Executive

Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: GSA Seeks Unnecessary, Vacant Buildings

The General Services Administration (GSA) has tried to deal with unnecessary federal buildings since 1976. (It still faces that problem.)

Published

1 year ago

December 21, 2023

Adam Andrzejewski

Waste of the Day coins in graduated stacks

In 1976, the General Services Administration spent $1.5 million – $8.1 million in 2023 dollars – to try to renovate an old train station in Nashville, Tennessee that it didn’t need.

For this wasteful spending, Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, gave the GSA a Golden Fleece Award in 1983. He gave awards to wasteful and nonsensical spending, eventually handing out 168 Golden Fleece Awards between 1975 and 1988.

Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: GSA Seeks Unnecessary, Vacant Buildings — Waste of the Day 12.21.23 by Open the Books

Congress passed the Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act in 1976, authorizing GSA “to acquire and utilize space in suitable buildings of historic, architectural or cultural significance, unless use of such space would not prove feasible and prudent compared with available alternatives.”

GSA took this to mean they should acquire buildings – even if they have no need for the space at the moment. The GSA administrator ordered his staff to begin aggressively scooping up these buildings, acquiring them before GSA knew whether the space would be needed, Proxmire said.

“By now, GSA’s bureaucrats had to find and renovate a historic building. When a railroad offered to donate a dilapidated, historic railroad station in Nashville, it appeared their prayers had been answered,” Proxmire wrote.

After assessing the building’s condition, the GSA estimated it would cost $14.4 million to renovate the station – but a new building would cost $10.2 million. After re-evaluating, they came up with a new price estimate of $7.2 million.

Pigeons, however, had been roosting in the vacant building, and their dropping created a major health hazard. GSA had to pay $500,00 to pay for the station to be decontaminated — twice.

This is as the General Accounting Office issued a report about the GSA’s planned renovated of the train station, saying, “GSA efforts stemmed from its desire to acquire the train station building, rather that the need for additional space.”

They also found that Congress, in its approval of the renovation budget, “did not have complete and reliable information on several important issues concerning the merits of the proposed renovation.”

Yet, GSA was given the funds to design the project. At the same time, GSA was informed of a nearby old post office building that it was considering attaining.

At the time that Proxmire chided the GSA, the agency still hadn’t decided whether it was going to go forth with the train project or the post office project — neither of which were needed.

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

CEO at OpenTheBooks.com | Website | + posts

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.