Stewardship of Federal Facilities A Proactive Strategy for Managing the Nation's Public Assets (1998) / Chapter Skim
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5 Findings and Recommendations
5 Findings and Recommendations
Pages 83-98
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From page 83... ...
As a consequence, the GAO and other federal agencies report that the physical condition of the federal facilities portfolio is deteriorating and major repairs are required to bring many buildings up to acceptable safety, health, and performance levels. The GAO also reports that many necessary repairs were not made when they would have been most cost effective and are now part of a backlog of deferred maintenance.
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From page 84... ...
Based on the information available to the committee, the physical condition of the federal facilities portfolio continues to deteriorate, and many federal buildings require major repairs to bring them up to acceptable quality, health, and safety standards. The deteriorating condition of federal facilities is due, in part, to the federal government's failure to recognize the total costs of facility ownership.
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From page 85... ...
Variables that can have a major influence on the appropriate level of maintenance and repair expenditures include building size and complexity, age and condition, mechanical and electrical system technologies, telecommunications and security technologies, climate, and criticality of role or function, among others. Based on the information available to the committee, federal agencies receive less than 2 percent of the aggregate current replacement value of their facility inventories for routine maintenance and repair on an annual basis.
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From page 86... ...
There is considerable pressure on agency managers to allocate funding to current operations, for which they can be held accountable, instead of facilities, where accountability is difficult to assign. Other pressures on already limited maintenance and repair budgets arise through new legislative requirements to improve health, safety, or welfare that have facilities-related impacts.
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From page 87... ...
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much money the federal government as a whole appropriates and spends for the maintenance and repair of federal facilities because definitions and calculations of facilities-related budget items, methodologies for developing budgets, and accounting and reporting systems for tracking maintenance and repair expenditures vary. The methodologies used to formulate maintenance and repair budget requests vary from one agency to another.
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From page 88... ...
Because government agencies do not consistently track maintenance and repair expenditures, it is difficult to develop measures to determine how effectively funds are being spent either within or across agencies. Thus, facilities program managers find it difficult to determine how effectively maintenance and repair funds are used and have been unable to develop benchmarks by which to identify "best practices" for facilities management and maintenance and repair across federal agencies.
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From page 89... ...
Organizational downsizing has forced facilities program managers to look increasingly to technology solutions to provide facilities-related data for decision making and for performing condition assessments. Technology related to facilities management and inspections is evolving rapidly.
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From page 90... ...
Automating the condition assessment process will require different skills, particularly computer skills, than are typically found in facilities management organizations. A lack of sensitivity within the budget process to the total costs of facilities ownership is a key factor in the long-term underfunding of maintenance and repair programs and lack of technical expertise will exacerbate this problem.
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From page 91... ...
At the executive level, an advisory group of senior level federal managers, other public sector managers, and representatives of the nonprofit and private sectors should be established to develop policies and strategies to foster accountability for the stewardship of facilities and to allocate resources strategically for their maintenance and repair (Findings 1, 2, 3 and 16~. Stewardship of the federal facilities portfolio involves exercising responsible care over the facilities investment, including maximizing the use of facilities, optimizing service life and building performance, and sustaining the quality and functionality of facilities through reinvestment.
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From page 92... ...
92 STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES GOAL Protect and Enhance the Functionality and Quality of the Federal Facilities Portfolio FIGURE 5-1 Strategic framework for the maintenance and repair of federal facilities.
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From page 93... ...
Beyond simply including facilities in the strategic planning process, strategic plans should contain a facilities component that recognizes facilities that are critical to achieving the agency's mission and point up the need for allocating resources to maintain them at an appropriate level of performance. Linking facilities to mission explicitly will enable agencies to link maintenance and repair budget requests and allocations to their long-term strategic planning and to the strategic plans of the government as a whole.
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From page 94... ...
Demolition Activities Annual operating budget No Annual operating budget Various funding sources, including no year, projectbased allocations such as revolving funds, carryover of unobligated funds, funding resulting from cost savings or cost avoidance strategies Various sources of funding No Project-based allocations separate from operations and maintenance budget. Should include a life-cycle cost analysis prior to funding Various sources of funding FIGURE 5-2 Illustrative template to reflect the total costs of facilities ownership.
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From page 95... ...
Potential rewards for facilities program managers include allowing them to take savings from one area of operations and maintenance and apply it to another; allowing them to carry over unobligated funds from one fiscal year to the next for capital improvements, if this can be shown to be cost effective; or establishing awards for facilities maintenance and repair programs with high levels of performance. Revolving funds offer potential advantages for addressing maintenance and repair needs.
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From page 96... ...
The government should provide appropriate and continuous training for staff that perform condition assessments and develop and review maintenance and repair budgets to foster informed decision making on issues related to the stewardship of federal facilities and the total costs of facilities ownership (Findings 14 and 16~. A firm grounding in the principles of facilities management and an understanding of the relationship between adequate and timely maintenance and repair to total costs of facilities ownership are critical for anyone charged with the preparation or review of facilities management budgets.
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From page 97... ...
in order to develop quantitative data that can be used for planning and implementing cost-effective maintenance and repair programs and strategies and for better understanding the programmatic effects of maintenance on mission delivery and building users' health, safety, and productivity (Findings 12 and 151. To improve the management of facilities, to determine how maintenance and repair funds can be optimized, and to present budget requests effectively to senior agency managers and public officials, facilities program managers need access to more information about maintenance and repair cost-avoidance strategies and the deterioration of building components.
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