More Flexibility Needed by the General Services Administration for Delegating Leasing Authority to Federal Agencies

The General Services Administration (GSA) was created in 1949 to centralize in a single government agency responsibility for procurement, management of real property, records management, and other housekeeping functions of the executive branch. In 1950, authority to lease general purpose real property was withdrawn from federal agencies and transferred to GSA. It was anticipated that the Administrator, GSA, would delegate this authority back to the agencies, particularly in smaller communities where space could be leased directly.