**GAO-08-250T**                      Published: Dec 12, 2007. Publicly Released: Dec 12, 2007.                  

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## Highlights

The Smithsonian Institution (Smithsonian) is the world's largest museum complex. Its funding comes from its own private trust fund assets and federal appropriations, with the majority of funds for facilities coming from federal appropriations. In 2005, GAO reported that the Smithsonian's current funding would not be sufficient to cover its estimated $2.3 billion in facilities projects through 2013 and recommended that the Smithsonian Board of Regents, its governing body, develop and implement a funding plan. Recently, problems related to a lack of adequate oversight of executive compensation and other issues have raised concerns about governance at the Smithsonian. This testimony discusses GAO's recently issued work on the Smithsonian's real property management efforts and its efforts to develop and implement strategies to fund its facilities projects. In addition, it describes preliminary results of GAO's ongoing work on the Smithsonian's governance challenges. The work for this testimony is based on GAO's September 2007 report, Smithsonian Institution: Funding Challenges Affect Facilities' Conditions and Security, Endangering Collections, which included recommendations. For ongoing governance work, GAO reviewed Smithsonian documents and interviewed Smithsonian officials, academics, and representatives of nonprofit associations.

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## Topics

Government Operations

Cost analysisFacility constructionFacility maintenanceFacility managementFacility repairsFacility securityFederal facilitiesFederal fundsFund auditsFunds managementMuseumsNational historic sitesPerformance measuresPhysical securityReal propertyStrategic planningCost estimates