Most of us take the maintenance of our property pretty seriously . We understand that the property will lose value if we don't take care of it. We also realize that if we don't take care of property that's publicly visible, some government agency will come along to force improvements or take the property from you. Our homes are subject to inspections, and must comply with codes and regulations. Our vehicles must be in good working condition.

One would think, then, that since government agencies are so intent on forcing us to maintain our property that they would be good at it themselves. Doesn't seem unreasonable, does it? Setting a good example... "sending the right message", as they so frequently put it.

It's almost impossible for a citizen to even know what property is owned by the government, much less judge the value, condition, or use of such property... especially that owned by the federal government. Fortunately, one thing that government agencies are good at is producing massive written reports.
(Tree-huggers, take note - nobody compares with the Feds for paper waste)

Several large federal agencies are given the task of keeping track of government actions, auditing them, and making suggestions for improvement. Truth is... they're a joke... not because they do a poor job, but because their criticisms and suggestions almost never result in improvement. They do, however, continue, decade after decade, telling government what they're doing wrong, at least alerting a few people about problems.

One of those agencies is the General Accounting Office (GAO) The General Accounting Office is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of Congress. GAO exists to support the Congress in meeting its Constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal government for the American people.

The GAO recently pulled together information on federal government property holdings, and said:

Given the persistence of these problems and various obstacles that have impeded progress in resolving them, we are designating federal real property as a new high-risk area.

The remainder of this article will be only direct quotes from the GAO report... no editorializing is needed, except for boding for emphasis.

Over 30 agencies control hundreds of thousands of real property assets worldwide, including facilities and land, which are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

[M]any assets are in an alarming state of deterioration; agencies have estimated restoration and repair needs to be in the tens of billions of dollars. Compounding these problems are the lack of reliable governmentwide data for strategic asset management, a heavy reliance on costly leasing instead of ownership to meet new needs, and the cost and challenge of protecting these assets against potential terrorism.

According to the fiscal year 2001 financial statements of the U.S. government, the federal government’s real property assets are worth about $328 billion. In terms of facilities, the latest available governmentwide data from GSA indicated that as of September 30, 2000, the federal government owned and leased approximately 3.3 billion square feet of building floor area worldwide.

Over 85 percent of the facilities—in terms of building floor area—in the federal portfolio are held by the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, General Services Administration, Veterans Administration, and the Postal Service.

The Federal Portfolio Is in an Alarming State of Deterioration

Restoration, repair, and maintenance backlogs in federal facilities are significant and reflect the federal government’s ineffective stewardship over its valuable and historic portfolio of real property assets. The backlog is alarming because of its magnitude—current estimates show that tens of billions of dollars will be needed to restore these assets and make them fully functional.

DOD (Department of Defense) reported in 2001 that the cost of bringing its facilities to a minimally acceptable condition was estimated at $62 billion; the cost of correcting all deficiencies was estimated at $164 billion. The private sector replaces or modernizes facilities at an average rate of about once every 50 years, but defense facilities have fallen well short of that rate. For example, in fiscal year 2001, DOD facilities’ recapitalization rate was 192 years.

Maintenance of unneeded facilities

DOD (Department of Defense) estimates that it is spending $3 billion to $4 billion each year maintaining facilities that are not needed.

In July 1999, we reported that vacant VA space was costing as much as $35 million to maintain each year.

Costs associated with excess DOE facilities, primarily for security and maintenance, exceed $70 million annually.