Joyce Remarks at Oversight Hearing on Government Accountability Office’s Assessment of the Federal Buildings Fund

The General Services Administration, or GSA, maintains, builds, leases, and operates more than 360 million square feet of space that houses thousands of federal employees in 2,200 communities across the country. In addition, our constituents visit GSA managed properties every day. Everyone - from veterans accessing their benefits, disaster victims seeking assistance, to plaintiffs and defendants attending court - enter a GSA property.

However, GSA’s management of federal real property has been on the Government Accountability Office or GAO’s high-risk list since 2003, and the scope of the crisis has never been clearer. The Public Buildings Reform Board, which oversees our public buildings, recently released a report indicating that deferred maintenance in the federal building portfolio has become a $50 billion liability.

GSA’s Public Buildings Service, or PBS, is responsible for the maintenance of GSA-managed facilities. Most of PBS’s activities are supported through the Federal Buildings Fund. The FBF, as it is commonly known, is funded by federal agency “rent” payments to GSA. But, as many of you know, the FBF is subject to the appropriations process. Over the last several years, the FBF has been used to fund other priorities. As a result, the FBF has been and continues to be insufficient to address the deferred and regulator maintenance of federal real property. 
We need to have honest conversations about how to get these costs under control.

It starts with disposing of federal properties with high deferred maintenance and low occupancy to reduce the strain on the FBF. Moreover, ensuring the FBF has the resources it needs to maintain federal properties is another part of the equation. I’m pleased that we have Mr. Marroni from GAO here again to help us assess the FBF and to get GAO’s perspective on the scope of the issues facing the fund. I look forward to our discussion today.