Recommendation: The Administrator of the GSA should report for Congress and the public—for example, on GSA's prospectus website—the extent to which completed projects' construction costs and schedules were rebaselined and final construction costs, to include any additional funding tenant agencies may have provided to GSA for changes. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: The General Services Administration (GSA) partially concurred with this recommendation. On February 6, 2020, GSA stated that it will publish summary schedule and budget results for completed projects on GSA's public-accessible prospectus website. GAO will continue to monitor GSA's actions related to this recommendation and update information accordingly.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the GSA should update its 2005 Commissioning Guide—or replace it with appropriate industry-recognized standards and guidance—to be consistent with GSA's current design standards and industry practices. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation, and on February 6, 2020, stated that GSA will publish updated Commissioning Guidance. GAO will continue to monitor GSA's actions related to this recommendation and update information accordingly.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the GSA should identify and communicate—such as through policy, guidance, or other appropriate mechanism—(a) when and how Post Occupancy Evaluations should be conducted for completed projects considering resource constraints and (b) how recommendations or lessons learned from those evaluations are effectively communicated to future project teams. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation, and on February 6, 2020, stated that GSA will publish program guidance on how and when Post Occupancy Evaluations are conducted and communicate recommendations or lessons learned to future project teams. GAO will continue to monitor GSA's actions related to this recommendation and update information accordingly.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, should ensure that the average cost per square foot performance measure for GSA-managed space is calculated using actual cost information. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration: Office of the Administrator
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation and has developed an action plan to implement it. In January 2020, GSA officials told us that GSA will change the method for calculating the average cost per square foot performance measure by now using the actual rent agencies paid to GSA in the calculation. GSA officials also stated that GSA will post this information annually to performance.gov. We will continue to monitor GSA's implementation of these efforts.

Recommendation: The Director of OMB should determine a government-wide baseline level of progress in meeting physical access control system requirements, including implementation of GSA-approved systems, and should monitor progress in meeting these requirements. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: In August 2019, GAO contacted OMB to determine if any progress has been made implementing this recommendation. GAO is awaiting OMB's response.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the ISC, in collaboration with member agencies, to assess the extent of, and develop strategies to address, government-wide challenges to implementing physical access control systems. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Open

Comments: In August 2019, GAO learned that DHS has recently completed the "Physical Access Control System (PACS) Modernization Working Group Charter." This charter was created under the direction of the Co-Chairs of the Federal Chief Information Security Officer Council, Identity, Credentialing and Access Management Subcommittee, and the Program Director of the DHS Interagency Security Committee. The purpose of the PACS Modernization Working Group is to facilitate the implementation and use of the technology and processes related to modernizing electronic-PACS within the federal government, thereby increasing security, coordination, and compliance with national-level policies and standards. GAO is following up with DHS to obtain additional information about this effort and to determine whether it addresses this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Director of OMB should take steps to improve existing information on federal asset management to reflect leading practices such as those described in ISO 55000 and the key characteristics we identified and make it readily available to federal agencies. These steps could include updating asset management guidance and developing a clearinghouse of information on asset management practices and successful agency experiences. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: As of September 2020, OMB has developed guidance to help federal agencies implement the capital planning requirements described in OMB's November 6, 2019 Memorandum 20-3, "Implementation of Agency-wide Real Property Capital Planning." According to OMB officials, this guidance was distributed to agencies in July 2020. Agency plans were due to OMB by August 15,2020. This recommendation remains open pending further information from OMB on the status and contents of these plans.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should update existing procedures to require GSA officials to estimate the full operations and maintenance costs of design choices in the planning and design process for new Design Excellence buildings. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: GSA agreed with the recommendation. GSA officials are in the process of developing a tool to estimate the full operations and maintenance costs of design choices during the planning and design, including how those choices will impact areas discussed in our report, e.g., cleaning, energy, and landscaping costs. This tool is scheduled for completion in 2020. Based on a demonstration from GSA, we believe that upon implementation this tool will address our recommendation by allowing officials to better understand the impact of design choices as they are being made. We will follow up with GSA in later in the year to validate that the tool is operational.

Recommendation: The Administrator of the General Services Administration should update existing procedures to require GSA officials to further consider and document, during the planning and design of new Design Excellence buildings, how design choices may affect building functionality, such as whether a building is publicly visible and accessible. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: General Services Administration
Status: Open

Comments: GSA concurred with this recommendation. GSA officials are the process of developing a tool that will include the ability to consider building functionality, e.g., purpose or function of the building and spaces, when estimating operations and maintenance costs during planning and design. This tool is scheduled for completion in July 2020. Based on a demonstration from GSA, we believe that upon implementation this tool will address our recommendation by allowing officials to better understand the impact of functional design choices as they are being made. We will follow up with GSA later in the year to validate that the tool is operational.

Recommendation: To strengthen efforts to mitigate earthquake risks to federal buildings, the Secretary of Defense and the Administrator of GSA should (1) Define what constitutes an exceptionally high risk building, identify such buildings, and develop plans to mitigate those risks, including prioritizing associated funding requests as needed; and (2) To the extent practicable, prioritize and implement comprehensive seismic safety measures which could include earthquake drills, seismic safety inspections, and non-structural retrofits to decrease risks and reduce damage in federally-owned and -leased buildings in earthquake hazard areas.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with our recommendation. In June 2019, DOD reported that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had developed a sophisticated risk assessment tool which could potentially be used to both define and assess exceptionally high risk buildings in a cost-effective manner. DOD said that it was in the process of determining the suitability of the tool for use by its components, and potentially other federal government partners. According to DOD, further action to address this recommendation will depend on both a favorable determination of the tool's suitability and the availability of funding to conduct assessments and complete the mitigation actions identified by the assessments. We will continue to monitor DOD's efforts to address this recommendation.