By Rebeka Zeljko
For years, government buildings have deteriorated, hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars and endangering employees’ lives. Ed Forst, the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), has a plan to change that.
In an interview with the Daily Caller, Forst detailed just how derelict many of these buildings have become. Many government-run buildings left to decay have become uninhabitable, with collapsing concrete ceilings, exposed wires, and standing water rendering spaces unusable. (RELATED: Kash Patel Announces FBI Is Leaving J. Edgar Hoover Building)
“There is an act of the government which requires occupancy data to be submitted to us,” Forst told the Caller. “The first submissions were in March, and agencies were required to meet a 60 percent agency-wide occupancy level. Not one agency in the federal government met it. Not one.”
“Some is lying fallow. Some is just really unproductively used. And some is just not usable.”
While the GSA directly oversees and manages the government’s real estate portfolio, Forst also emphasized Congress’ role in helping revive these buildings.
The GSA estimates the government has $50 billion worth of delinquent maintenance, much of which Congress delays. The GSA currently must comply with a $3.96 million spending threshold under the Federal Buildings Fund (FBF). Any project or renovation exceeding the threshold requires formal committee approval from both the House and the Senate.
GSA is now leading a coalition that includes every cabinet agency and several federal leaders advocating for full access to the FBF and raising the prospectus threshold to $75 million.
“$3.96 million is a tiny number given the scale of these buildings,” Forst told the Caller. “The average time to get that approval, if we get it, is over 400 days.”
“What our initiatives revolve around is not asking for a single dollar more than what we are already entitled to.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force Uncovers $6 Billion In Suspected Fraudulent Government Contracts)
Forst told the Caller that eliminating tedious committee approvals would allow the GSA to streamline much-needed renovation projects rather than letting the decay worsen, inevitably costing taxpayers more than it should.
“This whole building was built in two years,” Forst said of the GSA headquarters across the street from the White House. “When you compare that to 400-plus days just to get a roof repair approved, there’s a big disconnect.”
“Things will take as long as we let them. So let’s not let them take that long anymore.”
