GSA makes it official: Six warehouses to close

The General Services Administration announced Monday that it will close six of eight Federal Supply Service warehouses as part of a business reengineering of the agency's distribution services.

Distribution centers in Palmetto, Ga. and Fort Worth, Texas and forward supply points in Franconia, Va., Chicago, Ill., Denver, Colo., and Auburn, Wash. will close by April 2001. Burlington, N.J. and Stockton, Calif. warehouses will remain open past 2001, as reported on GovExec.com Monday.

"We realize waiting for a decision about the future of FSS' distribution system has been hard on the entire GSA community, especially those in FSS and their families," said GSA Administrator David Barram and FSS Commissioner Frank Pugliese in a joint statement. "Now that the decision is made, we will concentrate on doing everything we can to help affected employees prepare for the best next steps in their work life."

Shutting down the warehouses will allow GSA to save money while keeping its current standards of service to customers, GSA said. The agency will also create two new organizations to help maximize the new distribution program. The Supply Business Line unit will help GSA customers make the transition to a new way of interacting with the agency while the Business Planning Unit will identify future business opportunities.

An American Federation of Government Employees spokesman said the union was not pleased with the decision. AFGE concedes that the FSS distribution system is troubled, but believes basic management reforms, rather than warehouse shutdowns, can solve most of the problems.

"We feel real good about the quality of work we've done in looking for ways to improve the system. We don't defend the existing system, but there's so much mismanagement that some basic reforms will save a huge pot of money," a union source said. "If they had done that two years ago, they wouldn't have any of the losses they're complaining about now."