the american recovery and reinvestment act signed into law on feb seventeenth two thousand on provided five point five five billion dollars for the general services administration i'm especially pleased to be chairing the subcommittee on economic development public buildings emergency management at a time when congress has provided on precedented funds for repair and rehabilitation to the g s a four point five billion dollars to convert federally owned g s a buildings and i perform its green building for another three hundred million for border stations and land ports of entry and an additional seven hundred and fifty million for repair alteration and construction of other federal buildings and courthouses of which four hundred fifty million is allocated to the new department of homeland security headquarters project located on the old saying on this it was west campus in the district of columbia this second tracking hearing on hearsays progress on creation of jobs and repair and rehabilitation of federal buildings follows the full committee hearing last week featuring all the subcommittees entitled recovery act ten week progress report for transportation and infrastructure programs the transportation and infrastructure committee is requiring that all funds be obligated by september thirtieth two thousand ten with the remainder available until september thirtieth two thousand and eleven note that word of vailable move it or lose it however g s a stands out among federal agencies because this agency does federal buildings moreover because the g s a funds will be spent on federal structures taxpayers will get an additional bang for the federal buck with energy savings that are central to all these g s a projects so important is g s a dual role as a federal agency but which the administration and the congress is also accountable that the white house announced the g s a projects and locations itself thus this subcommittee has a particularly important oversight role to ensure the that the that the g s a and the federal government lead by example and quickly create jobs consequently i tend to frequently convene hearings to track progress and obligating funds and creating jobs to help g s a spot issues early the g project lives now online covers all fifty states the district of columbia and the territories i urge the members of the subcommittee and other members of congress to personally monitor creation  creation in your district and state today i am releasing the twenty two projects in my district that includes six high performance green building four and partial building modernization and sixteen other high performance green building projects because the district of columbia is the seat of the federal government with most of its prime land off these the off the local tax rolls to be used for federal office space the district writing's number one and government projects and need to work with texas ranks number two however g s a preparing its list of potential projects based entirely on its backlog of repairs needed to maintain its own large inventory throughout the nation the committee insisted our subcommittee insisted that all projects contain a significant energy saving component and g s a refined its list to incorporate energy efficiencies and new technologies along with contract timelines as a result of the results of g s a projects we expect to move federal government procurement to a lead position for energy efficient buildings allowing taxpayers to receive the rewards of lower energy costs the congressional focus on the repair of existing federal buildings will also preserve the valuable federal own  inventory for occupancy and other vital needs importantly providing jobs that stimulate the economy is the primary purpose of the stimulus bill are subcommittees that has worked closely with  to ensure that its recovery act projects can be implemented quickly while providing many jobs at a variety of skill levels because of its proven twenty facts on stimulating the economy and putting people to work quickly infrastructure is at the heart of the recovery act itself it was therefore impossible to avoid the reality that the training deficit in construction jobs among some americans could produce disputes when federal when that only funded jobs go to the already trained mostly white male workforce however these were workers these construction workers have faced a long period of unemployment and have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country can bittering the steep rise in unemployment for minorities women and the like however the last thing the country needs is racial ethnic or other group tension we have taken some steps to avoid this division among workers and allied minorities and women consistent training that has been the consistent barracked consistent training has been the major barrier for minorities and women in construction since the federal government ceased funding a large ramage human labor training program in one thousand nine hundred eighty resulting in two huge german apprentices and other train workers for many of the trades however today's unprecedented amount of stimulus funds stimulus funds committed to infrastructure and job creation is a call to action to avoid missing the opportunity this opportunity by mounting well designed for your premiership and apprenticeship training that could lead to high paying jobs if we obviously want the economic crisis which has created the worst of times can create new opportunities we have gotten off to a good start and this recovery act with three million dollars for on the job for your friend is an apprenticeship training and the g s a section of the bill and twenty million dollars for training in the highway section the training money and the g s a section raises several issues because the amount is so small about where and how much money can be efficiently spent produce the intended result both sections of the building are woefully insufficient for this training and i intend to introduce a bill for mandatory training in the upcoming highways in france and transfer transit reauthorization a good amount of the money  that a good amount of money has been of vailable in the transportation bill for a decade and for a decade with one percent and one half of one percent of state highway dollars bill for training programs however only seventeen states have chosen to spend some of their funds for training leaving minorities and women unframed and abdicating the testified who testified when when i'm sorry when acting administrator paul proudly testified of last week's hearing i suggested that g s a consider working with the department of transportation to devise the most effective way to allocate these on a nationwide basis both agencies have too little funds for the training necessary but together they may be able to avoid duplication of efforts and perhaps achieve some economies of scale actually days hearing we will hear in greater detail from g s a about how it expects to aggregate funds to create jobs to ensure quality construction and to created here to the necessary time a inspector general brian miller has already acknowledged that rapid spending of government funds creates considerable risk we have learned that lesson in the post katrina period as well as with spending associated with the iraqi war we will also hear from the g s a customer the social security administration that will benefit from the sun i want to today's witnesses and very much look forward to their testimony  may i ask now if the ranking member has any opening remarks thank you madam chairman let me first thank you for holding this oversight hearing today and g s a as recovery act funds it  seems that congress is now in the position of having put the cart before the horse by by frankly passing legislation that contains no oversight and yet demanding after the money is spent or has been out the door to to have some oversight which is why this is such an important hearing we we received recently saw the consequences of frankly basically an act of legislation significant expensive legislation without oversight with the ongoing scandals that we continue to read about and see regarding w point five billion dollars for the g s a federal building fund and considering this huge investment and we know that potential is there for for waste frankly it herself just talked about that federal the federal real property has been on the jail's high risk listens since two thousand and three and according to the g a o longstanding problems in the federal real property area have multi multibillion dollar cost implications to the taxpayer obviously and the g s a so the workload for g s a with regards to federal buildings has tripled now under this legislation creating obviously more potential for for problems for mismanagement for waste for cost overruns for the last thing obviously that the american taxpayers and they need or want to see are projects that are started in the all of sudden they're not finished because they're too costly there's not enough money the money is misspent or we're coming back to congress for more money because  those funds were not sufficient for the projects that were started again we need to make sure that the money is well spent and that's that's why i want to thank the chairman for this hearing but a hearing on january the g a o recommended three guiding principles for g s a projects funded under this recovery act number one it was to create well defined goals based on identified areas of interest number two was to incorporate performance and accountability into funding s if that's if that's the objective of g s a to make sure that that we don't have the problems that we could have so while the stated purpose of the recovery act was to simulate jobs the bill also set aside four point five dollars of the five point five billion to convert g s a facilities to high performance green buildings as identified in section four hundred one of the energy independence and security act so obviously we all recognize that energy conservation independence is an important goal to a very important goal however it's also important to realize that this was a stimulus bill and ensuring tax dollars including the bill are there to create jobs has to be the primary goal and and i think it is but it has to be the primary goal of g s a unfortunately and we had this conversation last week we have yet to see the number of jobs that are going to be created by those funded projects and i'm hoping that those will be forthcoming in addition among the requirements of the of the energy act reducing energy water and the tiriel resources use improving indoor environmental quality including acoustic environments and considering the indoor and outdoor facts of the building again that's part of the act so there lies part of the challenge create jobs or do this other part of that is also required i for one think i would say that the purpose of this bill was to create jobs and create i'm immediately pleased again that the chairwoman is holding this oversight hearing and she's very committed to doing to doing this and i want to thank her for that i do remain concerned there's still a tremendous potential for mismanagement and for waste and the number of jobs that these projects will create again has as yet to be to be demonstrated and so again while many the projects may be worthy and frankly even some of them very necessary we must ensure that such a large commitment of taxpayers dollars are properly used and the money is properly managed and obviously that the priority that congress was hoping for which is job creation continues to be priority number one so i look forward to all of you i really thank you all for being here for spending your time with us today and again i once again and by thanking the chair on for having what i think is a very important oversight me thank you being made in g s a and i just want to take a moment and recognize along with you i know that you have the capacity at g s a to do not just the job creation that we envisioned under the recovery and reinvestment act but also to make sure that we're doing that we're building buildings for the future and that we're transforming buildings for the future and i know that i see with the g s a team a fellow who was deeply involved in moving forward the amazing green building at the food and drug administration which is that in my district and i would like to see those kind of buildings under  with federal funds federal buildings all across the country because in the long run they'll save us a ton of money and i know that in the recovery and reinvestment act madam chairwoman part of what we recognize is that we want to create jobs in the short term and we want to create opportunities and savings for the taxpayer in the future and so i look forward to hearing that aspect of what you all have in mind and and to working with you over  these next several months and years to make sure that we can do what the chairwoman has in mind as well and that is create job opportunities for the thousands and thousands of people out there who could be trained up to engage in proto productive economic activity in support of the mission of g s a and in support of the taxpayer if we could just get them the skills skills base to do that and so thank you for being here today and madam chairwoman thank you very much for holding this important over right hearing and i would say in conclusion that while there may not be direct oversight authority as we move forward with looking at the expenditure in the american recovery and reinvestment act congress always has broad authority to look at the way the taxpayer dollars are spent and that's exactly what we're doing here today thank you thank you very much ms as mary congratulate you on your performance shakespear last night where you were typecast as an environmental  process of the second congressional district and i know that there are various projects in the district that are presently being being used the money to the so much money being used in connection with several on there in the district and i'm interested and interested in hearing those those projects and how taxpayers money speedin used to to to renovate or to improve some of those projects down there  district and your help along with others were very appreciated and i hope that you can continue assistance in that area if possible so with that thank you very much ff aside conversation meanwhile we are very pleased to welcome today's witnesses william garrett who is the project management office executive for this inspector general for the g s a and michael gallagher assistant deputy commissioner bud to finance and management act so security administration it's again in the order of cast and established the recovery program management office and g s a public building service the funds congress provided us through the american recovery and reinvestment act our sound investment first these funds will stimulate growth in the construction and real estate sectors second it will help us reduce energy consumption and improve the environmental performance of our inventory and third it's an investment in the existing infrastructure we recognize that this isn't business as usual  to better implement our part of the recovery act we created a program management office the p m o is nationally managed and regionally executed at the national level where staff with a combination of in house experts high performing employees and industry hires further supported by contracting consultant resources i was recently named as the recovery executive to lead this office in addition and executives during committee headed by our deputy commissioner advises the pm the steering committee developed a nationwide programme strategy and helped set priorities they will approve any changes to the project list and will address national customer concerns in terms of project execution we have an aggressive schedule we are streamlining our business processes and approaches to meet that schedule for example we created three zone committees the zones are geographically based to monitor projects at the regional level each zone is led by a zone executive who assist in tracking and monitoring our projects they'll be able to shift support resources to projects and regions as needed in effect the p m o serves as an early warning system for projects that are not meeting anticipated anticipated targets and we have just appointed our three zone executives last week since an action of the recovery act we have moved quickly our march thirty first we delivered a list of two hundred fifty four projects to congress these projects fall into three categories  new construction including one billion dollars invested in seventeen projects fall in partial building modernizations investing three point two billion dollars in forty three projects and limited scope of performance green building projects where we have invested eight hundred seven million dollars to repair and enhance building infrastructure systems and more than one hundred ninety four projects today we've awarded close to one hundred million dollars and we currently have a number of solicitations on the street that we expect toward at least another one hundred million dollars in recovery projects by early june of the five hundred excuse me the five point five billion dollars we received our goal is to obligate one billion dollars by august first and another billion dollars by the end of the calendar year we have target dates for projects awards in each quarter to ensure we obligate five billion dollars by the end of f y two thousand and ten and an additional five  fifty million dollars by the end of two thousand and eleven as described previously in our written statement we will use criteria in selecting projects for a spending plan that would put people back to work quickly and transform our federal buildings into high performance green buildings for many of the common high performance green building elements we develop standard scopes of work the standard scope of work will be shared nationwide and with other agencies agencies engaged in recovery act wor in addition we are using regional and national contracts to support our reporting and tracking efforts and program management activities finally pre apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs will be an internal part of our recovery act projects these programs will establish will be established as contractual requirements for building projects the programs will be modeled after g s a successful program in the national capital region through it at least eight hundred forty people at fifteen projects have been trained concludes my prepared statement i have briefly described her activities as part of the american recovery and reinvestment act we look forward to working with you and members of the subcommittee as we engage in this important work we have ranking member diaz follower members of the committee thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing these recovery act projects are monumental fifty years from now people will be talking about how these recovery act projects have changed have transformed the way government deliver services to the american people it's important that we get these right thank you for having this hearing as you know g normal construction budget for building projects is about one point three billion a year the recovery act provides g s a with an additional five point five five billion in construction funding and three hundred million for acquisition of energy efficient vehicles the increase in construction funding alone is four times g s a is typical construction budget for a single year and the recovery act requires g s a to obligate the majority of those funds within a twenty month period in addition to funds going directly to g s a significant additional amounts will flow through g s a from other agencies these additional amounts include for example six hundred  twenty million from v h s ninety million from city state and possibly five hundred million from social security administration the bottom line is the g s a is being asked to spend and manage five times more than it normally does in a significant significantly shorten timeframe the office of inspector general has been meeting regularly what the agency both to monitor recovery act activities and to ensure that we have a clear understanding of the agency's plans this positive working relationship exists partly due to the efforts of acting administrator paul prouty and i commend him for his we have also developed strategies to conduct more timely reviews in recognition of the needs of the agency to act quickly on recovery act projects the montra from the movie field of dreams is if you build it they will come well g s a is building it now however some of those who will come are criminals fraudsters and cheats if contracting for hurricane katrina and the war in iraq taught us anything it was that quick government spending of large amounts of money creates considerable considerable risks to address these risks and meet the time phrase frames set out in the recovery act we have develop new ways to respond quickly we have adopted a quick response approach using auditors and investigators to rapidly follow up on recovery and complaints and referrals including those forwarded to us by the recovery countability and transparency board w established a core team of auditors and will be using a streamlined approach to performing reviews the amount of funds and the short time frame will create significant challenges for g s a i'd like to highlight what i see is for those challenges first i believe the most critical challenge will be the need for additional qualified personnel especially contracting officers and project managers because g may not be able to hire sufficient qualified new employees to meet the this needs g s a is considering hiring contractors to fill the immediate void and assist with the increased workload this blended workforce however will create a second challenge namely the additional risks related to security conflicts of interest in management of contractors the third challenge based on  historical problems identified in the past will be managing projects to prevent cost escalation beyond approved funding resolving claims and avoiding project of lace a fourth challenge would be managing an budgeted customer needs as it struggles to meet these challenges and g s a is like a single engine freight freight train that suddenly must carry four times its normal load with the addition of more freight cars the anticipated addition of even more cars to that train is agencies start turning over their project funding to g s a will put even more strain on the g s a engine if it hits a hill or a bump the engine may quickly brian burnouts thank you for your attention i'd be happy to answer any questions thank you mr mr miller from the testimony of mr gallagher madam chair ranking member diaz balart and members of the subcommittee good afternoon i'm michael gallagher assistant deputy commissioner for social security's office of budget finance and management i have a commissioner michael astro thank you for the opportunity to discuss our partnership with the general services administration to construct a new data center using five hundred million dollars appropriated to us in the recovery act this new center will replace our aging thirty year old national computer center in addition to being city the new facility will incorporate green building technology and use new energy efficient equipment and processes to ensure the project is completed on time on budget and in full compliance with the recovery act requirements we n g s a have assigned expect our best and most experienced project managers we look forward to this important collaboration and i would like to thank the essay for its leadership of this vital project our current data centers a technological heart of the agency housing critical computer operations and essential data for prompt and accurate benefit payments to tens of millions of americans believe put this work into context last fiscal year we paid over six hundred fifty billion dollars to more than fifty two million americans we currently process an all time high of over seventy five million business transactions per day and to support our disability workload we store nearly three hundred seventy million image health records to which we add two million more records each week to manage benefits annually we extend exchange over one billion data files with federal and state governments and businesses given the nature  of these workloads it is clear that the successful construction the new data centers essential for us to continue serving the american people with recovery act funding we n g o s say once year that the new data center will be operational as our current facility nears the end of its functional life i'm pleased to report to you that we n g s air moving aggressively to build this new facility g s a has already hired a construction management firm for this project and it has hit the ground running in addition we n g s say are formulating specific requirements to construct a city our data center that meets industry standards developing the site selection criteria in developing a detailed construction plan now g s a is primarily responsible executing these steps nevertheless compromising quality work jumping on to risks were added costs are joint efforts will need all the accountability and transparency objectives set forth by the administration and by the congress when these funds were appropriated again we thank the congress for this important appropriation and we extend our appreciation to g s a for working diligently with us to construct a new data center thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and i look forward to answering your questions official the need to spend these funds quickly to produce quality work without conflicts of interest can you testify here today that you think the agency is capable of meeting the standards sure that's an excellent question the role of an inspector general ways to review what the agency is doing and we are reviewing the agency's planning process and and what they plan to do to and other agencies by the way have handed over money to g s a to do their work when they could get some hire a contractor something speaks to the high regard g s a is helping him we also have seen the agency froning of staff is a quite polite word for what has happened this agency over the last several years and yet we're putting even if it were fully staffed as it was let's say when i came to congress a century ago we would have been a lot to put on the agency to five that you speak as you have just in answer to my question about a quick response approach using order to investigate or to quote rapidly follow up on recovery act complain for slow work may be in order to make sure they get it right but to keep the agency from making mistakes while the train is running as you say four times the rate it usually does are you prepared to do pre orders or something of bad nature to help g s a weather this extraordinary storm we put upon it and insist that it do madam chair we are prepared to do that we are we're not relying on the old yellow book audit standards they take too long traditional audits take too long we're adopting a more rapid approach akin to the critical point evaluations that you may be familiar with or may not be familiar with and we hope to review these projects early very early and establish points at which we will get feedback back to the agency that we will provide reviews  to the agency quickly so that they can change direction if they're going in the wrong direction or if if they have a mistaken assumption we will be able to inform them we're attempting to to for the have a staff to do that mr miller we know we've funded you as well as all of the stimulus act funds to have these extra funds realizing we put the burden on you as well do you have the funds to do not only they all got stuff that i g s of course do so well but here is how not to get you well we could use more auditors and investigators were real how many additional auditors and how big is your office and how many additional auditors investigators have you been authorized to have we have about three hundred total individuals in the office a little more than that and how this is i'm talking about the people i know you do you you do a lot of work with  how many in that service now and how many additional have you we we have seven s g e that are funded by the recovery act seven we are reassigning other auditors from other projects we do it as you've noted we have statutorily required audits  other areas that we have to perform not the least of which is a review of customer service centers that we are required by statute to do with the department of defense on the acquisition side which  staff all together so that's that's separate work as far as i'm concerned with the far right of the fence work i agree i'm so i'm looking for how much of your staff given the fact that public building service is the largest part of or they will be they will be most of those will go to public building service work ok there is additional money in the recovery act for fleet the energy efficient vehicles t we're trying to move our resources to marshal them to look at recovery act funds so that we can spot issues earlier as you said but we do have limits and we are stretched thin so we do need auditors and investigators now i was very i'm very concerned about another issue you testified concerning and that is the need for more staff training almost  quickly i'm also on another committee where the entire federal government is legendary for how long it takes people to get on staff and so some of the best the brightest day later i thought i could get hired tomorrow conflicts of interest the manager of contractors when my staff saw i heard me or ask a question about how many retirees congress on i thought you wanted new employees you know to get more jobs i do but i'm desperate and i would assume that retirees if you could get them would already meet the security conflict of interest and other such requirements what percentage of these new people are going to be retirees and what do you expect to be retirees on maybe i should also ask mr garron and what percentage will be contractors now i am assuming that a contractor working on government work will have to go through certain kinds of cons depend tryst and security security doors that others would have to go through only briefly so i need to know how many of each kind of employees we are likely to get working on this matter because i had a lot to do with how quickly we get going and also as that if your contract you need to be trained god help us if we got a whole new training module to get him to stop i want to get down to personality real quick since nothing gets done in this world unless you've got the best people who work themselves over time and then some to get it done man i'm sure thank you for asking that we are trying to hire retired new intense we have several auditors that have a great deal of experience but have retired from g s a that would be willing to work for us again and we would love to hire them again and also we are where we were hoping to pick up some retired auditor office we're hoping to get more retirees how about you mr garrett congresswoman we've we've identified upwards of twenty annuitants that could potentially come back to work for  is there any way is it still impossible for a new and and i knew and i thought we made some changes in that i think they reduce the annuity for people that are coming back that's my understanding congressman i can imagine  we're working with o p m to obtain not a thirty currently my office does not have that authority and i understand the g s a just not have the authority to hire retired new attends without them waving their return  something mr mr need neither office had you don't have the agencies have it i'm on the oversight and reform committee and here i am under the illusion that we have federal buildings and u s courthouses edition the recovery act authorized g s a to initiate design construction repair alteration and other projects through existing authorities in the administration now  that and so i'm hoping that you're looking at that are you and if not why not i mean here we have the opportunity to create jobs and also here we have an opportunity to to on a short and long term help the taxpayer in the real program as as opportunities for us to complete federal buildings and we thought the legislation was written in a way that that was the target of the legislation to take care of our federal building program and we have quite a backlog of federal buildings courthouses in a three tiered program we have regional executives in each of our eleven regions focused primarily and entirely i should say on the recovery act projects in each of the regions so those people are able to reach into the  organization make sure that information is flowing properly make sure people are in the right positions to do the work that they need to do to support the recovery act there are viewing staffing congresswoman norton was talking about staffing earlier they're making sure that they understand what the staffing requirements are in the being shared where necessary so that if we have opportunities to to use our few g s a resources more effectively if someone in one region is not being used to their full extent we can we can swap those resources across regions and those only executives are designed to do that they're looking at variance they're looking at resources they're looking at sharing and particularly looking at lessons learned so where we where we have an opportunity to learn a lesson and share something good to accelerate the program we can do requires through the program we have a series of stakeholders that are quite interested in everything that we do and we're making sure that we have the reporting function set up to both track projects make sure that they're happening appropriately jumping where we need to to to to save projects that are getting themselves in trouble to revamp the list where necessary as a project starts to go haywire and it will not recover we need to be able to jump on that right away and shift the funds to a different source to a different project make sure that those those funds get spent wisely and then finally  particularly the challenges i'm laid out in my testimony so we will be looking at the effectiveness of the project as well but certainly we would be happy to include that it is one of the items that we as as well i sat here and i listened to the testimony and i have to tell you the one thing that jumped out at me mr miller is that in your testimony and it's clear from our legislation we have quadrupled the amount of money that we're  giving to go out to renovate and build public buildings and we quadrupled the number of investigators and auditors to oversee that money  going out no we have not thank you for asking we need more auditors and investigators to do these to make sure these projects are on track and to get answers back early and  then i just want to be clear the are you unclear as to your authority to hire those people directly rather than contracting them o p m has not given us the right to hire ret annuitants retirees so we have no authority to hire them without them waving their retirements and so there may be just to follow this along we may have to do something that enables that authority so that we can get people who are qualified and experienced and who can hit the ground running to do the kind of oversight and accountability that we need for the taxpayer is that correct that is correct  optimistic that o p m will come through quickly in the near future where we are working with o p m to gain that authority but we do not have it now and let me let me just continue on this line my major concern with the hiring of contractors to do what i believe of all the things that we have to do we can't have government workers can't be building roads and buildings but government workers should surely be able to oversee how taxpayer dollars are being spent i think that is the most efficient way for us to oversee these funds and i am greatly concerned that instead you may have to rely on and no offense to ten intended but a bunch of hired hands to come in and do the function of government and that concerns me tremendously and i we have the lessons of katrina we have the less iraq and afghanistan and the list is just long replete with billions of dollars that are spent where contractors are overseeing every single part of the process and government has no role other than writing the check and the check just gets greater precisely because we haven't overseen the funds and so this member anyway is going to be disturbed tremendously if we can't figure out a way to bring people in who who know what they're doing because they've done it before and let me just ask this as well on the question of security how do we ensure that we're going to get people in who have the right kinds of security clearances to be able to  oversee and audit and investigate in the way that they need to if we have to rely on a set of contractors and sort of third party verification of security compliance when we could get that and get it a lot faster if we were able to hire those who had already served in government but i couldn't agree more hiring contractors compounds the risk and mr garrett if you have any concerns about this i would appreciate that you would put those on the record now for this subcommittee because the last thing that we want is to be accused of mismanaging quadruple the amount of money that g s a has ever had before for these functions because we want people back to work we want public buildings that meet efficiency requirements and are able to perform for the for the future and we don't want to waste taxpayer dollars and so do you have the assurances that that you're going to be able to function in a way that works for the taxpayers given received upwards of fifty applications personally i know it's happening across the country of people quite qualified looking for work with the federal government and we are able to bring them in temporarily on the on four year contract things like that to support our program and we will be doing that we're not looking to staff dramatically in federal hires federal permanent employees because this is a huge program but it is a blip in our radar will go back to the suspect a typical billion dollars so a year construction program after the stimulus money has been spent out the contracting officers are certainly a concern and we're actively engaged you know particularly chasing annuitants and looking at people that have that kind of ideas out there to how to use contracting officers more effectively and staff them with the kind of support they need to become much more efficient i guess is the best word for it to do the contracting that needs to be done for this and that is stepping up but i member so that we can make certain that with the quadrupling of the money that's gone out to g s a that we that we make sure that it's spent in the most efficient and effective way and that  which really highlighted the potential for cost escalations and the delays in your testimony obviously you also make the point that that's not a new issue with with the workload increase what can be done differently though so minimize those those risks if i may go back to your earlier question about job creation i understand now that according to the office of management and budget they've given the department of commerce the responsibility of looking at job creation so that my office will not be looking at that particular aspect so i'm sorry give you an incorrect answer before these are historical problems that g s a faces the constants collation is that the time to waste and they're well aware of these issues and you know i assume that the street karen and others are taking efforts to miller am i correct that if you took on a contractor the contractor would have to get got a security clearance and the check for as you said the fraud  the fraud makers will come to be checked for entire background and if so how long will that take for contractors to be able to do this kind of work with with the g s a madam chair you are security clearances yeah i believe they are i know at various times our office will help about expediting those clearances do you happen to know some of the clearances that we process go through the federal protective service contractors and i'm not sure where the security clearances are processed with g s a i'm talking about the ages p t twelve clearances that support our contractors and so there's a security clearance who does the background check you d background check or disk o p m do that others do the background check so you see what i'm getting at especially the contractors you know the only one doing stuff hoping to hire retirees as well as new auditors and investigators but they'll have to go through the same kind of so what percentage of the new the only have seven what percentage will be do you expect to be and these are temporary employee time saving over brand new employees what we need though we don't we'd like to hire people why do you need both if you've got seven new ones and said i'm ready to work tomorrow why would you need somebody who had to go through the security clearance background check look i want more people hired guess what do you say but i had his work done on time and therefore i want to know why you wouldn't prefer to hire a new attends who would be projects we also in the same process would like to hire new employees is in my limited are you are you not giving preference to this work that's not nearly as interested if you will forgive me and your overall anything if it's supposed to take you two months to do something will take on the here so given the time frame but they have a custom too which is no time frame if we have a front end problems d part of your work for example madam chair no we do not have any authority to hire anyone except for the public building service work man i'm sure i'd have to check i don't ten to fifteen would be retirees and we are seeking authority to hire and i guess some of those slots f t s would be taken by the retired retirees so we would have to yes but i'm not i'm just another i just want to know whether my question is very simple will the auditors with this grant of money i don't have the amount before me will you be able to hire stories for the g s a a grant of money from a new wooden's who could hit the ground running i'm not i'm pleased that there maybe other employees but there is a specific amount of money and i'm will hold you accountable for this amount and this says the conference agreement provides seven million dollars for the g s a administrative office of inspector general  to be available through september thirtieth twenty thirteen for oversight and audit of programs i want to know about this seven million dollars will that is it possible that this seven million dollars can be used exclusively to hire new it and who can hit the ground running man i'm sure we will we will try to do that part of the confusion is that with retired new entrants many of than their part time hours do you believe that you could do it with part time employees we do believe that and we are seeking the authority to hire those retired return thank you very much now i want to ask  guarantee how many contractors and how many retirees do you plan to have our congress when we've gone and evaluated that with all of our regional offices to  realize that's a foreign language but we've got to learn to speak it now so i've got a i don't understand what is the holdup in making the simple decision of how many  easy decision to make is let's get as many retirees we can possibly find and when everything we can find has to go to contractors because of the sheer savings  and in process time but mr garrett let me tell you my disappointment we had to bring out and this hearing that you didn't even have the authority and let me just say that over and over again i have found that all that the agency had to do would be to come to staff and alert staff that it didn't have x y and z and it could have had it the new head of o p m whom i don't even think i have to go to happens to be the person i know very very well he lives in this region has worked for the congress and the government his entire professional life is already off the grid and off and running to create a new more efficient o p m and i don't know if we have had this hearing and this is a tracking hearing without having very often how we would have even found out that you did not have the authority which this hiring issues are certainly raised in your testimony so it is it gives me no sense of confidence in the agency that you haven't been here before the bill was passed knowing to me we need to mold we need to move opium to make us an agency and seemly disconcerting to hear that only in a hearing so i've got to ask you i'm not going to be left with people combing the fields w contractors because we haven't even decided that the best way to get people on board is to look for some people who've left the agency and who may be lured back i mean i understand i can i ask you this you heard mr miller say that he believes he will be able to harm new ordinance to do its work maybe it won't but he sees the efficiency to the government and the timeframe could i ask you whether you will undertake beginning when you leave this hearing to recruit as many a new orleans as possible to do this work and if that is impossible or if you see some issues there i would be pleased to hear them because i'm only asking this from ignorance you see i don't know maybe there is a reason why one it shouldn't be attempted in two they were attempted it would not be a good thing so would you please inform me whether you are willing to do that in light of the fact that you had to pull people from all over the agency just to accomplish what you've done thus far yes as i said earlier we have  equal branch of government and you see the reason that you see me pressing this is there's not competing one to blame except us it's us doing federal bill business so if this doesn't get on time we're not going to say you know marilyn it or look what we told the genya we we're going to have to take responsibility ourselves so that we've got to stay on top of this since we've got nobody to point to but i felt but if we don't even know  i'm left to do what i'm doing now so you already have a debt of five a couple of hundred although you see that and that is that it's contrary to your initial answer in which case i would have gone on you said you were trying to decide how many contractors and i recognize you may run out of a new audience but if there's not even been established a preference for people who can hit the ground running then i'm not sure where the hiring authority is at this point but you can address that we have two rolling registers out now one focused on primarily contracting officers and one primarily focused on project managers we know we have needs in both of those areas so we've identified those and we've we've put them out and advertise them three ways one is a permanent hire one is a temporary hire and one is as are most of my problem guess i'm not looking for a job is somebody who's sitting at home on their pension we've got people who retired early some of the most they had now we've got people who've retired even the people who might want to come back to work are not among those who are looking at your who let's see who's hiring and if no is so i guess i should ask you who is out recruiting a new wouldn't who's looking for newton's the regions around recruiting right now the the fire that you can only get some of them part time somebody ought to say hey look look at your four hundred one k what do we call whatever we call hours when you like to come back for at least part time work could be aggressively recruiting these people unless let me ask mr miller how long does it take a contractor a new person to get through the system as opposed to a a new id and to get through the system i asked i asked the staff how long it's been ninety days since the darn bill was passed and they were there and for this long before the bill passed it's extremely disappointing how many people even brought on new  again i don't have that number congress will tell you what this is very very anxiety raising by the close of business tomorrow we want to see a personnel char for the recovery act funds only including those who've been brought on board and when when we say a prayer in hearings that's what i mean you know what given the fact that some of these only comes out on what i call cross examination i'm saying to the staff i think we've got to be prepared to hold a hearing even as we're preparing every two weeks until we are sure that these folks have  and we may have to do him on a friday or we may have to do him in one of the other rooms until we are sure that they have staff on board and are going we're going to get so backlog we won't be able to catch up and will be on off by the of business tomorrow i want that staff chart here please you need to bring on some people just to help you get on people i don't understand how understaffed you are i should think that would be an  incentive to go forward let me ask you about swing space is there sufficient swing space already contracted for the full program in order to accommodate those swings are they available we are investigating that right now i believe they are available several of the leases are in the district and we believe spaces available in the district to accommodate those what i'd like b also business tomorrow to know what the swing space is in the district and whether swing states will be needed or and other areas and i want you know where the timelines have you have do you have the timelines for the project yes could have those timelines as well yes by the close of business tomorrow could i ask about something that if you were to come to us i would have made it a priority this is certainly not on our nerves but but one of the things i'd like to do is to make sure that for example for things like moving fun g s a has the authority so the agency which then has go and find it in its budget which of course isn't any disincentive doesn't hold up the works where we can end up paying for space how many times have i seen that occur just because g s a doesn't have the funds to move the agency into are any side funds related to the work that the social security administration especially to do go ahead before i answer that question congressman has wanted to clarify something g s a has requested and received a waiver for our contracting p m and they granted a waiver for eleven o two which are the contracting officers so we have the ability to bring back our annuitants one and so contracting officers including a new event for a new it contracting officer or previous contracting officers were able to bring them in without pain lies in them and were seeking authority for other positions as well thank you very much so in other words you already can on our hiring  without penalty without penalty right and then to your question congress when the agency moves as g s a developed the list we worked with with o m b on the costs associated with moving the tenants in and out of the buildings you have to do the we call them on budget customer needs because it falls to you to do what you've already delegated what is it five hundred million dollars two g s a are there any other funds you have to  delegate or get from your budget in order for them to complete the work that they're doing to you are you speaking just about the computer center in stone i wanted to i'm not prepared to answer that you had to delegate it to you had to get the money over you had the money you had to give it over to them yes we will have to do a reimburse for work authorization back to g s a for this function actually maybe this was just to keep the funds from going beyond a certain amount for you maybe that's the reason this occurred but i'm you're right you don't have the authority the reason i'm asking questions like this is that if we are we authorizing the bill we don't want to just step into something that that 's not what we want to do what are and what are the plans the gallagher for this computer center made in yet has been made yet as to where the new facility will be worse still is when you're going to the really the site selection process on that you have to purchase land yes this will require purchase of land missed it  what about the purchase of land here that that baltimore it's just somewhere about that that we do know that there is some technology reasons are required to be close to our current facility we also need to make sure that some technology issues just have but that that man a data transferred back and forth there are specific location to do those critical nature a secure facility it's a secure facility but it's in baltimore county yes ma'am what is the delineated area mr garrett going to be you said fifty i'm going to ask you within twenty four hours of the lenny ated area to submit that information to this committee and subcommittee and i'm going to remind you that when there is a delineated area the rule is that any change in the delineate century starting at the beginning with the land purchase there are going to have to get all your basic decisions made within the next thirty days at the outset so they won't be able to put it on you they'll do it in a second everything at one time so you know we had to do the impossible but i want to make sure you're not left since you have to start with plan purchase which makes yours even more difficult than what we've been describ if i could mean because we do expect because there is a concern amount of work to do we had a time when our current plan is we've got to be able to acquire the site in the second quarter of fiscal year  them it does take time and light of that i'm going to have to ask mr darin since you have testified that you are looking for streamline methods i think you use the word innovative approaches to do projects associated with this thing but here's a classic one where you're being asked to do really a very difficult thing which is acquire land and then go forward  involved with all those activities as an example in bakersfield we're looking to have a design competition to to completely streamline the design selection process and get us very quickly to design competition eliminates the need to actually go through a formal selection process of the architect we issue a solicitation and the designers actually provide designs as part of their submission to us so it cuts out quite a bit of the design time associated with project by using the concepts that are provided selecting the architect gets the winning contract ask them to can new design and starting to design build process at the same time so it's an example of substantially compressing the time frame associated with that is  headquarters building in september of this year as well as the construction manager for that project so that means we won't be when we are the obligat five years will be obligating funds beginning this summer the first part of that development i was mentioning the kind of a larger package which is the coast guard the actual building but we're going to be starting with abatement and demolition of the buildings that are the site that will house or the site for the coast guard headquarters is currently occupied by buildings that are identified for demolition of the final approved master plan except for acquisition of site you of course have perhaps the most fashioned that's the reason we were able to get this out in stimulus funds and we got to my largest in the senate where there was an understanding of the history of the use of infrastructure building to actually build something helped made here show their belief and building as a way to stimulate jobs now we have heard the figure thirty eight thousand jobs that thirty eight thousand encompasses how many buildings where is that figure come from is that still a good figure the figure that you're quoting was from the final environmental impact statement a record decision and that's a that's a regional original number so the program i recall was about thirty two thousand i think jobs direct employment opportunities and over what period of time over the development of the of the developing of the project to coordinate organize response to to different threats and challenges and then there'll be new facilities on the site for other parts of the program for transportation security agency custom border protection and immigration  coming back and that's what i need we need a proactive program not here advertising some contract sounds and this is this is a very tough time we want very special kinds of people obviously contractors but to the extent that we can get people who've gotten this process the committee will be particularly looking to that mr miller you mentioned the old bugaboo of fraud waste and  abuse you've earlier testified that it's very difficult to spend government money rather than you mentioned some recent examples without incurring fraud now with sophisticated about the notion that other agencies because what you're just saying is what it looks like almost the start of an agency the stimulus got to hire yourself some people don't even know yet whether be experienced people or people have to go through a long process  my question to you is how should we look at the possibility possibilities here for fraud waste and considerable handicaps and challenges that this agency experiences contracts are being split if there are acceptable adjustments if there is no record of the contracting officers the technical representative on a contract or a project is their project director for conservation is there anything to be said god knows i'm offering no opinion here i have no idea about a contractor who would be prepared as a matter of scale both give us a good price and to do the work quickly even though located and a number of different locations or is it best to go region by region with all of the and efficiencies that can come from that process position even for well staffed agency that the we have decided that there are so many federal facilities that it would be impossible to locate the money and just a few  tried to work with you to see that there was some objective process accusing me to work and all fifty states and territories in the district of columbia because all every single that we understand already the work that they've been producing for us to do what kind of work to do construction work to do some design work as well we have we have a number of different kinds of contracts that we use to give us the limitations in the amount of money available to those contracts so we can affectively use them as we move forward we want to make sure that we take into account our small business goals so we will we will push a lot of contracts out to individual contractors and pursue those because we want to make sure that we we achieve our small business and set aside program goals as well we have a series of program programatic contracts that we're putting out for lighting for  recommissioning that will be national contracts that we will rely on specific experts to make sure that we have a consistent coordinated approach to how we evaluate our projects and how we define the scope of work for these program at a project's moving forward so stabilize the properties that were there that were disrepair and and do some repairs and i don't have the exact figures but it occurs to me that we're we spent about thirteen million dollars on the site investing in the site so far in stabilization all that work has gone to small business so far to date and i like to point out that the solicitation that we're going to be awarding for the abatement demolition is going to be a small business project also so that will help help our record and increase going to continue to advertise we set aside for small business in order to do that the vast majority of the projects not the dollar amounts but the projects are small projects that can be successfully awarded to small businesses and we opportunities for small business to understand and get to know g s a and get to know what our processes are and participate in a contract that's certainly a way that we go out and strive to get as much small business participation as we can through those types of forms that you're referring any of these small businesses been added to the g s a schedule as a result of your forums i don't as i'm not aware and i have to get back to about whether they've been added to the g s a what does it take to get on  we're if i have a moment i'll i guess clarify that our goal for construction is forty percent small business and for the construction manager thirty eight percent and this was a patient we have out now for the abatement demolition is specifically for small disadvantage contractors  a schedule i think we should get back to you with a specific response on that congresswoman i don't think i am able being framed so that i mean what does it take to get one she has a schedule do you what do you have to have in order i  think i think we need to get back to you with a specific answer on exactly how that happens because i don't think i would or i are in a position to answer that question exactly would you within fourteen days get back to us what you know it's one thing to be on it and therefore compete among those who are already on it but i'd like the tales of how you get on it and i'd like to know if you are and who will be appearing and offering advice at my small business they are held annually and matt thank you for always being there at that fair and that there is the thirteen may next tuesday and i know you will be offering a workshop on how to get on the schedule so i'd like a list of all businesses in the district of columbia that are on  if we would have this what the purpose of this money is it would be to create jobs to help us bring get out of this structural recession any look at what the country makes it clear that there will be no coming up one sector at a time all fifty states today there's a terrible cobweb you can't break into it and break somebody out of it everything has to happen at one time that's what we're going to talk and why why why we're doing mortgages and why the president does have to do it all at one time to go home and going home that being that being the case the job creation element of this becomes exquisitely important if i may say so the most important element of this can you tell me how many people have been time we have awarded one hundred million dollars worth of contracts those those are several large projects a series of small studies and design projects i don't have the exact figure of how we go now i know but are projects underway but they are just specific contract clause that's going to be inserted into every contract through the recovery as the contractors to track jobs in a very specific way they report those jobs directly to a website that i don't remember e what you should not anticipate and i absolutely anticipate that one some of these guys get the job even though there's every incentive to start that you will be looking at some people who start up and some people who put in a good bit but don't start up as quickly how do you make sure that all the contractors are working quickly you know we're going to continue to use the processes we used to pick the best contractors we have source election process is that what this is g s a is there a marker that shows how fast a someone ought to be able given the number of unemployed we have we have very specific information about each of our  contracts a milestone schedule for each is not only the design but the procurement and the construction project and my office is going to specifically track those things to ensure that the projects are happening on the schedules that they created for us and that we agreed to contractually and shall we say what do you do we already got the contract maybe he's hiring some people but he's not putting the money where the jobs are but you know he's got this nice little piece of paper in his hand what if anything can the government do having already awarded him the money except to say you should be doing better so we don't have that luxury this time man i'm sure there are probably a number of remedies available to g s a cancellation of the contract comes to mind i guess that this is really the atom bomb that's a nuclear matter and of course the  contractor knows that it's nuclear and you never seem to do that under any circumstances even when it's virtually default so what internal mechanisms would you or for that matter  and i think the nuclear bomb as you referred to is there for but we have various ways to remedy the contracts before that time again we're going to be tracking very carefully and we will know when projects are starting to get off track and we'll use every every remedy cure the defect and that's the very first and that could include slow and we're held accountable for jobs and we have got a job so to speak up i would think so yes and we have liquidated damages congress on it if they don't perform there is a contractual penalty that forces them to pay the government for their performance when the last time we've ever extracted that from a contract we extract liquidated damages regularly for first low contractors that  perform within the contractual timeframe if there's not a good reason and they get a negotiated reason between g s a and the contractor to not include it in the contract and they understand that they don't this is so important sitting on top of government money not acting program in national capital region two which eighty eight hundred forty person fifteen project problem with that if it's modeled after that we're not going to get we're going to get the people who are purposes are qualified apprentices all that does is say make sure we have certified apprentices because of the history not of g s a but the construction industry simply using apprentices and sometimes those apprentices are not certified from certified programs and so we rectified that but what we do about the fact that the under employment has been among people of color and women who are not certified to do anything who have not been recruited into these programs because there has been no formal program of the kind that was up until nine hundred eighty and you of course have been given almost no money to do it have you considered i mean the thing that caught me up i love the first part of this is the r t but when we were doing exactly what we've been doing here for certified oppressive programs we weren't with the pool that the three million dollars you have seeks to target that that pool of people who already are pregnant they just have to be in a certified apprenticeship program i'm looking at people who are in the pre apprentice category largely women and people of color we as soon as we got wind of the potential for funding the bill we got to work with the o l to understand their program better to make sure that we were working with them directly to identify under represented areas and areas where their economic disadvantage is so we could identify with well they're going to help us identify the locations where we can really use the best bang for the buck you said to congress when we don't have a lot of money on this program so we want to be very effective in how we spend large contracts we can have apprenticeship and we can require pre apprenticeship as well through the contracts but where we want to really spend our money is in training those pre apprentices and bringing them up to speed to get the job skills that you and i have talked about before to ensure that they understand what it is to hold a job and what it is to have the opportunity and then move them into the apprenticeship programs that are that are already ongoing spend money federal money or state money that has discriminatory purposes and if they see people see the various organizations overwhelmingly white workforce it will court litigation to slow it up and we haven't given you enough money to proceed when i was hopelessly at it because of my past experience as as head of the sea was clear to me that the problem is not in the construction trade problem is in training and it's not as if they are course qualified to run a man and journey women as here but compared to the overwhelmingly white male workforce they pale and numbers so i expect frankly that qualified minorities journeyman and apprentices will be easily hired i really do i think the states will grab them even before you get a whole lot of what i'm worried about dollars here and a few million dollars there and i don't have any advice for you the secretary the secretary of transportation such a good friend of  i said to the secretary of transportation you and i are in the construction business and maybe there is some way for transportation and g s a money to be pooled so that for example are not the same place they are or that whatever programs they are using complementary or i have no idea all i know is that with both of you have so little money i'm going to a staff if you will the secretary are very has very much agreed to begin to search this if you will meet with transportation the appropriate transportation staff and the appropriate g s a staff just to investigate have to take a tiny bit of money and make it useful to us and i am at a loss to put this terrible burden on you are no bad i don't believe there are a lot of folks out here particular doing pre print of your work that i would trust we are in touch with what we've heard of programs that are better than others we don't know the deal well is problematic because they work with states and have a house job done a lousy job of training in the construction trades you heard in my opening statement i said that sharks they could bait millions of dollars they could billions they could have drawn upon to do training ever since two thousand based on our offer zation bills only seventeen of our tech that that money so i don't think adam it's important to talk to dio at all but i don't think there's good state experience either because they have chosen to take every liv and put it on the street with whatever workforce they have so this is real startup stuff and i want to work with you have a vested interest very much like what's being done on small business very much easier to do frankly smaller number of people  geared to understand the competitive process here you're dealing with people in the street who have large unemployment rates just like the construction workers who will never understand why they are not being employed b who will understand if there are targeted projects around the country there may not be in their area but if they are targeted models around the country from which we can proceed and listen to me on this in the next reauthorization bill my intention is to make these funds mandatory of the states in the next transportation infrastructure reauthorization bill so that you can take billions of dollars you do the state z put one hundred percent of it in the grant and not train a single person in your state that's an outbreak the way in which we did it before was in good faith we said you're encouraged to take zero point five of your son and put it into training and they said thank you in cars we will take that at face value zero that's almost zero and he wouldn't even know that the secretary would be back with me as to how much each day to give me a list of what those days were that being the state of the art we want to work closely with you on what amounts to start off for training because it's interesting that he is not about small business much as we've worked on that and you've done a good job on this about job and it's not about jobs only for those who are out of work it's about jobs and couldn't possibly get the