Posts Tagged ‘excess property’

The Pentagon’s year-old defense strategy is threatened by two principal dangers, stress on the force and a political system that forces the military to operate with little certainty about available resources, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week at a National Press Club luncheon. The department’s effort to ensure the health of the force by investing in its readiness, though, is hamstrung by political considerations that prevent officials from directing funding to the military’s highest priorities …

The General Services Administration is bolstering efforts to auction unneeded federal properties as part of a push to identify and dispose of surplus facilities. GSA is working with other agencies to accelerate the process of preparing unneeded properties for sale and moving them to market, reported Federal Times. Last year the agency sold 79 properties for $37 million, and this year it plans to surpass that pace …

The path to a streamlined process for disposing of thousands of unneeded federal properties while raising billions in government revenue is filled with a variety of roadblocks, including competing legislative proposals, opposition over an exemption to a rule intended to benefit homeless groups and overly optimistic valuations of surplus buildings. Later this month, the Senate is expected to debate a proposal introduced by Thomas Carper (D-Del.) that would establish a five-year pilot program for agencies to eliminate excess properties, reports CQ Today …

A House panel held a field hearing this week at an empty federal courthouse in Miami to publicize their campaign to ease the process for the federal government to shed excess properties. The hearing — led by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) — was held at the 79-year-old Dyer Courthouse, which has been vacant since 2007 when a new courthouse was completed across the street. The 179,000-square-foot courthouse costs taxpayers $1.2 million a year to maintain …

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a measure Friday to speed up the disposal of unneeded and underutilized federal property and help agencies manage existing space in a more cost-effective manner. Last week, DC 360 reported incorrectly that the committee had approved the 2012 Federal Real Property Asset Management Reform Act, S. 2178, on Wednesday. The committee, however, voted only to amend the measure with a substitute bill on Wednesday. The panel could not approve the legislation because it lacked a quorum …

A Senate committee passed legislation Tuesday intended to help agencies shed underutilized and unneeded federal property as part of an initiative to save $15 billion over 10 years. The Federal Real Property Asset Management Reform Act, passed by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, would streamline the current federal real property disposal process and implement measures that eliminate property mismanagement and achieve greater efficiencies within the existing disposal process. S. 2178 would create a Federal Real Property Council to help agencies better manage existing space in a more cost-effective manner and require each agency to have a senior real property management officer …

The federal government lacks reliable data on the number of excess properties it owns, calling into question the White House’s effort to achieve $3 billion in savings by the end of fiscal 2012, concluded a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The congressional watchdog agency found that data maintained by the Federal Real Property Council — including buildings’ utilization, condition, operating costs and value — is not always accurate and consistent. Some federal efforts to better manage excess properties have been discontinued, with the potential savings achieved unclear …

While the Pentagon is reviewing its force posture in Europe and Asia with the intent to consolidate the overseas footprint of the military services, officials should not overlook the “significant numbers” of facilities and personnel of the major defense agencies, the Senate Armed Services Committee notes in its report accompanying the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill the panel approved last month. To ensure those agencies are not ignored, the committee directs the deputy defense secretary to evaluate the feasibility and cost savings associated with closing overseas facilities and consolidating operations of the 16 defense agencies to existing facilities within the U.S. …

Citing conflicting statements from senior Pentagon officials characterizing the extent to which the military has excess infrastructure, the Senate Armed Services Committee is requesting the Government Accountability Office to review the processes DOD uses to make such determinations, according to the panel’s report accompanying the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill it approved last month. “Senior Army officials have been quoted as stating that the Army has no interest in another BRAC round. Yet, recent briefings to the committee suggest that the Army does have excess capacity …

The federal government is on pace to exceed President Obama’s goal to save $8 billion in real estate costs this year, the Office of Management and Budget said Thursday. In an effort to eliminate wasteful spending on federal real estate, agencies already have saved more than $5.6 billion during fiscal 2012, but $3.3 billion of that stems from previous BRAC recommendations, according to a blog post from Controller Danny Werfel …