United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Report to the Subcommittee on Federal Financial 

Management, Government Information, Federal 

Services, and International Security, Committee on 

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 

U.S. Senate 

FEDERAL REAL 

PROPERTY 

Corps of Engineers 

Needs to Improve the 

Reliability of Its Real 

Property Disposal 

Data 

May 2008

 

GAO-08-349 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

May 2008

FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY 

Corps of Engineers Needs to Improve the Reliability 

of Its Real Property Disposal Data 

Highlights of GAO-08-349, a report to the 

Subcommittee on Federal Financial 

Management, Government Information, 

Federal Services, and International 

Security, Committee on Homeland

Security and Governmental Affairs, 

U.S. Senate 

M 2008

Unreliable real property data has 

been a long-standing problem for 

federal landholding agencies. 

Under the President’s real property

initiative, agencies are being held 

accountable for, among other 

things, improving accuracy of their 

real property inventory and

disposing of unneeded property. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

(Corps), the fourth largest 

landholding agency, uses the Real 

Estate Management Information 

System (REMIS) for recording its

civil works inventory. GAO was 

asked to determine whether REMIS

could provide reliable information 

on the Corps’ civil works land 

disposals from fiscal years 1996

through 2006. GAO’s work

involved comparison analyses of

REMIS disposal data and other

Corps reported disposal data, 

reviews of Corps’ real property 

policies and guidance, and 

interviews with Corps officials at 

headquarters, three divisions, four

districts, and the Real Estate

Systems National Center (RESNC), 

which manages REMIS. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that the

Department of Defense (DOD) 

direct the Corps to improve the 

reliability of REMIS land disposal

data, including maintaining 

effective internal controls,

implementing the data

normalization best practice in 

REMIS, clarifying guidance for 

processing land disposals in

REMIS, and providing REMIS 

training to users. DOD agreed with

GAO’s recommendations. 

REMIS did not provide reliable information on the Corps’ civil works land 

disposals from fiscal years 1996 through 2006, or on the land that the Corps 

owned as of September 30, 2006. Unreliable land disposal data impair the 

usefulness of REMIS as a record of current inventory and as a source of data 

that would be useful for budgeting purposes and the strategic management of

landholdings. The following contributed to problems with data reliability: 

• The Corps did not maintain internal controls over REMIS disposal data. 

Corps policy held district real estate officials accountable for the reliability 

of REMIS data, but in two of four districts GAO contacted the individual

recording land disposal data was also checking the data against 

documentation such as titles and transfer forms. Dividing data entry and 

data checking responsibilities is an essential internal control activity. Corps 

policy also required division real estate staff to ensure the reliability of 

REMIS data recorded by their constituent districts, but the three divisions 

GAO contacted did not review REMIS disposal data. 

• The design of the REMIS disposal module, a software application that 

captures disposal data that users enter, did not follow a best practice,

commonly referred to as data normalization. Data normalization organizes 

data according to rules designed to minimize duplication and redundancies. 

By not following this best practice, users querying REMIS faced the problem 

of retrieving inconsistent data. For example, when RESNC officials queried 

REMIS for specific real property information by district, RESNC officials 

obtained results that differed from those obtained by district officials. 

• Land disposal dates in REMIS were missing or sometimes represented the 

date when district real estate officials entered the land disposal rather than 

when the disposal occurred. The vast majority, or about 89 percent, of all 

disposal records within REMIS did not have disposal dates. When the 

records contained dates, large numbers of disposals (accounting for about 

54,000 acres) in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 had occurred as early as 1955. 

• Guidance for processing land disposals in REMIS was unclear. For example,

guidance issued in 2004 did not indicate whether some types of disposals, 

such as transfers to other federal agencies, required a disposal date. New 

disposal guidance issued in 2007 was also unclear because RESNC, which 

revised the guidance, did not revise the data entry screens in REMIS. As a 

result, the guidance and the data entry screens were inconsistent. While the 

guidance called for entering a disposal date, the REMIS data entry screens

did not clearly indicate whether or where users should enter the date. 

• RESNC provided limited REMIS training; 3 of 32 districts that use REMIS 

received introductory training in 2006 and 2007. RESNC plans to train the 

New England District and at least one other district in 2008. RESNC also 

sponsored conferences to update systems administrators and other users on 

key changes to REMIS, but conference presenters discussed aspects of 

REMIS that some attendees, including real estate officials from 2 of the 

districts GAO contacted, considered too advanced—especially for those 

who had never received introductory training. 

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on GAO-08-349. 

For more information, contact Terrell G. Dorn, 

(202) 512-2834, dornt@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 5 

Background 8

The Corps’ Land Disposal Data from Fiscal Year 1996 through 

Fiscal Year 2006 Are Unreliable 11 

Conclusions 24

Recommendations for Executive Action 25 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 25 

Appendix I Objective, Scope, and Methodology 27 

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Defense 30 

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 33 

Figures 

Figure 1: The Bluestone Dam, West Virginia 9 

Figure 2: Number of Civil Works Land Disposals from Fiscal Year 

1996 through Fiscal Year 2006 16 

Figure 3: The Process for Entering Land Disposal Data in REMIS 

Outlined in the 2004 Guidance 20 

Figure 4: The Process for Entering Land Disposal Data in REMIS 

Outlined in the 2007 Guidance 22 

Page i GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Abbreviations 

Corps U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

DOD Department of Defense 

FMFIA Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act of 1982

GSA General Services Administration 

OMB Office of Management and Budget 

REMIS Real Estate Management Information System 

RESNC Real Estate Systems National Center

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Page ii GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

May 9, 2008

The Honorable Tom Carper 

Chairman 

The Honorable Tom Coburn, M.D. 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, 

Government Information, Federal Services, 

and International Security 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

United States Senate 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), an agency in the Department 

of Defense (DOD), provides the nation with engineering services such as 

planning, designing, building, and operating water resources projects. It 

has a large and diverse portfolio of civil works real property—which 

includes about 7.7 million acres of land—whose replacement value,

estimated at $217 billion, ranks the Corps as the fourth-largest federal 

landholding agency.1

 Civil works real property includes hundreds of locks 

and dams, reservoirs, levees, hydropower facilities, jetties, as well as 

millions of acres of land used for flood control, recreation, and other 

purposes.2

The federal government has long recognized the need for agencies to track 

the federal property under their control. In 1983, Executive Order 12411 

required federal agencies, including the Corps, to maintain inventories of

their federal property. The Corps implemented this order and, in 1992, 

replaced its existing system with its current Real Estate Management 

Information System (REMIS). REMIS is a database for recording and 

updating the Corps’ inventory of real property, maintaining historical 

records, helping decision makers develop future disposal projections, and

determining the total amount of civil works land the Corps currently owns, 

 1

General Services Administration, Fiscal Year 2006 Federal Real Property Report: An 

Overview of the U.S. Federal Government’s Real Property Assets (Washington, D.C.: 

July 2007). 

2

The Corps’ portfolio also includes military land, such as those properties associated with 

Department of the Army military installations, but we do not discuss military land in this 

report. 

Page 1 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
among other things.3

 In 2003, the Corps established its Real Estate Systems 

National Center (RESNC) to manage its real estate automated information 

systems, including REMIS. 

In 2003, we designated federal real property management as a high-risk 

area for the federal government because federal agencies have faced 

pervasive problems with unreliable real property data, excess and 

underutilized real property, deteriorating facilities, and costly leased 

space.4

 In response to our designation of federal real property 

management as a high-risk area, the administration initiated several efforts 

intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal 

government’s real property management. In 2004, for example, the 

President issued Executive Order 13327, which established the Federal 

Real Property Asset Management Initiative, or real property initiative. The 

initiative is being used to hold agencies accountable for, among other 

things, improving the accuracy of their real property inventory and 

disposing of unneeded property. According to this initiative, maintaining 

underused or unneeded federal property is costly to the government, not 

only because agencies may incur operating and maintenance costs, but 

also because they incur opportunity costs for failing to sell or exchange 

underused or unneeded properties for more appropriate uses. Under 

Executive Order 13327, the Office of Budget and Management (OMB) was 

given the responsibility to, among other things, review agencies’ efforts to 

implement this order. The executive order also established the interagency 

Federal Real Property Council (Federal Council) to support reform. In 

December 2004, the Federal Council published 10 guiding principles, 

which form the strategic objectives for improving real property 

management. The guiding principles include accurately inventorying and 

describing all assets, as well as disposing of unneeded assets. In addition,

the Federal Council identified 24 data elements—including data on 

disposal—that federal agencies must report annually for inclusion in the 

governmentwide real property inventory database, called the Federal Real

Property Profile. The Federal Council and federal agencies will use current 

and historical disposal data to help track and measure federal agencies’ 

 3

This report discusses land owned by the federal government; i.e., land for which the

United States holds fee simple title. 

4

High-risk areas are those that either have greater vulnerabilities to waste, fraud, abuse, 

and mismanagement or major challenges associated with their economy, efficiency, or 

effectiveness. See GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-03-119 (Washington, D.C.: 

January 2003). 

Page 2 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
progress toward strategically managing federal real property and to 

estimate the costs of future disposals. 

Through these efforts, agencies have, among other things, established 

asset management plans, standardized data reporting, adopted 

performance measures, and improved the accuracy of their real property 

data. Having accurate, reliable real property data is important for agencies 

to cost effectively manage the properties that they need and to identify 

unneeded properties that they can dispose of and avoid unnecessary costs 

to the government. Based on efforts and plans by the Corps to enhance the 

accuracy of its real property profile, OMB approved REMIS as a complete 

inventory and accurate profile of the Corps’ real property holdings in 

compliance with the Federal Council’s guidance. Although OMB relies on 

the quality assurance and quality control processes performed by 

individual agencies for such approvals, it also relies on agency Inspectors 

General, agency financial statements, and our reviews to establish the 

validity of the data. According to the Corps, REMIS has not been fully

validated. 

Improving the reliability of federal real property data and expediting the 

disposal of federally owned land that does not meet the needs of the 

federal government are priorities of this subcommittee.5

 Therefore, you 

asked us to provide information about the reliability of the real property 

data the Corps uses to account for its large portfolio. Specifically, our 

objective was to determine whether the Corps’ real property database, 

REMIS, could provide reliable information on the civil works land that the 

Corps disposed of from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2006, or on the

civil works land that the Corps owned as of September 30, 2006. 

To address this objective, we reviewed documents that defined the Corps’ 

real property disposal process, electronic records, and rationale for 

disposal decisions. These documents included the Corps’ real property 

policies and guidance, REMIS user/training manual, Asset Management 

Plan, and Three Year Timeline—an action plan for implementing the asset 

management plan and demonstrating that the Corps is using real property 

inventory data for decision making. To gain a more compete

understanding of the Corps’ real property disposal process and 

management of this process, we contacted Corps headquarters officials 

from the Offices of Real Estate, Corporate Information, and the Chief 

 5

The Subcommittee Chairman and Ranking Member introduced S. 1667 in June 2007. 

Page 3 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Counsel. We also contacted RESNC officials and the contractor that 

maintained REMIS and supported its users. We contacted 4 of the Corps’ 

32 district offices—Baltimore, Maryland; Fort Worth, Texas; Los Angeles,

California; and Omaha, Nebraska—which maintain REMIS databases from 

which detailed information could be obtained. We selected these districts 

because their land disposals accounted for about 82 percent of the acreage 

that the Corps disposed of from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2006, 

according to REMIS data. We also contacted the three Corps divisions that 

oversee these districts—North Atlantic, New York, New York; 

Northwestern, Portland, Oregon; and Southwestern, Dallas, Texas. We 

spoke with responsible district and division officials about the REMIS land 

disposal process, including REMIS data entry, reviews, training, and 

oversight, among other things. Additionally, we visited the Baltimore and 

Los Angeles Districts because, according to Corps headquarters officials, 

officials in these districts could provide insights into REMIS and its 

accuracy. Specifically, the headquarters officials said that the officials in 

the Baltimore District were very knowledgeable about the REMIS disposal 

process while officials in the Los Angeles District had recently completed 

an inventory of the district’s entire real property holdings. 

We took several steps to assess the reliability of REMIS disposal data,

although we did not have direct access to REMIS. At our request, the 

Corps queried data on land disposals from the REMIS database to provide 

us data, including the numbers of land tract disposal records and of land 

tract disposal dates by district. To assess the reliability of these data, we 

performed electronic testing to identify missing data, dates outside the 

time frame of our request, and duplicates. Because these data indicated 

that most land disposals occurred during fiscal years 2005 and 2006, we 

focused on these fiscal years and had three districts cross-check their land

tract disposal data against their real estate documentation. We also 

conducted limited cross-checking of these data against disposal records at 

the Baltimore District office. Based on this work, we found that the REMIS 

land disposal data were not reliable because of inconsistencies among the 

disposal data files that the Corps provided, a significant number of missing 

disposal dates, and inaccurate current inventory data. Finally, we obtained 

the Corps’ policies, procedures, and guidance for processing land 

disposals in REMIS and compared them with standards for internal 

Page 4 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
control in the federal government,6

 as well as other control guidance 

related to control activities, environment, and training.7

 We also spoke 

with Corps officials about how they interpreted and implemented internal 

controls with respect to REMIS. 

We conducted this performance audit from December 2006 to May 2008 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 objective. We believe that the evidence 

obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 

based on our audit objective. Further details about our objective, scope, 

and methodology appear in appendix I. 

REMIS did not provide reliable information on the Corps’ civil works land 

disposals from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2006, or on the land that 

the Corps owned as of September 30, 2006. Unreliable land disposal data 

impair the usefulness of REMIS as a record of current inventory and as a

source of data that would be useful to Corps decision makers for 

budgeting and strategic land management purposes. The following 

contributed to problems with data reliability: 

Results in Brief 

• District and division officials did not maintain effective internal controls 

over REMIS disposal data. According to the Corps’ policy, district real 

estate officials are accountable for the reliability of the real property data 

recorded while division officials provide the oversight necessary to ensure 

that their constituent districts record reliable data.

8

 Real estate officials in

two districts told us, however, that the person who recorded land disposal 

 6

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: November 1999). These standards, issued pursuant to the requirements

of the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act of 1982 (FMFIA), provide the overall 

framework for establishing and maintaining internal control in the federal government.

OMB Circular No. A-123 (Revised), Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control, 

dated December 21, 2004, incorporated the GAO internal control requirements. 

7

GAO: Internal Control Management and Evaluation Tool, GAO-01-1008G (Washington, 

D.C.: August 2001). 

8

Specifically, Engineering Circular 405-1-02, Project Inventory Management, 

Accountability and Documentation, March 1, 2004, and Engineering Circular 405-1-13, 

Validation Process and Historical Files, December 30, 2003. These two documents are

among many other Corps real estate policies. 

Page 5 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
data into REMIS was the same person responsible for checking that the 

REMIS data matched the real estate documentation, such as deeds, titles, 

and transfer forms. According to the standards for internal control in the 

federal government, dividing the data entry and data checking 

responsibilities between different people is an essential internal control 

activity, referred to as segregation of duties. The three divisions we 

contacted did not perform the reviews necessary to ensure that their 

constituent districts recorded reliable REMIS disposal data. Officials at 

one division cited prolonged staffing shortages as the reason for not 

performing the reviews, while officials at another division relied on verbal

assurances from district officials that real property data were reliable. 

Officials in a third division annually reviewed the disposal files of their 

constituent districts, but their reviews focused on financial aspects and 

compliance with applicable statutes, among other things, rather than on 

the reliability of REMIS disposal data. 

• The design of the REMIS disposal module, a software application that 

captures disposal data that users enter, did not follow a software engineering 

best practice, commonly referred to as data normalization. Data

normalization is the process of organizing data in a database according to 

rules designed to protect the data from duplication and redundancy. 

Redundant data can create database problems, especially for large databases 

such as REMIS. If users must enter disposal dates in one place, then users 

must consistently enter disposal dates in all the other places where these 

dates are stored within the database—a process prone to errors. Since REMIS

users could enter disposal dates in more than one place in the database, and

because the database was not in normalized form, persons querying the 

database could potentially retrieve inconsistent data given that disposal dates

were not consistently entered in all places. For example, when RESNC 

officials queried REMIS for specific real property information by district, the 

RESNC officials obtained results that differed from those obtained separately 

by district officials. District officials subsequently called on RESNC officials 

to clarify the query RESNC used for retrieving the real property data in

REMIS. In contrast, a database in normalized form would allow any user to

query REMIS for disposal information and obtain the same result. 

• REMIS land disposal dates were missing or the data sometimes 

represented the date when district real estate officials entered the land 

disposal in the database rather than when the disposal actually occurred. 

The vast majority of all disposal records within REMIS did not have a 

disposal date. Of about 30,700 total disposal records, 27,400 (89 percent) 

were missing disposal dates. When the records contained dates, we found 

through our analysis of REMIS land disposal data from fiscal year 1996 

through fiscal year 2006 that large numbers of disposals recorded in fiscal 

Page 6 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
years 2005 and 2006 (accounting for about 54,000 acres of land) had 

occurred as early as 1955. Officials from two districts consistently said 

that the large numbers of disposals were not current disposals at all, but 

rather reflected database adjustments to identify land that had been 

previously disposed of. Corps officials lacked assurances that REMIS 

reflected the Corps current inventory because they did not know whether 

all of the Corps’ 32 districts had (1) entered data into REMIS on all of the 

land tracts from their active civil works projects and (2) made adjustments 

to REMIS to reflect land disposals that had occurred years ago. 

Additionally, we found discrepancies between the REMIS land disposal 

data that the Corps reported in its Three Year Timeline and in the Federal 

Real Property Profile in fiscal year 2006. These discrepancies raised 

concerns about the Corps’ use of REMIS for budgeting and strategic land 

management purposes. 

• Guidance for processing land disposals in REMIS—one document issued 

in 2004, then updated in 2006, and further revised in 2007—was unclear.

The 2004 guidance did not indicate whether some types of land disposals, 

such as transfers to other federal agencies, required a disposal date. The 

2006 guidance incorporated new federal reporting requirements and 

required a date for all disposals but did not tell users how to complete the 

process for disposing of land in REMIS. Finally, the 2007 guidance was 

inconsistent with data entry screens in the REMIS disposal module. This 

inconsistency occurred because RESNC did not revise the data entry 

screens to reflect the changes it had made in the 2007 guidance. 

Consequently, the guidance required users to enter the disposal date in a 

screen that indicated the date was optional. At the same time, the guidance

described as optional the use of a second screen that indicated the 

disposal date was required. 

• RESNC provided REMIS introductory training in 2006 and 2007 to 3 of 32 

districts that had requested training for their new staff. With limited 

instructors and funding, RESNC plans to train the New England District 

and at least one other district in 2008. RESNC also sponsored conferences 

to update systems administrators and other users on key changes to the 

database, but conference presenters discussed aspects of REMIS that 

some attendees, including real estate officials from 2 districts we 

contacted, considered too advanced—especially for those who had never 

received introductory training. In addition, among REMIS users within the 

4 districts we contacted, about 24 have not received introductory, handson training, while approximately 39 have received the training. None of the 

daily REMIS users have received periodic refresher training. 

Page 7 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
To improve the reliability of REMIS land disposal data, we recommend 

that the Secretary of Defense direct the Commanding General and Chief of

Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to (1) implement effective 

internal controls, (2) implement the data normalization best practice in the 

REMIS database for disposal dates, (3) correct REMIS disposal records, 

(4) issue clear guidance for entering land disposal dates in the REMIS land 

disposal process, and (5) provide and require introductory and periodic 

refresher training that covers how to correctly enter land disposal dates in

REMIS. DOD agreed with all the recommendations made in this report. 

The Corps began using REMIS, the official real property inventory 

database, in 1992. The Corps modified REMIS several times over the years 

to track real estate matters such as revenues from sales of real property, 

property locations by congressional district, and properties that are civil 

works. About 1,000 REMIS users located in 32 of the 38 Corps districts 

access the database through the Internet.9

 District users are responsible 

for collecting data from real estate documents and entering data into 

REMIS. 

The Corps established RESNC at its Mobile, Alabama, District office in 

October 2003 to serve as the center for the Corps’ real estate automated 

information systems, including REMIS. Among other things, RESNC 

officials serve as real estate subject matter experts, issue guidance to

process land disposals in REMIS, train district users, and manage REMIS. 

RESNC also oversees a contractor who performs maintenance on REMIS, 

runs database queries, helps REMIS users through a hotline, and makes 

numerous changes to REMIS. Although the contractor did not design the 

previous REMIS disposal module (a software application that captures 

data entered into REMIS by a user), it redesigned the REMIS disposal 

module to automatically provide the Corps’ financial management system 

with the amounts of disposed acreage, as well as to automate other tasks 

when users completed the disposal process in REMIS. The Corps 

implemented the redesigned module in October 2007. 

Corps headquarters carries out the overall management of civil works real 

property related to navigation, hydropower, recreation, and flood control 

Background 

 9

The Corps has 38 districts under the purview of eight civil works divisions. Thirty-two

districts maintain real estate offices that perform functions for the remaining 6 districts, 

whose real estate portfolios are sufficiently small that they do not merit a real estate office 

of their own. 

Page 8 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
projects, among others.10 Figure 1 shows one of many dams owned by the 

Corps. 

Figure 1: The Bluestone Dam, West Virginia 

Headquarters officials coordinate with eight civil works divisions and 38 

districts around the country on matters that include developing future 

funding requirements using real property data from REMIS. For example, 

REMIS disposal data from past years are to allow Corps managers to 

estimate future disposal costs. Besides the headquarters team, real estate

officials at each of the divisions oversee the civil works projects and 

activities of their constituent districts. District real estate chiefs, 

specialists, and systems administrators, among other district officials, 

provide daily management of real property, including land acquisition for 

new civil works projects, operations and maintenance of existing projects,

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

 10The headquarters senior real property management team includes the Chief of Real 

Estate, a Senior Steering Committee, and a Chief of Operations. 

Page 9 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
disposal of unneeded civil works land, and recording of data on land 

acquisitions, disposals, and other actions. 

Executive Order 13327 of February 2004 required federal landholding 

agencies, including the Corps, to determine what they own, what they 

need, and what it costs to manage their real property; develop and 

implement asset management plans; and dispose of unneeded properties. 

The executive order established the interagency Federal Council to 

develop the guidance necessary to implement the order and serve as a 

clearinghouse for best practices, among other things. The Federal Council 

developed and published in December 2004 Guidance for Improved Asset 

Management that identified, defined, and listed 23 data elements that 

federal agencies must report to the General Services Administration (GSA) 

for the annual Federal Real Property Profile. In August 2006, the Federal

Council added disposal as the 24th data element that federal agencies 

must report for the annual profile beginning in fiscal year 2006. OMB, the 

Federal Council, and agencies use disposal data to help track how much 

property that the federal government has disposed of, measure the 

government’s progress in disposing of its unneeded property, and estimate 

the costs of future disposals. 

The Federal Council guidance specifically requires the Corps and other 

federal landholding agencies to report, among other things, disposal dates 

based on the type of disposal; that is, land sales should record deed dates, 

land transfers between federal agencies should record the dates of transfer 

letters, and public benefit conveyances to nonfederal entities should 

record the date of the assignment letter to the sponsoring agency and the

subsequent date of the deed’s transfer to the grantee. In addition, the 

guidance requires the agencies to report the disposal date in the fiscal year 

that the property exited the agency’s inventory. On the administration’s 

agency scorecard for real property management—established in fiscal year 

2004 to measure each agency’s progress toward implementing Executive

Order 13327—the Corps has achieved a “yellow” status, indicating that it

has made progress in strategically managing real property by taking the 

following actions: designating a senior real property officer who is held 

accountable for the effective management of the Corps’ real property; 

developing an OMB-approved asset management plan;11 developing an 

 11An asset management plan lays out an agency’s plan to promote the efficient use of its 

real property assets by, among other things, accurately inventorying and describing its

assets, aligning its assets with its mission, and disposing of unneeded assets. 

Page 10 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
OMB-approved 3-year time line;12 establishing some asset management 

performance measures; completing and maintaining an inventory and 

profile of the Corps’ real property; and providing timely information for 

inclusion into the annual Federal Real Property Profile. 

REMIS did not provide reliable information on the Corps’ civil works land 

disposals from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2006, or on the land that 

the Corps owned as of September 30, 2006, for several reasons. These 

reasons include poorly maintained internal controls over REMIS disposal

data at various levels of the Corps’ organization, a database design that did

not follow a software engineering best practice, and land disposal dates 

that did not accurately indicate when the disposal took place. In addition, 

unclear guidance for processing land disposals in REMIS coupled with a 

limited user-training program contributed to the unreliability of the 

disposal data. These unreliable data impair the usefulness of REMIS as a 

record of current inventory and as a source of data that would be useful to

Corps decision makers for budgeting and strategic land management 

purposes. 

Real estate officials in districts and divisions did not maintain effective 

internal controls over REMIS disposal data. Maintaining effective internal

controls throughout an organization is an ongoing effort that helps to 

detect and prevent errors in data, such as real property data in REMIS. The 

standards for internal control in the federal government provide the 

overall framework for federal managers to establish and maintain effective 

internal control. Internal control activities include assigning different 

people to check data from those who record it—referred to as segregation 

of duties—recording transactions in a timely manner, and reviewing the 

data for reliability. 

The Corps’ policy requires real estate officials to be accountable for the 

reliability (i.e., accuracy, completeness, and timeliness) of REMIS data 

related to land located in their districts. Officials in two districts, including

one district that made about 300 disposals accounting for over 34,000 

The Corps’ Land 

Disposal Data from 

Fiscal Year 1996 

through Fiscal Year 

2006 Are Unreliable

Districts and Divisions Did 

Not Maintain Effective 

Internal Controls over 

REMIS Data 

 12A 3-year time line is an action plan for implementing the asset management plan and 

identifies the steps the agency will take to demonstrate that decisions are regularly made 

using real property data. The Corps’ Three Year Timeline identified four areas that include 

investments, operating costs, real property disposal, and compliance with the federal real 

property requirements. 

Page 11 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
acres of land during fiscal years 1996 through 2006,13 told us that the same 

person who recorded land disposal data in REMIS was also the one who 

checked that the data matched the real estate documentation, such as 

deeds, titles, and transfer forms. Making one individual responsible for 

both recording and checking data can contribute to errors. Corps officials 

in a third district told us that they divided these responsibilities and 

provided documentation of recent efforts to independently check the 

REMIS disposal records against the real estate documentation. 

In addition, some districts did not always record the disposal in REMIS in

a timely manner as the standards for internal control in the federal 

government and the Corps’ policy require. For example, when we 

compared REMIS disposal dates against the dates when the Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of the Army approved the disposals, we found 

instances in which districts recorded land disposals more than 2 years 

after the disposal transaction had occurred. One district, for instance, 

recorded the disposal of a 3-acre land parcel near York, Pennsylvania, in

March 2006. The disposal had occurred in February 2004—more than 2

years earlier. Another district recorded a land disposal in Georgia as 

November 2005, but the disposal occurred 16 months earlier.

Although the Corps’ policy requires division officials to provide the 

oversight necessary to ensure that their constituent districts recorded 

reliable real property data, officials we contacted in all three divisions did 

not perform activities that would ensure the reliability of REMIS disposal

data. The Northwestern Division, for example, experienced prolonged 

staffing shortages that hindered it from reviewing any disposal records. 

According to the division’s Acting Chief of Real Estate, a team consisting 

of a Chief of Real Estate and four other real estate officials oversees the 

real property activities of the division’s five constituent districts—Kansas 

City, Omaha, Walla Walla, Portland, and Seattle. Specifically, the four real

estate officials oversee (1) acquisitions, (2) appraisals, (3) recruiting, and 

(4) management and disposal activities, respectively. However, because 

the management and disposal position remained vacant for nearly 2 years,

the division did not review any REMIS disposal data during that period.14

Corps officials at headquarters confirmed in December 2007 that the 

position remained vacant.

 13According to REMIS disposal data. 

14Officials explained that the management aspect of this position included overseeing 

outgrants (i.e., special leases), revenue collections, and permits.

Page 12 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Officials in the North Atlantic Division also said they did not review any

REMIS disposal data from their five constituent districts (New England, 

New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk). They said that during 

their annual visits to each of their districts, they reviewed real estate 

documentation for completeness and compliance with applicable statutes, 

but relied solely on verbal assurances from district officials that they had

accurately recorded all disposals in REMIS. In the view of North Atlantic 

Division officials, Corps-wide organizational changes have affected their 

reviewing practices. Specifically, the Corps’ strategic plan through 2012 

called on the divisions to establish multiple district support teams to 

provide technical assistance to the districts, such as quality control and 

assurance activities. However, the North Atlantic Division was only 

provided sufficient staff for one team.15 Instead of reviewing all district 

disposal records for completeness and accuracy, as district officials once 

did, they now review only some of the records. The officials acknowledged 

that this change could affect the reliability of the disposal data, yet they 

believed that the DOD Inspector General, the Army Audit Agency, or the 

Corps headquarters auditors would identify and resolve any errors. 

Officials in the Southwestern Division also visited their four constituent 

districts (Little Rock, Tulsa, Fort Worth, and Galveston) each year to 

review disposal records but did not review REMIS disposal data. As part of 

their annual review, division officials requested that each district complete 

a quality assurance questionnaire focusing on financial aspects, 

compliance with statutes, and revenue collections, among other things. 

The questionnaire included one question about whether officials 

successfully completed civil works disposal activities but did not include a 

question about the reliability of REMIS disposal data. Essentially, the 

Southwestern Division relied on assurances from district officials that they 

accurately entered all disposals in REMIS. Obtaining assurances does not

ensure REMIS data are reliable; other internal control activities are 

necessary such as those identified in the standards for internal control in 

the federal government.16 The Corps policy does little to highlight those 

other control activities, however. Instead, the policy places oversight 

responsibilities on the divisions without detailing the specific steps they 

should take to ensure REMIS disposal data are reliable. 

 15U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2012, Aligning the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 

Success in the 21st Century, October 2003. 

16For example, these control activities include accurate and recording of transactions, as 

well as accountability of records. 

Page 13 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
The REMIS disposal module—a software application that captures 

disposal dates and other disposal information—did not follow a software 

engineering best practice, commonly referred to as data normalization. 

Data normalization is the process of organizing data in a database 

according to rules designed to protect the data from duplication and 

redundancy. Redundant data can create problems for databases, such as 

REMIS. If users must enter disposal dates in one place, then users must 

consistently enter disposal dates in all the other places where these dates

are stored within the database—a process prone to errors. 

Land disposal dates could be entered in more than one place in REMIS, a 

design artifact that neither RESNC nor the REMIS contractor could 

explain. Because REMIS’s database design did not follow the best 

practice, persons querying the database could potentially retrieve 

inconsistent data given that disposal dates were not consistently entered 

in all places. For example, RESNC officials queried REMIS for a 

compilation of specific real property information, including data on 

disposals, for all districts. However, the results RESNC officials obtained 

differed from the results obtained separately by district officials, who later 

called on RESNC officials to clarify the query RESNC used for retrieving 

real property data in REMIS on their district. This situation illustrates one 

of the problems users of the nonnormalized database faced. The design of

the REMIS disposal module, which allowed users to enter disposal dates 

in multiple places, required users to know the location of disposal data 

within the database and how to write the query that would produce the 

desired result. In contrast, REMIS in normalized form would allow any 

user to query the database for disposal information and obtain the same 

result. 

Although the REMIS contractor redesigned the REMIS disposal module to 

automatically generate certain data, the redesigned disposal module 

continues to capture disposal dates in two places within the database. We

discussed this matter with the Corps’ Chief Information Officer, who 

concurred that REMIS, with respect to land disposal dates, was not in a 

normalized form. 

Land disposal dates in REMIS were unreliable, since the vast majority of 

them were missing, and when disposal dates were present, they sometimes 

represented the date when district real estate officials entered the land 

disposal into REMIS rather than the date when the disposal took place. 

Our analysis found that unreliable land disposal dates impair the 

usefulness of REMIS as a historical record for researching past real estate 

REMIS Disposal Module 

Did Not Follow a Best 

Practice That Protects 

Against Duplication and 

Redundancy 

Land Disposal Dates Were 

Missing or Sometimes Did 

Not Represent When the 

Disposal Took Place 

Page 14 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
transactions, as a record of current inventory, and as a source of data for 

developing baselines and trend data for budgeting and strategic 

management of land disposals. 

We found that the vast majority of disposal records in REMIS did not have 

a disposal date.17 To determine the extent to which disposal dates were 

available for use in our analyses, we requested from RESNC and the 

REMIS contractor a report containing the total number of civil works land 

records listed in REMIS as disposed, as well as the number of those 

records that were missing disposal dates. The report showed that of the 

about 30,700 disposal records in REMIS, 27,400 (89 percent) were missing 

disposal dates.18 The contractor reviewed our preliminary findings and 

agreed that the missing dates were troublesome. 

Figure 2 summarizes our analysis of the REMIS data RESNC provided to 

us that contained disposal dates. The data show a small number of civil 

works land disposals in fiscal years 1996 through 2004 followed by a sharp 

increase in the numbers of disposals in fiscal years 2005 and 2006. 

 17The disposal records consisted of individual land tracts that were either fully or partially 

disposed. Partial land disposal involves only a portion of a land tract. The Corps uses the 

term “tract” to identify each separate land parcel requiring ownership documentation, 

usually a title. 

18While about 89 percent of the disposal records lacked dates, we did not perform any 

analysis with respect to which land disposal records were missing dates. The Corps noted 

that the design of the original REMIS land disposal module did not contain a disposal date

field. As a result, numerous land disposals were entered without a disposal date for a

number of years. Nonetheless, this figure represents the current condition of land disposal 

dates in REMIS. 

Page 15 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Figure 2: Number of Civil Works Land Disposals from Fiscal Year 1996 through Fiscal Year 2006 

Land disposals

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Source: GAO presentation of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers data.

Fiscal year

19

69

4 11 10 14 18 23

48

512

142

Note: Due to data reliability concerns discussed in this report, the large increase in land disposals

were due to corrections to the inventory rather than actual disposals. 

The Corps’ real estate managers at headquarters could not explain the 

reason for the large numbers of disposals in fiscal years 2005 and 2006,

which account for about 54,000 acres of land. However, officials we 

contacted from two districts said that many of these disposals represented 

corrections to the inventory rather than current disposals. Specifically, all

265 land disposals (totaling about 33,000 acres of land) that the Fort Worth 

District entered into REMIS in fiscal year 2005 were disposals that had 

occurred in 1975. The Fort Worth District also entered 29 land disposals 

(totaling about 980 acres) in fiscal year 2006—almost all of which, 

according to a district real estate official, had occurred from about 1955 

through 2003. Similarly, in the Baltimore District, we compared data in 

REMIS against the real estate documentation and found that at least 12 of 

23 land disposals the district had entered in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 

(totaling about 137 acres) had occurred in the 1980s. 

Corps officials explained that these adjustments to the REMIS disposal 

data were necessary to complete a process that began in 1992 when the 

Corps implemented REMIS. According to district officials, they began 

entering land acquisition information into REMIS from real estate 

documentation for their active civil works projects—even if some of the 

land associated with these projects had already been disposed of—and 

Page 16 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
planned to make record adjustments that would identify previously 

disposed land tracts. The Corps chose this method to maintain consistency 

with the real estate documentation and to help reconcile REMIS with the

Corps’ financial management system.19

While we support consistency between REMIS and real estate

documentation, we are concerned that the Corps current inventory of land

tracts is not accurate, in part because the Corps lacks assurance that its 

districts have updated REMIS to identify in its inventory all of the 

disposed land tracts. Specifically, Corps officials told us that they did not

know whether all of the Corps’ 32 districts have (1) entered into REMIS all 

of the land tracts from their active civil works projects and (2) made 

record adjustments to identify, as disposed, in REMIS, all of the previously 

disposed land tracts. In August 1994, the Corps gave the districts about a 

year to enter, among other things, the land tracts data. Because the task 

was substantial—covering all real estate documentation for many years—

some districts utilized their entire real estate staff to enter real property 

data into REMIS. Once the staff entered these data, the districts were to 

begin identifying, as disposed, land tracts in REMIS that had previously 

been disposed of. However, according to RESNC officials, the districts 

have not made all of these changes. Moreover, the DOD Inspector General 

reported in 2005 that districts were not entering new disposals of land 

tracts into REMIS. In response, the Corps directed the districts to identify 

disposals of land tracts that remained in REMIS and update the database 

accordingly. As previously discussed, updating has continued.

Consequently, although the Corps is taking corrective action, its lack of 

assurance that all of the disposed land tracts have been identified as such

in REMIS adds to the uncertainty regarding the accuracy of the Corps’ 

current inventory of land tracts within the database. 

Recognizing that mistakes can occur when entering data into REMIS, the 

Corps introduced a code in September 2006 that allows users to identify 

administrative disposals and distinguish these disposals from actual 

disposals. This code would be useful if, for example, a user had entered

the acreage of a land tract into REMIS by mistake and needed to dispose 

 19The DOD Inspector General and the U.S. Army Audit Agency conducted numerous audits

on the Corps’ financial accounting system as it relates to portions of balance sheet 

reporting for the Civil Works mission of the Corps. In December 2005, the Corps indicated 

that it had corrected the material deficiencies identified in the DOD Inspector General 

financial audit reports and asserted its readiness for an external auditor to audit its

financial statements. 

Page 17 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
of acreage without having the disposal reported to the Federal Real 

Property Profile or any other disposal report. Hence, the new code is a 

positive step toward improving the accuracy of REMIS data. However, 

unless the Corps corrects past disposal records to reflect the date of the

actual disposal rather than the date of the record entry, REMIS will have 

limited usefulness as a tool for the Corps to assess its progress in 

disposing of land, consistent with the administration’s goals, as well as to 

understand disposal trends. As it stands, decision makers using REMIS 

data cannot distinguish between disposal dates that indicate when 

disposals were entered into REMIS and dates of disposals that actually 

occurred from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2006. 

Under the President’s Real Property Asset Management Initiative, 

landholding agencies are accountable for meeting key milestones and 

performance outcomes. Accurate data describing the Corps’ disposals are 

essential to reporting its results, as well as the combined results of other 

landholding agencies. For example, the administration has a 

governmentwide goal for federal agencies, including the Corps, to dispose 

of $9 billion in unneeded assets by 2009, for which federal agencies 

reported disposing of about $4.5 billion since 2004. However, the Corps’ 

and the agencies’ progress toward the goal is unclear, because, as 

explained previously, the Corps’ disposal data are not accurate, and the 

reliability of disposal data in REMIS is unclear. Furthermore, deficiencies 

in the Corps’ disposal data mean that the Corps lacks accurate baseline 

and annual data for tracking and analyzing trends in disposals and 

identifying opportunities to improve its performance. Finally, inaccurate

disposal data limit the accuracy of the Corps’ and the government’s 

valuations of their real property assets, as well as the accuracy of any

financial reports that include these valuations. 

Additionally, we found discrepancies in the land disposal data that the 

Corps queried from REMIS and reported in its Three Year Timeline and 

the Federal Real Property Profile in fiscal year 2006. The OMB-approved 

Three Year Timeline of April 2007 highlighted, among other things, the 

Corps’ progress in disposing of unneeded real property. The Three Year

Timeline is an action plan that established the schedule for achieving the 

Corps’ real property goals identified in its Asset Management Plan and 

analyzed the number of land disposals from 1996 through 2006 using 

REMIS disposal data. The data from past disposals enabled the Corps’ 

decision makers to make disposal-budget estimates by calculating the 

average cost per disposal. We found the following two key discrepancies: 

Page 18 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
• First, according to the Three Year Timeline, the Corps disposed of 184

land tracts in fiscal year 2006 and continued a trend of elevated disposal 

numbers.20 This information contradicted what Corps officials told us. 

They said that little, if any, land is available for disposal because the Corps 

reduced its landholdings years ago in response to several executive orders. 

Another official who works in the office that manually tracks, verifies, and 

reports all Corps disposals to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Army 

told us that the Corps’ land disposal numbers were down from previous 

years. Our analysis of REMIS data identified 153 land disposals in fiscal 

year 2006, as shown in figure 2. Since both these land disposal numbers 

were based on REMIS data, the numbers should have agreed; however, 

they differed by 31, or about 20 percent. This discrepancy indicated a data 

reliability problem and raised questions about the Corps’ disposal-budget 

estimates. If the data overstated the actual number of disposals, then the 

Corps underestimated the average cost per disposal. This could lead to 

budgeting and staffing shortfalls in future years.

• Second, the Corps submitted 84 land disposals to GSA for the fiscal year 

2006 Federal Real Property Profile—a number much lower than presented 

in the Three Year Timeline and in the data provided to us.21 This number, 

however, did not accurately reflect how many disposals occurred. We 

found that at least 8 of the 84 disposals, or about 10 percent, had occurred 

in previous years and were erroneously entered into REMIS in fiscal year 

2006 when the Corps adjusted inventory records. In addition, we learned 

that the Corps did not include partial land tract disposals in its submission

for the profile. According to the REMIS contractor that assembled the 

submission, partial land tract disposals—the disposal of a portion of a land

tract—were not included because conflicts would arise when the 

submission contained both owned and disposed land tracts with the same 

unique identifier numbers. To reconcile the differences among the 2006

Federal Real Property Profile, the Three Year Timeline, and the REMIS 

data files provided to us, we obtained the REMIS data file that contained

the fiscal year 2006 partial land disposals. We identified 39 partial land 

tract disposals that could account for some, but not all, of the differences 

among the three data files. 

 20In order to compare the Three Year Timeline data to our REMIS files, we adjusted the

time line data to fiscal year using the Corps’ source data. 

21The Three Year Timeline data for fiscal year 2006 contained 184 disposals. The REMIS 

data we received from RESNC contained 153 disposals. 

Page 19 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Unreliable land disposal dates impaired—and continue to impair—the 

usefulness of REMIS as an accurate (1) expression of the Corps’ current 

inventory and (2) source of data for the Federal Real Property Profile. If 

land disposal data in REMIS do not accurately reflect actual disposals, the 

Corps risks overstating the amount of land it currently holds, which could

affect the land values reported in its annual financial statements and could 

cause understatement of the amount of land it actually disposed of in any 

year. 

Guidance for processing land disposals in REMIS—one round of guidance 

issued in 2004, then updated in 2006, and further revised in 2007—was 

unclear. In April 2004, RESNC issued guidance that provided step-by-step

instructions for processing land disposals in REMIS but did not require 

users to enter disposal dates. Figure 3 shows the process for entering land

disposal data into REMIS in 2004. 

REMIS Disposal Guidance 

Was Unclear 

Figure 3: The Process for Entering Land Disposal Data in REMIS Outlined in the 2004 Guidance 

Sources: GAO and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

CONTRACT NO:

Payment No.:

PROJECT/INSTALL CODE:

Task Code:

Task Name:

Work Item:

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION:

Authority:

*DISPOSITION METHOD:

Disposition Sub Method:

Net Proceeds:

RECIPIENT:

Disposition date:

*Disposition Value:

Sale Price:

Delivery Date:

Disposing Org:

Instrument Type:

Send payment to Org:

Instrument Record Location:

CONTRACT NO:

Payment No.:

PROJECT/INSTALL CODE:

Task Code:

Task Name:

Work Item:

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION:

Authority:

*DISPOSITION METHOD:

Disposition Sub Method:

Net Proceeds:

RECIPIENT:

DISPOSAL ACRES:

*Disposition Value:

Sale Price:

Delivery Date:

Disposing Org:

Instrument Type:

Send payment to Org:

Instrument Record Location:

Disposal date Disposal date

Payment No.:

PROJECT/INSTALL CODE:

Project Name:

Task Code:

Task Name:

Work Item:

Work Item Name:

DESCRIPTION:

Authority:

*DISPOSITION METHOD:

Disposition Sub Method:

Net Proceeds:

RECIPIENT:

Recipient Name:

*DISPOSITION DATE:

*Disposition Value:

Sale Price:

Government’s Cost Avoidance:

Amsco code:

Recorded Date:

Property ID Code:

Delivery Date:

The RD-82 screen The RD-80 screen

*DISPOSAL DATE

Created the disposal record 

(Screen indicates disposal date

was not required.)

Screen used only when the disposal 

generated revenue, for example, if 

the land was sold

(Screen indicates disposal date

was required.)

Completed disposal and removed 

acreage from REMIS

(Screen indicates disposal date

was not required.)

REMIS data fields shown in all capital letters and/or with an asterisk

(the standard indicators) denote that the specified data are required.

The RD-70 screen

Page 20 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Users entered data in three steps using the RD-70, the RD-82, and the RD80 data entry screens. First, users created a land disposal record using the 

RD-70 screen and entered information identifying the land being disposed 

of. Second, if the land disposal generated revenue, users accessed the RD82 screen to enter information about the disposal method and date, among 

other things. The guidance required this information, and the Corps used 

specially marked data fields to identify it as required. Third, users 

completed the disposal record after entering additional information, such 

as the amount of acreage being disposed of, in the RD-80 screen. 

REMIS data entry screens use standard indicators to denote required data

fields22—all capital letters for the data field name, an asterisk next to the 

field name, or both. In figure 3, for example, the RD-82 screen uses both 

capital letters and an asterisk to indicate that the disposal date is a 

required data field. While the RD-70 screen had a field for the disposal 

date, it was not a required field for this screen. The 2004 guidance 

emphasized that users should enter data into the RD-82 screen if the 

disposal generated revenue, but it was unclear whether users should also 

enter the data in this screen for other types of disposals, such as transfers 

to other federal agencies. While both the RD-70 and the RD-82 screens had 

disposal date fields, only the RD-82 screen required the disposal date field.

RESNC officials updated the guidance in September 2006 after the Federal 

Council decided that federal landholding agencies must report disposals. 

However, the 2006 guidance did not emphasize the importance of using 

specific disposal dates for different types of disposals. The updated 

guidance reduced the land disposal process from three steps to two (users 

entered data into the RD-70 and the RD-82 screens), eliminated the RD-80 

screen after incorporating its functions into the RD-70 screen, and 

required the RD-82 screen for all disposals. However, the guidance did not

clearly indicate which data entry screen—RD-70 or RD-82—completed the 

process of recording a land disposal. While both screens included fields 

for disposal dates, each continued to store data in a separate place within

REMIS—a practice that resulted in a nonnormalized database and the 

associated problems we previously discussed. Having the disposal dates in

both the RD-70 and the RD-82 screens illustrates the lack of data 

normalization. 

 22Required data fields are those fields into which the user must insert data in order to save

the contents of the screen into REMIS. 

Page 21 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
RESNC issued a third round of guidance in August 2007 that described a 

new REMIS disposal process. According to this guidance, users should 

create a disposal record in the RD-70 screen (but not enter the disposal 

date and quantity of land), continue to the RD-82 screen “if desired,” and 

return to the RD-70 screen to enter the disposal date and the amount of 

land disposed as the final step in the REMIS disposal process. Figure 4 

shows the new process. 

Figure 4: The Process for Entering Land Disposal Data in REMIS Outlined in the 2007 Guidance 

Sources: GAO and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

CONTRACT NO:

Payment No.:

PROJECT/INSTALL CODE:

Task Code:

Task Name:

Work Item:

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION:

Authority:

*DISPOSITION METHOD:

Disposition Sub Method:

Net Proceeds:

RECIPIENT:

Disposition date:

*Disposition Value:

Sale Price:

Delivery Date:

Disposing Org:

Instrument Type:

Send payment to Org:

Instrument Record Location:

Disposal date

CONTRACT NO:

Payment No.:

PROJECT/INSTALL CODE:

Task Code:

Task Name:

Work Item:

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION:

Authority:

*DISPOSITION METHOD:

Disposition Sub Method:

Net Proceeds:

RECIPIENT:

Disposition date:

*Disposition Value:

Sale Price:

Delivery Date:

Disposing Org:

Instrument Type:

Send payment to Org:

Instrument Record Location:

Disposal date

Payment No.:

PROJECT/INSTALL CODE:

Project Name:

Task Code:

Task Name:

Work Item:

Work Item Name:

DESCRIPTION:

Authority:

*DISPOSITION METHOD:

Disposition Sub Method:

Net Proceeds:

RECIPIENT:

Recipient Name:

*DISPOSITION DATE:

*Disposition Value:

Sale Price:

Government’s Cost Avoidance:

Amsco code:

Recorded Date:

Property ID Code:

Delivery Date:

The RD-70 screen The RD-82 screen The RD-70 screen

*DISPOSAL DATE

Creates the disposal record

(Screen indicates disposal date is

not required.)

Screen used only “if desired”

(Screen indicates disposal date

is required.)

Completes disposal when date and 

acres are entered and removes

acreage from REMIS

(Screen indicates disposal date is

not required.)

REMIS data fields shown in all capital letters and/or with an asterisk

(the standard indicators) denote that the specified data are required.

When RESNC issued the 2007 guidance, it did not update the REMIS data 

entry screens to match the guidance—that is, it did not identify the 

required data fields using the standard indicators. This inconsistency 

between the new guidance and the REMIS screens created the following 

two opportunities for users to be confused: 

• The 2007 guidance required users to enter disposal dates in the RD-70 

screen, but the disposal date field in this screen lacked the standard 

indicators used to identify a required data field. Recognizing that users 

could be confused about whether they should enter the disposal date into

Page 22 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
the RD-70 screen, RESNC officials said they are discussing ways to resolve 

the confusion. 

• The 2007 guidance instructed REMIS users to enter data in the RD-82 

screen, “if desired.” Although use of this screen was optional, it was the 

only screen with a required data field for the disposal date, identified by 

the standard indicators. According to officials in three of the four districts 

we contacted, they used the RD- 82 screen to enter the disposal date. 

Moreover, real estate officials in all four districts noted that the RD-82 

screen is the only REMIS screen that requires the disposal date. 

Conversely, RESNC officials told us that they believe that other REMIS 

screens already collect the data captured by the RD-82 screen. 

Consequently, RESNC officials are evaluating the need for the RD-82 

screen. 

Unclear guidance affects the reliability of disposal data because it could 

lead to differences in how users process disposals in REMIS. Until the 

Corps develops clear and consistent REMIS guidance and screens for 

processing land disposals, the reliability of future disposal data could be at 

risk. 

Although RESNC officials view REMIS as a user-friendly database that 

requires minimal training to use, we found data reliability issues indicating 

that users may not be receiving the training necessary to enter disposal 

data in a reliable manner. The standards for internal control in the federal

government state that federal managers should demonstrate a 

commitment to the competence of their employees and provide employees 

with the training they need to accomplish their assigned duties. According 

to RESNC officials, REMIS users received introductory training when the

Corps implemented the database in 1992. In addition, RESNC officials 

provided introductory training to 3 of 32 districts that use REMIS in 2006 

and 2007. Specifically, they provided training to the Kansas City District in 

2006 and to the Norfolk and Memphis Districts in 2007 upon requests from 

those districts for their new staff. With limited instructors and funding, 

RESNC plans to train the New England District and at least one other 

district in 2008. 

To its credit, RESNC has sponsored two informational conferences since 

2005 for the districts’ systems administrators—those who maintain the 

REMIS database for their respective districts—and other REMIS users. At 

these conferences, presenters discussed technical changes to REMIS and 

the business processes that some attendees considered too advanced—-

Limited Training Provided 

to REMIS Users and 

Systems Administrators 

Page 23 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
particularly those who had not received introductory training, including 

real estate officials in two districts we contacted. In response to feedback

from the 2007 conference, RESNC is planning to offer hands-on training at 

the next conference in May 2008. Nonetheless, we found gaps in training 

among REMIS users within the four districts we contacted. Specifically, 

• of the approximately 63 daily users of REMIS, about 24 have not received

introductory, hands-on training, while 39 have received the training; and 

• none of the daily REMIS users have received periodic refresher training. 

The lack of introductory and periodic refresher training that includes 

hand-on, computer-based training can hinder efforts to ensure that all

districts consistently process land disposals in REMIS. Introductory 

training is particularly important for new employees, such as systems 

administrators and other officials who enter information into the database, 

because the disposal process in REMIS requires users to enter specific 

data in multiple screens. Periodic refresher training is equally important 

for experienced staff, especially because key aspects of the land disposal 

process in REMIS have changed in recent years. We are encouraged that 

the Corps is planning to expand the scope of training at its next 

informational conference in May 2008. 

Having accurate, reliable real property data is important for agencies to 

cost effectively manage the properties they need and to identify unneeded

properties that they can dispose of and avoid unnecessary costs to the 

government. The Corps, like other federal landholding agencies, must 

determine what real property it owns, what it needs, and what it costs to 

manage its real property, as well as develop and implement asset 

management plans and dispose of unneeded property. To measure 

progress toward the administration’s real property disposal goal, OMB and 

the Federal Council are using disposal data to track how much property 

federal agencies have disposed of and measure the government’s annual

progress toward disposing of its unneeded property. 

However, land disposal data in the Corps’ real property database—

REMIS—are unreliable. Specifically, REMIS does not provide reliable 

information on the Corps’ civil works land disposals from fiscal year 1996 

through fiscal year 2006, or on the land that the Corps owned as of 

September 30, 2006. Problems contributing to unreliable REMIS land 

disposal data included the lack of effective internal control, a database 

design that did not follow a best practice and, therefore, resulted in errorConclusions 

Page 24 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
prone data, poor data entry practices that led to missing disposal data and 

inaccurate disposal dates, unclear guidance for processing land disposals 

in REMIS, and limited introductory and refresher training in REMIS for all 

users of the database, including new and experienced staff. In addition, 89 

percent of all land disposal records in REMIS were missing disposal dates, 

while many other land disposal dates were inaccurate. Although the Corps 

is taking actions to address some data deficiencies, such as implementing 

additional training in some areas, these actions provide little assurance 

that REMIS disposal data are reliable. Unreliable land disposal data impair 

the usefulness of REMIS as a record of current inventory, as a valid tool 

for measuring progress toward the administration’s disposal goal, and as a 

source of data that would be useful to Corps decision makers for 

budgeting and strategic land management purposes. 

To improve the reliability of REMIS land disposal data for determining 

how much land the Corps currently owns and for budgeting and strategic 

land management purposes, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense

direct the Commanding General and Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers to take the following five actions: 

• implement effective internal controls, including segregation of duties and 

review, over the REMIS land disposal process by incorporating such 

control into the Corps’ real estate policies at those districts and divisions 

identified in this report and others, where appropriate; 

• implement the data normalization best practice in the REMIS database 

with respect to disposal dates; 

• correct the disposal records that were created in REMIS as part of the 

efforts to adjust the inventory; 

• issue clear guidance for entering land disposal dates in the REMIS land 

disposal process; and 

• provide and require introductory and periodic refresher training that 

covers how to correctly enter land disposal dates in REMIS. 

We provided a draft of this report to DOD for review and comment. DOD 

agreed with all five of our recommendations aimed at improving REMIS 

land disposal data and outlined its planned actions to address the 

recommendations. Specifically, DOD stated that the Corps is designing a 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

Page 25 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
REMIS modernization program that, when implemented, is to have in 

place internal controls, such as quality assurance and control processes, 

segregation of duties, and inspection and review phases. In addition, 

according to DOD, the Corps is planning to: (1) check the progress that 

districts are making in updating historical disposal records; (2) issue 

clearer guidance for entering disposal dates, as well as identifying the 

required REMIS screens and data fields; and (3) provide annual REMIS 

training to Corps districts. Further, DOD agreed with our recommendation 

to normalize the database. To reduce the adverse affects of the current 

database’s design problem, DOD said that guidance is to be updated, and 

special emphasis is to be placed on this module during training. DOD 

indicated that the Corps would study and implement methods to eliminate 

the redundant and cumbersome data entry that causes the data 

normalization problem. However, updating guidance and improving 

training does not address the fundamental problem we found related to 

data normalization issues because this approach continues to rely on 

people consistently entering disposal dates. The key to solving the 

database problem will be the Corps’ implementation of methods it 

identifies to eliminate duplicate and redundant data entry. We reprinted 

DOD’s comments in appendix II. The Corps also provided technical 

comments, which we incorporated, as appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, the 

Commanding General and Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers, and interested congressional committees. We also will make 

copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be 

available at no charge on the GAO Web site at www.gao.gov. 

If you have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-

2834 or at dornt@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 

Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. 

Staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix III. 

Terrell G. Dorn 

Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues 

Page 26 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, 

and Methodology 

Page 27 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property

Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology 

Our objective was to determine whether the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers’ (Corps) real property database—Real Estate Management 

Information System (REMIS)—could provide reliable information on the 

civil works land that the Corps disposed of from fiscal year 1996 through 

fiscal year 2006, or on the civil works land the Corps owned as of 

September 30, 2006. 

To address this objective, we reviewed relevant federal laws and executive

orders related to the Corps’ disposal of landholdings, as well as its 

applicable real property policies, guidance, and user/training manuals on 

the processing of civil works land disposals in REMIS. We reviewed a 

number of our previous reports on real property management, the 

Department of Defense Inspector General’s work on the Corps’ real 

property inventory, and technical papers on database normalization. We 

also reviewed and analyzed the Corps’ Asset Management Plan and Three 

Year Timeline—an action plan for implementing the asset management 

plan and demonstrating the use of real property inventory data for 

decision making—to determine the extent to which the Corps used REMIS 

land disposal data. To gain a more complete understanding of the Corps’ 

disposal process and of REMIS from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 

2006, we contacted Corps headquarters officials from the Offices of Real

Estate, Corporate Information, and the Chief Counsel; Corps field officials

from the Real Estate Systems National Center in Mobile, Alabama, which 

manages REMIS; and officials of the contractor that maintained REMIS 

and supported its users. Also, Corps headquarters and field officials 

briefed us on the Corps’ land acquisition and disposal process, legal

authorities, applicable executive orders, disposal policies, Asset 

Management Plan, Three Year Timeline, and the REMIS land disposal 

process. 

To gain a better understanding of the REMIS land disposal process, we 

contacted 4 of the Corps’ 32 district offices—Baltimore, Maryland; Fort 

Worth, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; and Los Angeles, California—with 

REMIS databases. We selected 3 of these 4 districts because their land 

disposals accounted for about 82 percent of the acreage that the Corps 

disposed of from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2006, according to 

REMIS data. We selected the fourth district—Los Angeles—because it had

recently completed an inventory of its entire real property holdings. We 

also contacted three Corps divisions—North Atlantic, New York, New 

York; Northwestern, Portland, Oregon; and Southwestern, Dallas, Texas—

that oversee these districts. In each of these districts, we contacted key 

district officials responsible for real property management and REMIS. We 

also contacted the key officials who were responsible for oversight of real 
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, 

and Methodology 

property management and of REMIS in these four districts. Additionally, 

we visited the Baltimore and Los Angeles Districts because, according to 

Corps headquarters officials, the officials in these districts could provide

insights into REMIS and its accuracy. Specifically, the headquarters 

officials said that the officials in the Baltimore District were very 

knowledgeable about the REMIS disposal process and that, as noted, 

officials in the Los Angeles District had recently completed an inventory of 

the district’s entire real property holdings. At each location, we observed 

the REMIS disposal process and reviewed the supporting documentation

and guidance. 

To further address our objective, although we did not have direct access to 

REMIS, we took several steps to assess the reliability of REMIS disposal 

data. We contacted the REMIS contractor to gain a good understanding of 

the REMIS database, the disposal data that it stores, the manner districts 

input data into the database, and the districts’ ability to query the REMIS 

database. We requested and obtained from the Corps’ contractor data files 

of (1) REMIS land tract disposals from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 

2006, (2) the Corps’ fiscal year 2006 Federal Real Property Profile 

submission for land disposals, (3) land disposals used for the Three Year

Timeline for 1996 through 2006, and (4) each district’s current real 

property holdings in REMIS. These data identified individual land tract 

disposals for each district, including specific information about each

disposal, such as the real property identification number for each tract, 

date of disposal, acreage, and type of disposal, among other things. To 

assess the reliability of these REMIS data, we performed electronic testing 

to identify missing data, dates outside the time frame of our request, and

duplicates. We obtained and reviewed the queries that the contractor used 

to generate the data that we requested. We focused part of our assessment 

on land disposals that occurred during fiscal years 2005 and 2006—the 

years, when according to the data, the bulk of land disposals occurred—

and specifically focused on the land disposal dates. We compared the land

disposal data files to identify inconsistencies among the disposals. At the 

district level, we had the Baltimore, Fort Worth, and Omaha Districts 

determine whether our REMIS land tract disposal data files for these 

districts were accurate. Similarly, we had the Baltimore and Los Angeles 

Districts determine whether our REMIS file for their districts’ real 

property holdings were accurate. Based on this work, we found that the 

REMIS land disposal data were not reliable because of inconsistencies 

among the disposal data files we analyzed, a significant number of missing 

disposal dates, and inaccurate current inventory data. 

Page 28 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, 

and Methodology 

In addition, we assessed the Corps’ internal controls over the recording of

land disposals in REMIS. We obtained the applicable Corps policies, 

procedures, and guidance and compared them with standards for internal 

control in the federal government and other control guidance related to 

control activities, environment, and training. We also had follow-up 

discussions with Corps officials about how internal controls are 

interpreted and implemented. In assessing the adequacy of internal 

controls, we used the criteria in GAO’s Standards for Internal Control in 

the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1, November 1999. These

standards, issued pursuant to the requirements of the Federal Managers’ 

Financial Integrity Act of 1982 (FMFIA), provided the overall framework 

for establishing and maintaining internal control in the federal 

government. Also pursuant to FMFIA, the Office of Management and 

Budget issued Circular A-123, revised December 21, 2004, to provide the 

specific requirements for assessing the reporting on internal controls. 

Internal control standards and the definition of internal control in Circular 

A-123 are based on GAO’s Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government. 

Page 29 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 30 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property

Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 31 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 32 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property
Terrell G. Dorn, (202) 512-2834, or dornt@gao.gov

In addition to the individual named above, Gerald P. Barnes (Assistant 

Director), Lindsay M. Bach, Cherry M. Clipper, Melinda L. Cordero, 

Elizabeth R. Eisenstadt, Colin Fallon, Kathleen A. Gilhooly, H. Brandon 

Haller, Vondalee R. Hunt, Chris Martin, Steve Martinez, and Joshua H. 

Ormond made key contributions to this report. 

Page 33 GAO-08-349 Federal Real Property

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

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