Like many organizations that rely on taxpayer dollars to fund their operations, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has long struggled with the burden of aging facilities that require a growing backlog of critical repairs just to operate safely and reliably. Now the issue has risen to a truly critical level.
Addressing the backlog of deferred maintenance and repairs in federal buildings is among the most critical issues facing the GSA, according to a new report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO).
The GAO’s report closely follows one by the inspector general’s office at GSA identifying safety and security hazards in those buildings as among the most significant management challenges facing the government’s landlord agency, according to FedWeek.
Federal real property management has been on GAO’s high-risk list since 2003, but this is the first time that deferred maintenance and repairs has been on GAO’s separate “priority open recommendations” report for GSA.
The most recent GSA budget proposal provided some information on addressing its deferred maintenance and repair backlog, including through requests for obligational authority and maintenance funding, according to the report. But the GSA’s request did not identify ways to address funding issues or present a longer-term plan for how GSA intends to address its backlog, including needed funding amounts and timeframes.”
Besides the maintenance issue, the GAO cited building-related issues, including collecting and sharing information on utilization of space in those buildings and lessons learned from efforts to dispose of excess properties.
GSA told a House hearing in 2022 that much of the federally owned property under its control was “suffering from the consequences of significant deferred maintenance, driven by inadequate investment” that puts federal employees and visitors to those buildings at risk.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.
