Congressional oversight has focused in large part on four building management issues identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which has put real property on its annual "high-risk list" since 2003. In recent testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, David Wise, the Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues for GAO, identified three key challenges that agencies face when managing their real property portfolios: 
Maintaining more real property than it needs (including unutilized and underutilized buildings); Relying on leasing when ownership of new space would be more cost efficient; and Making real property management decisions using unreliable data. This report focuses on the challenges to effective oversight posed by the lack of accurate and reliable real property data, particularly as it relates to the disposal of unneeded buildings and the government's overreliance on costly leases. The first section analyzes potential weaknesses in the data available to Congress on unutilized and underutilized buildings. Unutilized and Underutilized Building Data

As noted, the federal executive branch agencies hold more than 250,000 buildings with a range of purposes, suited to the unique mission of each agency. The primary source of real property data available to Congress is the Federal Real Property Report (FRPR), an annual report that provides aggregate data on agency real property portfolios. Under the latest space utilization definitions, the number of buildings categorized as unutilized decreased by 54%, and the number categorized as underutilized decreased by 97%. The amount of funding spent operating and maintaining buildings that are empty or only partially occupied may help policymakers determine whether addressing the problem should be a priority. The FRPR does provide some data specific to the disposal of federal buildings, such as the number of buildings disposed of by each agency. Limitations on the Data Available for Oversight of Leased Space

The FRPR, the primary source for government-wide information on leased space, may not provide accurate data on the amount and cost of leased space. In particular, the FRPR does not include data on high-value leases and long-term leases, which represent the greatest fiscal exposure to the government. Moreover, the FY2014 FRPR provided revised figures for previous years, including FY2013 leased space data. GSA does, however, report data on individual leases in monthly spreadsheets, which are available to the public online, and that data could be aggregated and reported in the FRPR. Transparency might be further increased if similar data on high-value leases at agencies with independent leasing authority were also included in the FRPR, although it is not clear whether those data are currently available, or would require new collection methods. Long-Term Leases

Research has shown that long-term operating leases are especially likely, among all high-value leases, to expose the government to unnecessary costs. A relatively high prevalence of long-term leases in an agency's real property portfolio is considered by GAO a management weakness, as it is an indication that the agency's capital planning strategy has not "systematically prioritized which high-value leases have the most cost-saving potential" as construction projects. The FRPR no longer contains, for example, the annual operating costs of unutilized and underutilized buildings—it only provides the annual operating costs of disposed assets, thereby providing the "good news" of future costs avoided through disposition while omitting the "bad news" of the ongoing operating costs associated with unneeded properties the government maintains. GAO might also be able to assess the validity of GSA's revision of prior year lease data, which resulted in a significant decline in the total amount of leased space reported in the FRPR. Database Access

Obtaining direct access to the FRPP might enhance congressional oversight of agency real property activities. The usefulness of the prospectus approval process as an oversight tool, however, may be limited by the fact that GSA is not required to present data that directly compare the cost of leasing versus owning space. This means that Congress is unable to determine whether it is being asked to approve the most cost-effective option for meeting an agency's real property needs.
The federal executive branch owns and leases more than 275,000 buildings, with annual operating costs in excess of $21 billion. Oversight of this portfolio of buildings has been a priority for recent congresses, particularly since real property management has been identified as a "high-risk" area by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), every year since 2003. Key potential weaknesses in real property management include agencies holding empty or only partially occupied buildings; relying on leases for new space even when ownership would be cheaper; and making decisions using real property data of questionable quality. This report examines the challenges to oversight posed by the lack of accurate and reliable real property data, particularly as it relates to the disposal of unneeded building space and the government's overreliance on costly leasing.
The primary source of real property data available to Congress is the Federal Real Property Report (FRPR), which provides aggregate data on executive branch agency portfolios. The data, which are drawn from a database managed by the General Services Administration (GSA), can be unreliable and incomplete, which limits the effectiveness of the FRPR as an oversight tool. After building utilization definitions were revised in FY2013, for example, the number of properties categorized as "unutilized" declined 54% and the number of properties categorized as "underutilized" declined 97%. The FRPR also discontinued reporting the annual operating costs of underutilized and unutilized buildings after FY2010—data that could help Congress understand the full costs of inefficiencies in the building disposal process. GSA does not permit Congress direct access to its real property database, so there is currently no way to obtain that data should GSA opt not to report it in the FRPR.
The FRPR is also the primary source of data available to Congress on real property leases. The data on leased space, however, can also be unreliable and incomplete. In FY2014, for example, GSA reported a 45% decline in the amount of leased space held by the executive branch, and it revised data from FY2013, so that the new figures showed the government held 44% less leased space than it had previously reported for that year. Similarly, while long-term operating leases are most likely to expose the government to financial loss, the FRPR does not provide any data specifically on them. Neither does the FRPR provide data on high-value leases—those leases which, although small in number, often account for a disproportionately large percentage of an agency's operating costs. Key components of agency real property portfolios—notably their long-term and high-value leases—are subject to limited scrutiny from Congress due to the lack of accessible data.
Some of the weaknesses in real property data may be mitigated by congressional action. The FRPR could be expanded to include data Congress believes has important oversight value, such as, perhaps, data on the annual operating costs of unutilized and underutilized buildings, and data on long-term and high-value leases. In addition, obtaining access to GSA's real property database would enable Congress to look at all of the information GSA collects, and to analyze it in a variety of ways—in aggregate, by agency, or by individual building—as policy needs dictate. Agency lease prospectuses—detailed descriptions of the size, cost, and need for high-value leases that must be authorized by Congress—might be required to include the cost of constructing or buying the space which an agency proposed leasing, so that Congress knows if it is being asked to approve the most cost-effective method of space acquisition.