FRPA Survey Shows Lack of Communication on PMA Initiatives

Federal real property professionals are seldom asked for their input in such President’s Management Agenda (PMA) initiatives as e-Government and Budget & Performance Integration, according to findings from a recent survey by the Federal Real Property Association (FRPA). The survey was released at the association’s professional development conference in October.

But, according to the survey findings, the inter-relationship of PMA initiatives is critical to real property asset management. Are top agency executives failing to provide meaningful direction to real property professionals in balancing such factors as personnel, supplies, and facilities against adjustments in other business processes?

The 2006 FRPA survey was an update of an industry profile introduced at the 2005 FRPA professional development conference. As in last year’s survey, questions were developed by FPRA, with the assistance of VISTA.

The survey was administered electronically, as part of the registration process for the FRPA professional conference, and online through the FRPA Web site. Findings were collected, verified and tabulated by CorporateSurvey.com, a leading provider of industrial and organizational surveys.

The Federal Real Property Council was invited to participate in the preparation of the FRPA survey, but did not respond to this invitation.

Candid comments

Findings of the 2006 survey were presented by Ray Summerell, VISTA’s VP of Corporate Development. This year’s tabulated findings often represented a standard bell-curve distribution, according to Summerell: When asked to rate the importance of a list of parameters on a scale of 1 to 5, the most frequently occurring response was “3” – typically listed as “average” on the rating scale.

Comments related to the questions were more candid and revealed more about the respondents’ true attitudes in relation to compliance. Many of the survey conclusions were extrapolated from these comments, Summerell noted.

In terms of agency structure, more than eight out of ten respondents to the survey (82 percent) were civilian agency employees; the remaining 18 percent were aligned with the military.

Management structure was almost evenly split; 52 percent of respondents cited a distributed agency management structure by group or regional office. Forty-eight percent of respondents work under a centralized model by headquarters.

In response to the question “Are you being asked for information or input regarding President’s Management Agenda initiatives outside of Real Property?” 62 percent of survey participants said “No.” Of respondents indicating “Yes,” only seven percent were asked for their input in e-Government or Budget & Performance Integration initiatives.

Asked, “What level of surplus real property would you estimate your organization to hold?”, 27 percent said “none”; 55 percent suggested their inventory only held one to five percent surplus.

Use of proceeds

Most participants agreed that proceeds from disposition of surplus property should be returned to the affected agencies. Regarding use of these proceeds, 37 percent of respondents would fund existing programs, while 31 percent would reinvest in improving and implementing asset management plans (AMPs). Basic inventory validation was cited as the most important aspect of AMPs by 48 percent of respondents; operations and maintenance costs were cited as most critical by 38 percent.

When asked whether they were able to quantify the anticipated value (or return on investment) likely to be derived from this real property asset management effort, 75 percent of respondents said no. Of the 25 percent that said yes, financial savings, business process streamlining, and facilities right-sizing were all deemed of greater importance than time savings or workforce productivity.

When asked what level of net proceeds from disposal of surplus assets would be sufficient to drive real property asset management processes on an ongoing basis, respondents were curiously split.

Twenty-seven percent each suggested “more than 80 percent” or “zero percent (just eliminating recurring costs is sufficient).” Fifteen percent of respondents were likewise split, stating that 20 percent and 60 percent of proceeds, respectively, should be returned to agencies.

Of all findings, Summerell indicated that lack of communication on PMA initiatives other than real property could be a problem in real property professionals’ ability to sustain compliance.

There is an inter-relationship among PMA initiatives that has a direct bearing on real property, Summerell said. For example, as an agency moves to green in the e-Government initiative, transactions with that agency will shift from paper-based documentation to electronic documentation. That may create surplus capacity for real property dedicated to document storage. Without involving real property professionals in that decision loop, accounting for such excess is just guesswork.

Business process decisions related to other initiatives in government transformation must be tied fairly to real property asset management goals and responsibilities, Summerell concluded.

Copies of the FPRA survey on real property asset management compliance may be downloaded from the VISTA Web site at: http://www.vistatsi.com/news_whitepapers.html.