AGA Urges Greater Disposal Incentives, Increased Accountability

The Association of Government Accountants (AGA) advocates more incentives to encourage Federal agencies to identify and prepare excess property for reassignment or sale. Incentives, however, must be balanced with increased accountability by Federal managers.

These recommendations were made in the Federal Real Property Asset Management report, issued earlier this year. The report was based on a survey undertaken by AGA in 2006. Preliminary findings were first presented at the AGA Conference and Exposition, June 18-21 in San Diego, CA.

A major obstacle cited in the AGA report was legislation such as the Federal Property and Administrative Service Act (Property Act) of 1949 and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1986. The McKinney-Vento Act was cited in recent Congressional hearings on real property as a disincentive to reform. Both the Senate and House of Representatives, in proposed pilot legislation, have recommended that real property deemed surplus to federal missions be freed of any obligation to conform to the McKinney-Vento Act.

“While much progress has been made since the initiation of the emphasis on Federal Real Property Asset Management, much remains to be accomplished,” AGA wrote in its report.

The report acknowledged, “investments are needed to automate real property systems and to improve and maintain the current real property inventory.” On the other hand, report authors stressed the need to hold Federal managers accountable for the real property assets at their disposal, “whether through a recoverable charge to their appropriated funding or simply an accounting entry by which their effectiveness and efficiency are judged.”

Beyond incentives and accountability, AGA urged “simplification of the outstanding real property legislation and regulations.”

“Pilot programs allowing expedited disposals as proposed in the budget for fiscal year 2008 and new proposed legislation in the 110th Congress are needed to determine the right mix of incentives that will appropriately reward managers for protecting and conserving real property assets, and for identifying those for which disposal is appropriate,” AGA wrote.

In last year’s initial reporting by Managing Change of findings from the AGA survey, several highlights stood out.

Federal respondents noted at the time that “no one will identify excess or surplus property unless forced to do so – identification of surplus property can become very political.”

Respondents were asked to identify federal real property asset management high-risk areas. Significant real property repair and restoration needs were deemed high-risk areas by 50 percent of respondents. Development of reliable and useful real property data was cited by 79 percent of respondents.

Realignment and rationalization of real property and disposition of unneeded assets was evenly split, with 43 percent of respondents considering these topics applicable or partially applicable as high-risk areas.

For more information in the AGA survey results, visit http://www.agacgfm.org/research/publications/default.aspx