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WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta recently hosted a roundtable policy discussion on the Federal Real Property Profile database and the ways it can be used to save taxpayer dollars by streamlining the disposal of excess federal real estate.
To date, Barletta said the subcommittee has saved taxpayers $3.6 billion through better stewardship of public buildings.
Barletta, R-Hazleton, serves as chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s subcommittee on economic development, public buildings, and emergency management.
“I’m proud to say that we have already saved taxpayers $3.6 billion by changing how the federal government manages its real estate portfolio, but there is more work to be done,” Barletta said. “It’s common sense to me that the federal government should know what its assets are and how best to manage them, just as any small business would.”
Barletta said he and the committee must continue to hold federal agencies accountable for reporting accurate information and identify properties that can be sold, redeveloped, consolidated, or reused, so that taxpayers don’t foot the bill for underutilized and wasted space. He said the database will help realize those goals.
The database, which was made public by the 2016 Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act (FASTA), includes information for more than 300,000 federal real estate assets, including 40,000 office spaces, warehouses, and storage sites, 17,000 parking structures, and 17,000 leased facilities.
Roundtable participants, including the General Services Administration, the Government Accountability Office, and private sector experts, came together to assess the database and find ways to ensure it ultimately helps save money for the taxpayer.
FASTA, which moved through Barletta’s subcommittee on its way to becoming law in 2016, created a six-year pilot program to sell up to $8 billion of underutilized and vacant federal properties.
The law also required GSA to create and publish a single, comprehensive database of all federal real properties, the FRPP database, and include whether those properties are excess, surplus, underutilized, or unutilized to prevent a future stockpiling of unused and underutilized property.