The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is calling on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop benchmarks to measure Federal office building use and get rid of unneeded space, especially with recent increases in telework.
In a new report, GAO explained that operating unused office space has unnecessary financial and environmental costs. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic greatly increased the use of telework across Federal agencies, GAO said that agencies “struggled to identify and let go of unneeded space.”
In 2021, OMB directed Federal agencies “to consider collecting utilization data to support future space planning,” but it did not provide benchmarks for agencies to use that account for increased telework.
Notably, the government watchdog found that 17 agencies’ headquarters buildings were at 25 percent capacity or less in the first three months of 2023. On the higher end of the range, agencies used about 40 to 49 percent of the capacity of their headquarters on average during this time.
At a Federal Real Property Council meeting held in July 2023, GAO said that most agency officials agreed that OMB was best suited to develop benchmarks that Federal agencies can use to measure Federal office building use.
“Differences in agencies’ measures, calculations, and benchmarks can contribute to differences in capacity and utilization measures across the government,” the GAO report says. “A standard for measuring utilization and a benchmark that accounts for higher levels of telework could help the Federal government more consistently identify underutilized space within and across agencies.”
“This information could support better alignment of the Federal real property portfolio with future needs and cost reductions from releasing unneeded space,” it adds.
GAO recommended that OMB, as the chair of the Federal Real Property Council, lead the development and use of benchmarks for measuring building utilization that account for increased telework. OMB agreed with the recommendation.
