GSA: Let agencies keep cash from surplus sales

General Services Administration chief David Barram Monday urged a House panel to offer federal agencies financial incentives to give up property such as land or buildings that are not needed to carry out agency missions.

If agencies stood to gain from selling excess real estate, they would be more likely to do so, promoting efficiency and cost savings in the system, Barram told the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology.

Currently, all proceeds from the sales of federal land and buildings go either to the general treasury or the Land and Water Conservation Fund, according to Bob Peck, commissioner of public buildings at GSA.

Changing the property sale funding flow would require amending the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, which created GSA and mandated today's property management process. Under the law, when an agency declares a piece of property excess, GSA generally tries to find another use for it either at another agency or at the state or local government level. If GSA can't find another taker, it sells the property on the private market.

While no bill to revise the law has been introduced, Subcommittee Chairman Stephen Horn, R-Cal., suggested the idea warranted congressional consideration. However, noting that the $15.1 million in property sold during fiscal 1997 represented a small amount of money in the context of federal budgets, Horn questioned whether the available money could serve as a real incentive. "I'm not going to tell you it's going to change the face [of the situation] overnight," Barram said. "But everything helps."

Horn also said GSA should receive a percentage of sales revenue to use for preventing deterioration of surplus facilities under its control. On the grounds of Ellis Island National Monument, Horn noted, chain-link barriers keep visitors away from some decaying historic buildings. Horn urged GSA to see that Governor's Island, a former U.S. Coast Guard facility site in New York harbor recently transferred to GSA for sale, does not reach such a state of disrepair.

"Since property tends to deteriorate very quickly when nobody is living in it, it is imperative to get historic properties to civilian control" as quickly as possible, Horn said.