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The 2016 Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act, or FAST Act, designed to speed up the sale of excess federal real estate has not lived up to its name, GAO has said.
The law created a pilot program to address long-standing problems with shedding such property, traditionally blamed on statutory and regulatory requirements and a lack of upfront funding. That consisted of a new Public Buildings Reform Board to recommend properties for sale under expedited procedures in three rounds, with proceeds of the earlier sales to pay the up-front costs of the later ones.
However, officials of the board, GSA and OMB told the GAO that they “had encountered numerous setbacks while implementing the first two rounds” in 2019 and 2021, including that it took almost two years to sell any of the properties identified in the first round and that the lack of proceeds from that round limited what could be done in the second round.
The report said that while the GSA “has developed internal lessons learned, it has not collected or applied lessons learned from other stakeholders, including the Board and OMB. Nor has GSA formally shared any of its internal lessons learned with stakeholders, including Congress.” The GSA also “has not fully assessed the applicability of lessons learned to future disposal efforts, including possible changes to the traditional disposal process,” it said.
GSA agreed with a recommendation to develop a process to collect, share, and apply lessons learned, which the GAO said “may become more important” as agencies reduce and realign their real estate footprint due to increased telework and other changes resulting from the pandemic.
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