SEC Independent Leasing Authority

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) independent leasing authority, focusing on: (1) how SEC and General Services Administration (GSA) lease rates compare; (2) what incremental administration costs resulted from independent leasing authority; and (3) what SEC does to prevent interagency competition. GAO noted that: (1) due to the difficulty of finding comparable government leases, it could not determine whether SEC negotiated higher or lower lease rates than GSA; (2) GSA did not track its salary and contractual costs to negotiate, review, award, and administer leases separately; and (3) there was no evidence that SEC competed with other federal agencies for lease space.