FEDERAL COURTHOUSES

Most Recommended New 

Construction Projects Do 

Not Qualify Under 

Improved Capital-Planning 

Process

Statement of Mark L. Goldstein, Director

Physical Infrastructure Issues

Testimony

Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, House of 

Representatives

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:30 a.m. EDT

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 

GAO-13-523T

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
Page 1 GAO-13-523T 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

Chairman Bill Shuster, Ranking Member Nick J. Rahall, II, and Members 

of the Committee:

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the federal judiciary’s (judiciary) 

capital-planning efforts for new courthouses. Since the early 1990’s, the 

judiciary and the General Services Administration (GSA) have undertaken 

a multibillion-dollar federal courthouse construction program. To date this 

program has resulted in 78 new courthouses or annexes1 and 16 projects 

that are currently in various stages of development. However, rising costs 

and other budget priorities have slowed the construction program. In 

addition, we previously found that recent federal courthouses had been 

constructed larger than necessary because of poor planning, oversight, 

and inefficient courtroom use.2

Today, we are releasing a report that addresses the (1) the extent to 

which the judiciary’s capital-planning process aligns with leading practices 

and provides information needed for informed decision making related to 

new courthouses and (2) the extent to which courthouse projects 

recommended for funding in fiscal years 2014 to 2018 were assessed 

under the judiciary’s AMP process.

In 2008, the judiciary began using a new 

capital-planning process, called the Asset Management Planning (AMP) 

process, to assess, identify, and rank its space needs. Judiciary officials 

said that the AMP process addresses concerns about growing costs and 

incorporates best practices related to capital planning.

3

 

1

An annex is an addition to an existing building. For the purpose of this testimony, projects 

that include construction of an annex are considered new courthouse projects.

My statement highlights the key 

2

See GAO, Federal Courthouse Construction: Better Planning, Oversight, and Courtroom 

Sharing Needed to Address Future Costs, GAO-10-417 (Washington, D.C.: June 21, 

2010). Specifically, we found that 33 federal courthouses completed from 2000 to 2010 

included 3.56-million square feet of extra space that cost an estimated $835 million to 

construct and $51 million annually to operate and maintain. We recommended that GSA 

should: (1) ensure that courthouses are within their authorized size or notify congressional 

committees; and that the judiciary should: (2) retain caseload projections to improve the 

accuracy of its 10-year judge planning and (3) establish and use courtroom-sharing 

policies based on scheduling and use data. GSA and the judiciary agreed with the 

recommendations, but expressed concerns with GAO’s methodology and key findings. 

GAO believes these to be sound, as explained in the report. Our recommendations have 

not yet been implemented. 

3

GAO, Federal Courthouses: Proposed Construction Projects Should Be Evaluated under 

New Capital-Planning Process, GAO-13-263 (Washington, D.C.: April 11, 2013).

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-523T 

findings and recommendations of this report. Our review focused on 

courthouse projects on the judiciary’s current 5-year plan for fiscal years 

2014 to 2018. As part of this work, we analyzed judiciary and GSA 

documents, interviewed judiciary and GSA officials in their Washington, 

D.C., headquarters and visited federal courthouses in Anniston, Alabama, 

and Macon and Savannah, Georgia. We selected these sites because the 

courthouses were highly ranked by the judiciary for replacement. We 

conducted this performance audit from March 2012 to April 2013 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

The AMP process, which the judiciary has applied to about 67 percent of 

its courthouses, represents progress by the judiciary in aligning its capitalplanning process with leading capital-planning practices, but the 

document the judiciary uses to request courthouse construction projects 

from Congress lacks transparency and key information. For example, the 

AMP process better aligns with leading practices for identifying real 

property needs by establishing a comprehensive, nationwide 328-factor 

analysis of every courthouse, whereas the previous process only 

assessed courthouses when requested by a local judicial district. 

However, the AMP process does not fully align with several leading 

practices due to, for example, its lack of linkage to the judiciary’s strategic 

plan. Two courthouse projects illustrate how the AMP process has 

changed the way the judiciary evaluates its need for new courthouses. 

Specifically, two projects listed on a previous 5-year plan (covering fiscal 

years 2012 through 2016) were re-evaluated under AMP—San Jose, 

California, and Greenbelt, Maryland. Both had ranked among the top 15 

most urgent projects nationwide under the previous capital-planning 

process, and as such, the judiciary prioritized them for new construction 

in 2010. However, after the judiciary evaluated the San Jose and 

Greenbelt projects under the AMP process, their nationwide rankings fell 

to 117 and 139, respectively. Judiciary officials explained that this drop 

was largely because of the completion of additional AMP assessments, 

coupled with reduced space needs in both locations because of 

AMP Process 

Represents Progress 

in Capital Planning 

but Does Not Provide 

Needed Information 

to Decision Makers
 

Page 3 GAO-13-523T 

courtroom-sharing.4

However, the judiciary’s current 5-year plan—the end product of its 

capital-planning process—does not align with leading practices for a longterm capital plan in several ways and, as a result, lacks transparency and 

key funding information. Specifically, judiciary’s one-page 5-year plan, as 

shown in figure 1, does not provide a summary of why each project is 

more urgent than others, information on complete cost estimates, and 

alternatives to new construction the judiciary considered. Although the 5-

year plan lists about $1.1 billion in estimated costs, which are the funds 

described as needed for that specific 5-year period, these costs only 

include part of the project phases. The estimated cost of all project 

phases—site acquisition, building design, and construction—comes to 

$1.6 billion in 2013 dollars.

Following the change in rankings, GSA and the 

judiciary determined that repair and alteration projects that reconfigure 

existing space in these two locations could alternatively address the 

judiciary’s needs. The judiciary added that its decision saved taxpayers 

money. As a result, at the request of the judiciary, the Judicial Conference 

of the United States removed the two projects from the 5-year plan.

5 In addition, while no longer included in the 5-

year plan, the judiciary estimated that it would need to pay GSA $87 

million annually in rent, or $1.6 billion over the next 20 years,6 to occupy 

these courthouses if constructed. Although a $3.2-billion combined 

project cost and rent estimate provides a more complete presentation of 

the project costs, that estimate could change based on GSA’s redesign of 

projects because of changes in the judiciary’s needs. In addition, the 

$3.2-billion estimate does not include life-cycle costs, such as furniture 

and GSA disposal of existing facilities, which would also have to be 

included for the cost estimates of life-cycle costs7

 

4

The judiciary’s courtroom-sharing policies for senior district, magistrate, and bankruptcy 

judges allow it to reduce the scope of its courthouse projects.

are necessary for 

accurate and informed capital planning.

5

Inflated to current year based upon averages of monthly indexes from U.S. Department 

of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

6

GSA charges judiciary rent based upon the 20-year return on investment of the cost of 

courthouse construction. Our analysis of rent is based on OMB’s published discount rate. 

OMB, 2013 Discount Rates for OMB Circular No. A-94, Memorandum M-13-04 

(Washington, D. C.: Jan. 24, 2013).

7

OMB’s Capital Programming Guide defines the cost of a capital asset is its full life-cycle 

cost, including all direct and indirect initial costs for planning, procurement, operations, 

maintenance, and disposal.
 

Page 4 GAO-13-523T 

Figure 1: Judiciary’s 5-year Courthouse Project Plan for Fiscal Years 2014 to 2018, 

as of September 12, 2012

Note: The higher the “score,” the greater the space need urgency.
 

Page 5 GAO-13-523T 

Since fiscal year 1995, Congress has appropriated about $177 million of 

the estimated $1.6 billion needed for 10 of the 12 projects on the 5-year 

plan, mostly for site acquisition and designs (see fig. 2). None of the 

projects has begun construction, and only the Mobile project has received 

any construction funding. According to GSA officials, the agency has not 

received funding for the design of two projects (Chattanooga and Des 

Moines). Of the remaining 10 projects that have design funding, one is in 

the design process and nine are on hold. According to GSA officials, 

some of the projects on hold must be re-designed to accommodate policy 

and other requirements relating to, for example, changes such as 

courtroom-sharing and energy management.8 For example, the design of 

the Savannah courthouse project was completed in 1998 and now needs 

extensive re-design to accommodate changes mandated by policy shifts, 

including improved security and a reduced number of courtrooms needed. 

GSA officials said that only the design of the Nashville project—though 

oversized by one floor—is likely to remain largely intact because it would 

be more cost-effective to rent the additional space to other tenants than to 

completely re-design the project.

 

8

See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 13423, Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and 

Transportation Management, 72 Fed. Reg. 3919 (Jan. 26, 2007) (Executive Order 13423 

was codified into law by section 746 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009 (Pub. L. No. 

111-8, 123 Stat. 524, 693)); Exec. Order No. 13514 , Federal Leadership In Environmental,

Energy, and Economic Performance, 74 Fed. Reg. 52117 (Oct. 8, 2009); and the Energy 

Independence and Security Act of 2007 (Pub. L. No. 110-140, 121 Stat. 1492).
 

Page 6 GAO-13-523T 

Figure 2: Funding Status of Judiciary’s 5-year Plan for Courthouse Projects, 2013

The judiciary has not applied the AMP process to 10 of the 12 

construction projects on the current 5-year plan dated September 2012. 

These 10 projects were evaluated under the judiciary’s prior capitalplanning process and approved based on their urgency levels as 

determined under that process. Judiciary officials said that they did not 

want to delay the projects or force them to undergo a second capitalplanning process review because the judiciary had already approved the 

projects. Only 2 projects on the current 5-year plan were assessed under 

the AMP process—Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Des Moines, Iowa. 

Judiciary officials said these projects were added to the 5-year plan in 

September 2010 because they had the highest priority rankings of the 

projects that had undergone an AMP review at that time. Judiciary 

Most Courthouse 

Projects Were Not 

Evaluated under AMP 

Process and Do Not 

Meet AMP Criterion 

for New Construction
 

Page 7 GAO-13-523T 

officials explained that these projects also had GSA feasibility studies that 

recommended new construction. However, the Chattanooga and Des 

Moines projects have not retained their top rankings as the judiciary has 

continued to apply the AMP process to additional courthouses. 

Specifically, judiciary documents show that more than a dozen other 

projects not included on the current 5-year plan now rank above the 

Chattanooga and Des Moines projects, six of which recommend new 

construction. For example, we visited the federal courthouse in Macon, 

Georgia, which now ranks higher than either the Chattanooga or Des 

Moines projects. The Macon courthouse suffers from numerous 

operational and security issues typical of historic courthouses, but it is not 

included on the 5-year plan. As we previously noted, the judiciary also 

applied the AMP process to 2 other projects that were included on an 

older 5-year plan (2012 to 2016)—San Jose and Greenbelt—and 

subsequently removed them after the projects received substantially 

lower priority rankings. The change in the rankings of the 4 projects calls 

into question the extent to which the projects remaining on the 5-year 

plan represent the judiciary’s most urgent projects and whether 

proceeding with these projects while hundreds of AMP reviews remain to 

be done represents the most fiscally responsible path.

We recognize that conducting AMP reviews of the 10 projects on the 5-

year plan would involve additional costs; however, not conducting AMP 

reviews on these projects could involve spending $3.2 billion over the 

next 20 years on courthouses that may not be the most urgent projects. 

While the AMP process only partially aligns with leading practices in 

capital-planning, it is a significant improvement over the capital-planning 

process the judiciary used to choose 10 of the 12 projects on the 5-year 

plan.

We found that 10 of the 12 projects the judiciary recommends on the 

current 5-year plan do not qualify under the AMP process criterion of 

requiring two or more additional courtrooms to qualify for new 

construction. The judiciary’s previous capital-planning process for new 

courthouse projects had no minimum additional courtroom requirement. 

In contrast, the AMP process stipulates that a new courthouse is justified 

when an existing courthouse has a deficit of two or more courtrooms, 

based on the number of judges located there after applying courtroom-
 

Page 8 GAO-13-523T 

sharing policies.9 The judiciary bases its estimates for the number of 

courtrooms needed on the number of existing judges and the projected 

number of new judges it will have in 15 years.10

We visited two courthouses on the current 5-year plan that were selected 

as new construction projects under the prior capital-planning process that 

do not qualify under the AMP courtroom shortage criterion—Savannah 

and Anniston that were built in 1899 and 1906, respectively. These 

historic courthouses qualified for new construction under the previous 

process because of space needs and security and operational 

deficiencies because of their age, condition and building configuration. 

According to judiciary and GSA officials, neither courthouse meets current 

standards for (1) the secure circulation of prisoners, the public, and 

courthouse staff and (2) the adjacency of courtrooms and judge’s 

chambers. Nevertheless, neither of these courthouses would qualify for 

new construction under the AMP criterion as both have a sufficient 

number of existing courtrooms for all the judges.

We found that 10 of 12 

cities with projects on the 5-year plan currently have enough courtrooms 

in existing courthouses in those cities based on the judiciary’s standards, 

and 3 of those cities have more courtrooms than needed. Only 5 of the 12 

projects on the 5-year plan currently need additional courtrooms, and of 

those, only the Charlotte and Greenville projects would qualify under the 

AMP criterion because both need three additional courtrooms.

11

 

9

We did not assess if the shortage of courtrooms alone is the most appropriate criterion 

for requesting new construction from GSA, but the establishment of a clear criterion adds 

an element of transparency that was lacking in the judiciary’s previous capital-planning 

process.

10GAO-10-417. We previously found that the judiciary has overestimated the number of 

judges it would have after 10 years. However, the judiciary’s estimate of the number of 

future judges for the current 5-year plan projects does not affect the number of courtrooms 

needed for those projects.

11According to GSA officials, regardless of whether a project is on the 5-year plan, GSA is 

responsible for ensuring that courthouses are adequately maintained.
 

Page 9 GAO-13-523T 

In the report that we are releasing today, we are making several 

recommendations to improve the judiciary’s capital-planning process, 

enhance the transparency of that process, and allow for more informed 

decision making related to the federal judiciary’s real property priorities. 

We are recommending that the Director of the Administrative Office of the 

U.S. Courts (AOUSC), on behalf of the Judicial Conference of the United 

States, take the following actions:

• Better align the AMP process with leading practices for capitalplanning. This should include linking the AMP process to the 

judiciary’s strategic plan and developing and sharing with decision 

makers a long-term capital investment plan. In the meantime, future 5-

year plans should provide comprehensive information on new 

courthouse projects, including:

• a summary of why each project qualifies for new construction and 

is more urgent than other projects, including information about 

how the AMP process and other judiciary criteria for new 

courthouse construction were applied to the project;

• complete cost estimates of each project; and

• the alternatives to a new project that were considered, including 

courtroom-sharing, and why alternatives were deemed insufficient.

• Impose a moratorium on projects on the current 5-year plan until AMP 

evaluations are completed for them and then request feasibility 

studies for courthouse projects with the highest urgency scores that 

qualify for new construction under the AMP process.

AOUSC agreed with our recommendation to link the AMP process to the 

judiciary’s strategic plan, but cited concerns that additional information 

would duplicate information that GSA already provides Congress. While 

we agree that the judiciary already provides some information on its 

recommended projects and funding estimates to stakeholders in the form 

of the 5-year plan, implementing our recommendation would better align 

that information with leading practices by making it more complete and 

transparent. AOUSC disagreed with our recommendation for a 

moratorium on all projects currently on the 5-year plan because 

completing AMP evaluations for those projects would unnecessarily delay 

the projects and exacerbate existing security and structural issues with 

the existing courthouses. We recognize that the AMP process represents 

progress by the judiciary in better aligning its capital-planning process 

Judiciary Needs to

Take Actions to Better 

Align AMP Process 

with Leading 

Practices and 

Evaluate 5-Year Plan 

Projects 
 

Page 10 GAO-13-523T 

with leading practices. As a result, we believe that it is imperative for the 

judiciary to complete AMP evaluations before proceeding with any 5-year 

plan projects. 

Chairman Bill Shuster, Ranking Member Nick J. Rahall, II, and Members 

of the Committee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be 

happy to answer any questions that you may have at this time.

For further information regarding this testimony, please contact Mark L. 

Goldstein at (202) 512-2834 or goldsteinm@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 

on the last page of this statement. Individuals who made key contributions 

to this testimony are Keith Cunningham, Assistant Director; George 

Depaoli; Colin Fallon; Geoffrey Hamilton; James Leonard; Faye Morrison; 

and Sara Ann Moessbauer.

Contacts and 

Acknowledgments 

(543323)
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