Budgeting for Facilities Maintenance and Repair Activities: Report Number 131 (1996)

To use the BRB's 2 to 4 percent guideline properly, it is as important to determine what items to leave out of an M&R budget as it is to determine what items to include. The committee, therefore, compared notes on the policies of their agencies on the subject.

The committee found that the agencies generally are in agreement that M&R budgets should not include funds for any activities that are primarily operational or for any construction work that expands or changes the function of a facility or lengthens its life beyond its original design life. However, as noted previously, there are gray areas associated with the implementation of this general policy.

Most activities associated with the operation of facilities do not include any significant amount of maintenance or repair work and thus clearly are not appropriate in an M&R budget. Among the activities in this category are:

• Custodial work (i.e., services, cleaning)

• Snow removal

• Pest control

• Refuse collection and disposal

• Grounds care, landscaping

• Environmental operations, recordkeeping, etc.

• Security services

• Fire protection services

Other operational activities may involve some routine maintenance or minor repair work on facilities but not enough to qualify for inclusion in an M&R budget, specifically:

Central utility plant operations. Many government facilities include a central utility plant for the generation of electricity and/or the production of steam or hot water and chilled water for use in heating and cooling buildings and also central water and sewage treatment plants. Such plants usually are staffed 24 hours a day, and the staff ordinarily perform routine maintenance as part of their duties. While such work rightfully should be paid for with M&R funds, it is almost impossible to segregate time spent on operations from time spent on maintenance. Since maintenance work is usually incidental to operations work, most agencies have concluded that all of the time of plant operators should be classified as operations work. However, nonroutine maintenance performed on such plants by either government personnel or under contract is rightfully covered by M&R budgets.

Grounds care. Grounds care is the maintenance of lawns, shrubs, trees, sprinklers, rights-of-way and open fields, drainage ditches, other similar improvements to land, and pest control when performed outside buildings. Maintenance tasks include mowing, spreading fertilizer, trimming hedges and shrubs, clearing ditches, snow removal, and related work.

The following activities are not part of the 2 to 4 percent guideline for facilities maintenance and should not be added to the total operations and maintenance budget:

• Alterations (minor)

• Service requests (non-M&R requests or services)

• Support for special events or activities (non-M&R)

• Standby services by mechanics required by “mission” activities