principles would promote more efficient and effective use of federal assets and better communication among the agencies; (4) H.R. 3285 would require the GSA Administrator to establish performance measures designed to track executive branch agencies' progress in achieving property management objectives; (5) S. 2805 also would provide for a Senior Real Property Officer to oversee all real property asset management activities relating to agency programs and operations; (6) the Senior Real Property Officer would continuously monitor the management of assets to ensure that they were being used and invested in a way that supported the goals and objectives of the agency's strategic plan; (7) S. 2805 would require the GSA Administrator to accumulate and maintain a single, comprehensive, worldwide listing of all real property interests under the custody and control of federal agencies; (8) presently, GSA has no assurance that their inventory contains accurate, timely, or complete data and has no leverage or authority over property holding agencies to ensure that the data they voluntarily submit is current, accurate, or complete; (9) GAO believes that a comprehensive, reliable listing of federal properties, as envisioned by S. 2805, is essential to overseeing and managing the government's large portfolio of federal assets; (10) S. 2805 would provide managers more flexibility and incentives for better property management; (11) the bill would amend the law so that each agency could retain proceeds from the sales of real property and deposit them into agency capital asset accounts for real property needs; (12) each agency would be able to be reimbursed for the costs of property dispositions from the proceeds of the dispositions or from its capital asset accounts; (13) S. 2805 provides asset management tools, which in themselves may be incentives for agency property managers to better manage federal real estate assets; and (14) the bill would provide four new enhanced asset management tools for effective management of federal property: (a) interagency transfers or exchanges; (b) sales to or exchanges with nonfederal sources; (c) subleases; and (d) outleases.