WASHINGTON, DC-Another bill to streamline the General Services Administration is working its way through Congress. A House subcommittee has approved H.R. 6430, the Public Buildings Reform Act of 2012, which is meant to, among other goals, reduce the size of the government’s footprint.
It was introduced in the House by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman John L. Mica (R-FL) and Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee chairman Jeff Denham (R-CA). The act would require GSA to offset any request for new space with an equivalent reduction of space through 2016. It would also require GSA to reduce its inventory by 1 million square feet per year through 2016.
In addition, the act caps the maximum rent for below-prospectus leases and requires notification of below-prospectus lease-construction projects. It also encourages the use of commercial real estate brokers and requires GSA to report on performance of brokers and in-house personnel. Finally, it requires the reduction of Public Buildings Service personnel to 2008 levels.
This bill has a number of hurdles to pass before it becomes law; however it is illustrative of a larger push by both Congress and the Administration to scale back the government’s real estate footprint. This same push was on display in a separately released report last month by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration, which found that that the IRS could save $111.4 million over five years by allowing workers who don’t come to the office on a regular basis to share work space. The agency could get rid of almost one million square feet by consolidating the infrequently used work stations in federal offices.
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Specifically, the report said, “if employees who routinely telework on a full- or part-time basis shared their workstations, 10,244 workstations could potentially be eliminated.” In FY 2012, the report also noted, the IRS will spend an estimated $741 million on real estate costs relating to 28 million total square feet in 655 buildings.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
