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OCR for page 83
5
Findings and Recommendations
The federal government owns and maintains more than 500,000 buildings
and other constructed facilities to conduct the business of government and pro-
vide services to the public. More than 300 billion taxpayer dollars have been
invested in acquiring these facilities, but relatively few resources are invested on
an annual basis to ensure the functionality and quality of these facilities through
effective management, maintenance, and repair. 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.
The costs of ownership of a facility are equal to the total expenditures an
owner makes over the course of a facility's service life, i.e., the costs of plan-
ning, design, construction, maintenance, repairs, normal operations, revitaliza-
tion, and disposal. With proper management and maintenance, buildings may
perform adequately for 40 to 100 years or more and may serve several different
functions over that lifetime. Although a building's performance inevitably de-
clines because of aging, wear and tear, and functional changes, its service life
can be optimized through adequate and timely maintenance and repairs. Failure
to provide adequate maintenance and failure to recognize the total costs of own-
ership results in a shorter service life, accelerated deterioration, and higher oper-
ating costs. The federal government's failure to recognize the total costs of own-
ership represents a lack of stewardship of the facilities themselves and of the
public's investment in them.
83
OCR for page 84
84
STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES
Properly maintained federal facilities are not a luxury. They are critical to the
effective performance of government agencies' missions and the provision of
government services. Inadequate maintenance in public buildings can have seri-
ous and costly consequences. Damage caused by leaking roofs, burst pipes, and
malfunctioning ventilation systems can disrupt work, cause computer and other
technological breakdowns, create risks to occupants' health and safety, reduce
productivity, and cost millions of dollars in emergency repairs.
The deferral of maintenance and repairs because of underfunding is a wide-
spread, persistent, and long-standing problem, and pressures to defer maintenance
are increasing. In today' s dynamic policy and budget environment, federal facili-
ties program managers are being challenged to extend the useful life of aging
facilities; to alter or retrofit facilities to consolidate space or accommodate new
functions and technologies; to meet evolving standards for safety, environmental
quality, and accessibility; to maintain or dispose of underutilized, overutilized,
and excess facilities; and to find innovative ways and technologies to maximize
limited resources.
The specific findings of the committee regarding the state of the federal
facilities portfolio and the practice of developing and implementing maintenance
and repair budgets have been presented throughout the report and are summa-
rized below.
FINDINGS
Finding 1. 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. Govern-
ment budgeting practices are structured to focus on design and construction costs,
which constitute only 5 to 10 percent of the total costs of ownership, rather than
on the operations and maintenance of facilities, which account for 60 to 85 per-
cent of total life-cycle costs. Thus, the emphasis has been on constructing and
acquiring new buildings, rather than on maintaining, reusing, or leasing existing
buildings.
Finding 2. The underfunding of facilities maintenance and repair programs is a
persistent, long-standing problem. Federal operating and oversight agencies re-
port that agencies have excess, aging facilities and insufficient funds to maintain,
repair, or update them. Information provided to the committee indicated that
agencies are receiving less than 2 percent of the aggregate current replacement
value of their facilities inventories for maintenance and repair.
OCR for page 85
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
85
Because of inadequate funding agencies routinely defer maintenance, which
can result in an irreversible loss of service life, the loss of functionality, and
higher costs over time. Although there is no single, agreed upon guideline to
determine the amount of money necessary to maintain public buildings effec-
tively, an NRC report, Committing to the Cost of Ownership: Maintenance and
Repair of Public Buildings, did recommend that, "An appropriate budget alloca-
tion for routine M&R [maintenance and repair] for a substantial inventory of
facilities will typically be in the range of 2 to 4 percent of the aggregate current
replacement value of those facilities" (NRC, 1990~. This guideline has been
widely quoted in the literature on facilities management. 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 electri-
cal system technologies, telecommunications and security technologies, climate,
and criticality of role or function, among others. Based on the information avail-
able to the committee, federal agencies receive less than 2 percent of the aggre-
gate current replacement value of their facility inventories for routine mainte-
nance and repair on an annual basis.
Finding 3. Federal government processes and practices are generally not struc-
tured to provide for effective accountability for the stewardship (i.e., responsible
care) of federal facilities.
Because the decision-making responsibility related to federal facilities is del-
egated at all levels of government, no single entity can be held accountable for
the results. Senior managers and public officials may think that they will not
incur serious consequences if they defer the maintenance and repair of facilities
for one more year in favor of more urgent operations or programs with greater
visibility. Only if a roof falls in or there is a similar catastrophic failure, are
agency managers likely to be held accountable for the condition of facilities in
any given year. They are, however, held accountable for current operating pro-
grams. Consequently, they have few incentives to practice stewardship of the
federal facilities portfolio, and they suffer few penalties if they do not.
Finding 4. Buildings and facilities are durable assets that contribute to the effec-
tive provision of government services and the fulfillment of agency missions.
However, the relationship of facilities to agency missions has not been recog-
nized adequately in federal strategic planning and budgeting processes.
Federal facilities embody significant assets and resources. Federal buildings
and structures are acquired to support agencies in achieving their missions, to
provide services to the public, and to provide workplaces for the people who
conduct the government's business. The condition of federal facilities can affect an
agency's ability to fulfill its mission, as well as the health and safety of occupants
OCR for page 86
86
STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES
and building users. Evidence suggests that the physical condition and level of
maintenance of buildings can also affect employees' productivity and morale and
an agency' s ability to recruit new staff. The only time agency officials and Con-
gress discuss how facilities foster the implementation of an agency's mission is
when reviewing budget requests for constructing or acquiring new facilities. Once
a facility has been built, the relationship is taken for granted.
Finding 5. Maintenance and repair expenditures generally have less visible or
less measurable benefits than other operating programs. Facilities program man-
agers have found it difficult to make compelling arguments to justify these ex-
penditures to public officials, senior managers, and budgeting staff.
In the federal budget and operations environment, facilities maintenance and
repair is often considered a low priority issue because facilities program manag-
ers do not have the information they need to present an effective case for funding.
In attempting to justify maintenance and repair budget requests, some federal
agencies have kept inventories of building deficiencies and calculated the amount
of funding it would take to eliminate the backlog of deficiencies, but public
officials have not often found these justifications compelling.
Studies indicate that public officials do find arguments for the avoidance of
future costs by early, preventive, or corrective maintenance more convincing and
compelling. However, research to develop cost avoidance information and esti-
mates of the costs of deferred maintenance in terms of money and quality of
service have only been begun recently, and the results are not generally available.
Finding 6. Budgetary pressures on federal agency managers encourage them to
divert potential maintenance and repair funds to support current operations, to
meet new legislative requirements, or to pay for operating new facilities coming
on line.
Federal agencies have some flexibility in allocating funding from their op-
erations and maintenance accounts to either current operations or the mainte-
nance and repair of facilities. 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 re-
quirements to improve health, safety, or welfare that have facilities-related im-
pacts. These requirements are usually enacted without the funding necessary to
implement them (so-called unfunded mandates). Thus, removing hazardous ma-
terials or improving the accessibility of facilities must be funded from already
limited agency operations and maintenance accounts. Although exact numbers
on the costs of complying with these requirements are not available, anecdotal
evidence clearly indicates that they have had an impact on operations and
OCR for page 87
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
87
maintenance budgets and have resulted in the deferral of other maintenance and
repair projects.
As new facilities come on line, funds to pay for their operation and mainte-
nance must be allocated out of current operations and maintenance accounts.
Thus, new facilities also create pressure on managers to divert funds that might
otherwise be used to maintain existing buildings.
Finding 7. 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 report-
ing systems for tracking maintenance and repair expenditures vary.
The methodologies used to formulate maintenance and repair budget requests
vary from one agency to another. Accounting structures and the definitions of
elements in those accounting structures also vary from agency to agency. As a
result, direct comparisons of maintenance and repair allocations and expenditures
across federal agencies are difficult to make.
Because maintenance and repair funds in most agencies are included in the
operations account, they are not "earmarked" for specific maintenance and repair
activities. Structuring the account this way blurs the line between maintenance
and repair work, operations, and alterations and provides federal agencies with
considerable flexibility in determining how much funding to allocate to mainte-
nance and repair activities and which projects to fund. A detailed cost accounting
showing the amount of funding actually appropriated to maintenance and repair
activities is not required, and therefore few, if any, agencies complete one.
Finding 8. There is evidence that some agencies own and are responsible for
more facilities than they need to support their missions or than they can maintain
with current or projected budgets.
The federal facilities portfolio has grown over time in response to new pro-
grams and requirements, defense and foreign policy initiatives, changing demo-
graphics, and other factors. Little emphasis has been placed on demolishing obso-
lete facilities or divesting the government of no longer needed, but still viable,
properties. Consequently, some agencies own buildings and properties that are no
longer used or are otherwise underutilized but which they are still responsible for
maintaining. The creation of excess federal facilities has accelerated as agencies
have realigned their missions in response to changing circumstances. The most
dramatic, but not the only, example is the Base Realignment and Closure process,
through which one of every five military installations is slated to be closed.
Finding 9. Federal facilities program managers are being encouraged to be more
businesslike and innovative, but current management, budgeting, and financial
OCR for page 88
88
STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES
processes have disincentives and institutional barriers to cost-effective facilities
management and maintenance practices.
The federal budget is a unified, cash-based budget that treats outlays for
capital and operating activities the same way. This process is inherently biased
against capital projects because the budget makes no distinction between outlays
for capital assets that produce future benefits and outlays for current operations.
Because capital projects tend to require relatively large outlays of money in the
short run, they are often foregone to meet short-term budget restraints despite
their long-term benefits.
The budget process also discourages cost-effective maintenance by dis-
allowing, in most circumstances, the carryover of unobligated funds from one
fiscal year to the next even if a facilities program manager can demonstrate that
carryover funding is the most cost-effective way to fund a capital improvement.
Funds that are not expended in the current fiscal year are routinely taken back
from the agencies, and the next fiscal year's funding may be reduced on the
premise that money not spent is money not needed. Thus, "admitting to savings"
is not in a manager' s interest. Because of the absence of rewards for cost-effective,
fiscally responsible management, facilities program managers have few incen-
tives to act in innovative ways or to take risks that might lead to more cost-
effective maintenance and repair programs and strategies.
Finding 10. Performance measures to determine the effectiveness of maintenance
and repair expenditures have not been developed within the federal government.
Thus, it is difficult to identify best practices for facilities maintenance and repair
programs across or within federal agencies.
Simply knowing how much money and staff time were allocated to mainte-
nance and repair programs does not indicate how effectively those resources were
used. Because government agencies do not consistently track maintenance and
repair expenditures, it is difficult to develop measures to determine how effec-
tively funds are being spent either within or across agencies. Thus, facilities pro-
gram 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.
Finding 11. Based on the information available to the committee, federal condi-
tion assessment programs are labor intensive, time consuming, and expensive.
Agencies have had limited success in making effective use of the data they gather
for budget development or for the ongoing management of facilities.
Information gathered from condition assessments can be used to (1) estimate
maintenance and repair needs; (2) develop cost estimates and funding priorities
OCR for page 89
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
89
for various projects; and (3) generate and prioritize work orders. Condition as-
sessment programs in federal agencies are evolving from simple catalogues of
maintenance and repair deficiencies to computerized programs with automated
checklists that link condition assessment data to agency mission and improve
facility management. Federal condition assessment programs have generally been
developed independently to meet the needs of individual agencies within their
funding constraints. As a consequence, the level of sophistication varies widely.
Agencies with condition assessment programs gather a wide range of data, in-
cluding cosmetic problems, structural problems, and mechanical deficiencies.
Because of the amount of data being collected and the time and resources re-
quired to analyze it, federal agencies have had limited success in using condition-
related data to support ongoing facilities management or to develop maintenance
and repair budget requests.
Finding 12. 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 rap-
idly. In recent years, progress has been made in the development of CAFMs
(computer aided facility management systems) and CMMS (computerized main-
tenance management systems) although few standards have been established.
Technologies, such as pen-based data collection devices, bar code scanners, and
digital and video cameras for condition assessments which have been deployed
also have some drawbacks. Nondestructive evaluation technologies for detecting
building deficiencies are being used by a few agencies in limited situations.
Finding 13. Existing sensor and microprocessor technologies have the potential
to monitor and manage a range of building conditions and environmental param-
eters, but, for economic and other reasons, they have not been widely deployed.
Today's intelligent buildings integrate sensor and monitoring devices, data
transmission via telephone lines, fiber optic cable or satellite uplinks, computers
for data management and decision making, and microprocessor control devices
for various types of mechanical equipment. Although currently available intelli-
gent building technologies have many possible applications for the monitoring
and assessment of buildings and building systems, proactive diagnostic systems
have not been widely deployed. The primary reason appears to be the lack of well
documented economic paybacks to justify the initial costs. Also hampering their
deployment is the lack of a standard protocol for communications among the
. .
various c .evlces.
Finding 14. Training for staff is a key component of effective decision making,
condition assessments, and the development of maintenance and repair budgets.
OCR for page 90
9o
STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES
Because of reductions in total staffing levels, record numbers of experienced
personnel have left the government. The loss of their technical expertise has sig-
nificant implications for the maintenance and repair of federal facilities. Auto-
mating 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 own-
ership is a key factor in the long-term underfunding of maintenance and repair
programs and lack of technical expertise will exacerbate this problem.
Finding 15. Only a limited amount of research has been done on the deteriora-
tion/failure rates of building components or the nonquantitative implications of
building maintenance (or lack thereof). This research is necessary to identify ef-
fective facilities management strategies for achieving cost savings, identifying
cost avoidances, and providing safe, healthy, productive work environments.
Research on facility management related issues has only begun recently. No
standard methods have been developed for estimating the future costs of deferred
maintenance for a particular facility. Relatively little research has been done on
the deterioration rates of building components, which are essential to estimating
cost-avoidance strategies. Predictions of deterioration/failure rates would also be
useful for estimating future budget needs, determining the optimal repair/replace-
ment cycles for particular types of infrastructure, and for analyzing life-cycle
building costs. Current assessments of the nonquantitative effects of poorly main-
tained buildings, such as reduced mission delivery or the effects on employees'
health, safety, and welfare, are based primarily on qualitative, subjective judg-
ments rather than on empirical data.
Finding 16. Greater accountability for the stewardship of facilities is necessary at
all levels of the federal government. Accountability includes being held respon-
sible for the condition of facilities and for the allocation, tracking, and effective
use of maintenance and repair funds.
Those responsible for making decisions on the funding, acquisition, mainte-
nance and repair, and disposition of federal facilities and other facilities-related
activities, include Congress, oversight agencies, senior executives, program man-
agers, field engineers, and others. Because the responsibility for facilities-related
decisions is spread throughout the government, no single entity can be held ac-
countable for the results.
Based on these findings, the committee developed the following recommen-
dations aimed at fostering facility stewardship, including effective strategic plan-
ning, improved budgetary techniques and processes, wider deployment of tech-
nology, and the development of necessary staff skills. The committee recommends
that the following actions, which are not in any particular order of priority, be taken.
OCR for page 91
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
9
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation 1. The federal government should plan strategically for the
maintenance and repair of its facilities in order to optimize available resources,
maintain the functionality and quality of federal facilities, and to protect the
public's investment. A recommended strategic framework of methods, practices,
and strategies for the proactive management and maintenance of the nation's pub-
lic assets is summarized in Figure 5-1 (Findings 1 and 2~.
Maintenance and repair of federal facilities is a complex issue, and no single
action or strategy will resolve all of the associated problems. All levels of the
federal government will have to make a commitment to solve these problems
over the long term to optimize resources and sustain the public's investment in
the facilities portfolio.
Recommendation 2. The government should foster accountability for the stew-
ardship of federal facilities at all levels. Facilities program managers at the agency
level should identify and justify the resources necessary to maintain facilities
effectively and should be held accountable for the use of these resources (Find-
ings 1, 2, 3 and 16~.
Buildings, other constructed facilities, and associated infrastructures repre-
sent hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and resources and support the effec-
tive provision of government services. Adequately maintained facilities are criti-
cal to the achievement of agency missions and to organizational and individual
performance. Senior agency managers should strive to create a climate of stew-
ardship as their basic business strategy.
Recommendation 3. At the executive level, an advisory group of senior level
federal managers, other public sector managers, and representatives of the non-
profit 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. Fostering accountability for the
stewardship of federal facilities at the highest levels of government is at least as
important as fostering accountability at the agency and field-office level. Senior
leadership should provide guidance for responsible, cost effective ways to man-
age the federal facilities portfolio and to protect the public' s investment. An ex-
ecutive level federal facilities advisory group should be appointed to increase the
visibility of the issue of federal facilities maintenance, repair, and stewardship.
OCR for 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.
OCR for page 93
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
93
The advisory group should provide policy direction and set priorities for the man-
agement and maintenance of the facilities portfolio.
Recommendation 4. Facility investment and management should be directly
linked to agency mission. Every agency's strategic plan should include a facili-
ties component that links facilities to agency mission and establishes a basis and
rationale for maintenance and repair budget requests (Finding 4~.
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires that federal
agencies develop strategic plans. As agencies reevaluate and, in some cases, re-
define their missions, the relationship between agency mission and the facilities
that support the mission should be made explicit. Beyond simply including facili-
ties 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.
Recommendation 5. The government should adopt more standardized budgeting
and cost accounting techniques and processes to facilitate tracking of mainte-
nance and repair funding requests, allocations, and expenditures and reflect the
total costs of facilities ownership. The committee developed an illustrative tem-
plate as shown in Figure 5-2 (Findings 3, 5, 6, 7 and 16~.
Greater standardization is needed in budgeting, cost accounting, definitions
of activities, and calculations of facilities-related terms to foster accountability
for the allocation, tracking, and effective use of maintenance and repair funds.
The illustrative template developed by the committee is intended to clearly iden-
tify the total costs of facilities ownership. This template could serve as the basis
for a more detailed standardized chart of accounts. If most or all government
agencies adopted this template for formulating budget requests and tracking allo-
cations and expenditures, in conjunction with their existing systems, budget ex-
penditures could be compared and standardized measures developed. These mea-
sures could then be used to develop benchmarks and identify best practices for
facilities management and maintenance.
Recommendation 6. Government-wide performance measures should be estab-
lished to evaluate the effectiveness of facilities maintenance and repair programs
and expenditures (Finding 10~.
Unlike budgeting procedures and practices, performance measurements are
not yet well developed or ingrained in federal agency practices and procedures.
OCR for page 94
94
STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES
A. Routine Maintenance, Repairs, Yes
and Replacements
· recurring, annual maintenance and
repairs including maintenance of
structures and utility systems,
(including repairs under a given
$ limit, e.g., $150,000 to $500,000
exclusive of furniture and office
equipment)
roofing, chiller/boiler replacement,
electrical/lighting, etc.
preventive maintenance
preservation/cyclical maintenance
deferred maintenance backlog
service calls
B. Facilities-Related Operations
· custodial work (i.e., services
and cleaning)
· utilities (electric, gas, etc./plant
operations)
· snow removal
waste collection and removal
pest control
security services
grounds care
parking
fire protection services
C. Alterations and Capital Improvements No
· major alterations to subsystems,
(e.g., enclosure, interior, mechanical,
electrical expansion) that change the
capacity or extend the service life of
a facility
· minor alterations (individual project
limit to be determined by agency
$50,000 to $1 million)
D. Legislatively Mandated Activities No
· improvements for accessibility,
hazardous materials removal, etc.
E. New Construction and Total
Renovation Activities
F. Demolition Activities
Annual operating budget
No Annual operating budget
Various funding sources,
including no year, project-
based allocations such as
revolving funds, carryover
of unobligated funds, fund-
ing 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.
OCR for page 95
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
95
Agencies have an opportunity to develop performance measures that can be used
consistently across the government to compare the effectiveness of facilities man-
agement and maintenance programs. Uniform measures are particularly impor-
tant in organizational structures with decentralized functions, in which individual
centers and installations have discretion over how funds are spent.
Recommendation 7. Facilities program managers should be empowered to oper-
ate in a more businesslike manner by removing institutional barriers and provid-
ing incentives for improving cost-effective use of maintenance and repair funds.
The carryover of unobligated funds and the establishment of revolving funds for
nonrecurring maintenance needs should be allowed if they are justified (Findings
3 Andy.
Employees need incentives to work toward improvement or to take risks that
could (or could not) result in cost savings. If facilities program managers are to be
held accountable for the consequences of their actions, they should be given the
appropriate tools, funding, and authority to carry out their responsibilities. Poten-
tial rewards for facilities program managers include allowing them to take sav-
ings from one area of operations and maintenance and apply it to another; allow-
ing 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 perfor-
mance. Revolving funds offer potential advantages for addressing maintenance
and repair needs. To provide for accountability, the actual savings achieved
through the implementation of any of these or other strategies should be well
documented and should appear in the budget, which should also specify how the
savings will be used.
Recommendation 8. Long-term requirements for maintenance and repair expen-
ditures should be managed by reducing the size of the federal facilities portfolio.
New construction should be limited, existing buildings should be adapted to new
uses, and the ownership of unneeded buildings should be transferred to other
public and private organizations. Facilities that are functionally obsolete, are not
needed to support an agency's mission, are not historically significant, and are
not suitable for transfer or adaptive reuse should be demolished when it is cost
effective to do so (Findings 2, 8 and 16~.
As a result of decisions made over many decades, some agencies in the fed-
eral government now own more facilities than they need to conduct their busi-
ness. Responsible stewardship requires that the size of the facilities portfolio be
managed effectively and reduced to a level that supports the long-term mission of
the government and its agencies (1) by limiting the construction and acquisition
of new facilities; and (2) by reducing the total number of facilities owned and
OCR for page 96
96
STEWARDSHIP OF FEDERAL FACILITIES
maintained by the federal government. Reducing the total number of facilities
will result in substantial savings in operations and maintenance costs over the
long term and allow agencies to redirect funds to facilities that directly support
their missions.
The transfer of title, closing, or demolition of facilities can generate consid-
erable controversy at the local level and in Congress. An independent, objective,
outside panel may be necessary to weigh the costs and benefits of transferring or
closing federal facilities and to build a political consensus for doing so.
Recommendation 9. Condition assessment programs should be restructured to
focus first on facilities that are critical to an agency's mission; on life, health, and
safety issues; and on building systems that are critical to a facility's performance.
This will optimize available resources, provide timely and accurate data for for-
mulating maintenance and repair budgets, and provide critical information for the
ongoing management of facilities (Findings 4 and 11~.
To optimize the value of condition assessments, agencies should consider
restructuring them. Data gathering should focus on information that is critical to
building performance, building users' safety and health, and informed decision
making. Condition assessments should concentrate on critical elements that af-
fect the ability of an agency to operate effectively rather than simply cataloguing
problems that may give relatively equal weight to structural and cosmetic defi-
ciencies. Linking condition assessments to mission-critical facilities first and
focusing on life, safety, and health standards and critical building system com-
ponents should help integrate them into the strategic planning and budgeting
processes of federal agencies.
Recommendation 10. The government should provide appropriate and continu-
ous 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 own-
ership (Findings 14 and 16~.
A firm grounding in the principles of facilities management and an under-
standing of the relationship between adequate and timely maintenance and repair
to total costs of facilities ownership are critical for anyone charged with the prepa-
ration or review of facilities management budgets. Staff having these responsi-
bilities should be trained in the principles of facilities management and related
topics and this training should be updated on a continuous basis.
The increasing number of intelligent buildings with building automation sys-
tems requires facility personnel who are familiar with a broad range of computer
applications (e.g., graphics, databases, and spreadsheets) as well as hardware (e.g.,
personal computers and microprocessors). Personnel involved in automated
OCR for page 97
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
97
condition assessments should have a similar level of computer skills. As build-
ings become more sophisticated, staff will have to maintain and update software
systems which will require essentially continuous training for operations and
maintenance personnel.
Recommendation 11. The government and private industry should work to-
gether to develop and integrate technologies for performing automated facility
condition assessments and to eliminate barriers to their deployment (Findings
11,12andl3).
Automating the condition assessment process has the potential for cost sav-
ings, improved building performance, and a means of coping with reduced staff-
ing levels. The data necessary to test these assumptions could be obtained either
by designing and installing automated condition assessment systems in new fed-
eral buildings or by studying and evaluating buildings that already have them in
the private sector. The federal government' s responsibility for the long-term stew-
ardship of buildings and facilities supports this kind of leadership position in the
deployment of new building technologies and the acceptance of higher first costs
to reduce life-cycle costs.
Recommendation 12. The government should support research on the deteriora-
tion/failure rates of building components and the nonquantitative effects of build-
ing maintenance (or lack thereof) in order to develop quantitative data that can be
used for planning and implementing cost-effective maintenance and repair pro-
grams and strategies and for better understanding the programmatic effects of
maintenance on mission delivery and building users' health, safety, and produc-
tivity (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. This information would help them deter-
mine when individual components or systems should be repaired or replaced and
how maintenance should be timed to optimize service life and minimize business
disruptions. Information about cost avoidance is critical for conveying the impor-
tance and cost effectiveness of preventive maintenance to elected officials and
the public.
REFERENCE
NRC (National Research Council). 1990. Committing to the Cost of Ownership: Maintenance and
Repair of Public Buildings. Building Research Board, National Research Council. Washington,
D.C.: National Academy Press.
OCR for page 98
Representative terms from entire chapter:
facilities program
