Executive
Waste of the Day: Selling Federal Government’s Excess Property Could Earn $3 Billion Annually
The federal government gives property away when it could sell it instead and receive $3 billion per year from willing buyers.
Uncle Sam is sitting on more real property than any other entity in America. If it sold, the U.S. government could earn billions.
That’s according to Citizens Against Government Waste’s annual report “Prime Cuts,” a list of recommendations to reduce the record national debt.
The organization noted that the U.S. government owns approximately 267,000 buildings and structures covering 1.9 billion square feet of office space.
“Due to a combination of negative incentives and unnecessary red tape, selling federal real estate is a long, costly process,” the report noted. But reforms are needed to unload the unused property and get back taxpayer funds.
When General Services Administration Public Buildings Service reports an unused property as excess, that property is offered to other federal agencies. If no agency wants it, according to Title 40 of the U.S. Code and the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act, it must be offered to providers of homeless shelters, who can use the property for free.
If shelter operators don’t want it, the property is screened for other public uses and sold for up to a 100 percent discount of market value.
If there’s no possible public use, the property is auctioned and sold.
But that process is upside down, Citizens Against Government Waste argued, “The government should first try to sell the property and give it away only if there is no other alternative.”
Since 2016, the Federal Property Management Reform Act requires the U.S. Postal Service every year to provide a list of properties with available space for federal agencies and establishes a council to help guide and implement an “efficient and effective real property management strategy,” reduce expenses, and determine how to better manage assets and property, the report stated.
It also requires federal agencies to provide an annual list of real property under their control, along with its condition, and whether it’s occupied.
That has shown the 5,066 bathrooms, 16,570 parking lots and garages, more than 1,500 prisons, nearly 17,000 warehouses, 766 hospitals and 2,427 schools, the report stated.
So why not sell it off? It takes years to sell federal property and all the while, taxpayer money is being used to pay the approximately $2 billion each year operating and maintaining buildings, regardless of occupancy, and around $5 billion annually to lease office buildings.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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