Defense Infrastructure: More Accurate Data Would Allow DOD to Improve the Tracking, Management, and Security of Its Leased Facilities
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Overreliance on costly leasing is one of the major reasons that federal real property management remains on GAO's high-risk list. GAO's prior work has shown that owning buildings often costs less than operating leases, especially where there are long-term needs for space.
House Report 113-102 included a provision that GAO review DOD's management of leased space. For fiscal years 2011 and 2013, this report evaluates the extent to which DOD (1) has accurate and complete data on the number, size, and costs of its leases; (2) has taken actions to reduce its reliance on leased space; and (3) has oversight of the status of security assessments conducted for leased facilities contracted through GSA. GAO analyzed lease data from the real property systems kept by DOD, the military departments, WHS, and GSA, and facility security assessment data from FPS and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency; reviewed guidance; and interviewed cognizant officials.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: While the Department of Defense (DOD) is taking some steps to address data issues, it cannot fully determine the number, size, and costs of its leases for real property because its Real Property Assets Database (RPAD), the real property inventory system that DOD uses to report on its leased assets, contains some inaccurate and incomplete data. GAO found that about 15 percent of the RPAD lease records for fiscal year 2011 and 10 percent of the records for fiscal year 2013 were inaccurate. Most of these errors were in the lease records for the Army (the manager of about 80 percent of the leased assets records in RPAD); however, the Army is aware of these issues and is taking steps to correct future data. GAO also found that RPAD did not include about 5 percent of the Army's lease records for fiscal years 2011 and 2013. GAO conducted a random sample of the fiscal year 2013 RPAD data and found that the data element required to calculate costs was unreliable for 11 of the 84 Army sample records. GAO found that the Army was not following DOD's guidance for reporting costs on leases that have multiple assets associated with them. Furthermore, GAO found that RPAD does not contain a data element for the square footage for leases in which there are multiple tenants occupying space in the same building, as is the case for some Washington Headquarters Services (WHS) leases.
DOD is implementing a presidential memorandum and a series of Office of Management and Budget memorandums to maintain or reduce owned and leased space, but has projected minimal change to its leasing activities. There have been opportunities in the past to reduce its leased space; however, DOD reoccupied over 1.1 million square feet in leased space previously vacated when it implemented the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment recommendations. In some cases, DOD tenants occupy leased space close to large installations that may have had unused facilities. Potential force structure reductions may offer an opportunity to further reduce DOD's reliance on leased space in the future, if DOD actively identifies suitable underutilized facilities on its installations.
DOD does not have complete oversight of the security assessments conducted for its leased facilities acquired through the General Services Administration (GSA). Facility security assessments, which are required to be conducted every 3 to 5 years, are conducted by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and the Federal Protective Service (FPS) using established standards. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency had completed the required assessments for the facilities for which it is responsible between August 8, 2013, and January 31, 2014. However, DOD has not requested information on whether FPS, the primary agency for protecting federal facilities, has completed its facility security assessments as required for all DOD-leased locations. GAO analyzed the FPS assessment data for fiscal years 2011 and 2013 and identified several issues: (1) some assessments were not scheduled within required time frames, (2) data on previously recorded assessment dates were overwritten when updated, and (3) dates for completed and next-scheduled assessments were not always recorded. While FPS is not required to inform DOD about assessment schedules, without periodically requesting information on whether facility security assessments have been conducted, DOD does not have the information it needs to ensure that its leased facilities are secure.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommends four actions to improve DOD's management of its leased facilities. DOD concurred with GAO recommendations to (1) enforce its guidance to provide annual rent plus other costs for each asset on the same lease, and (2) request information from FPS on facility security assessments. DOD did not concur with GAO recommendations to capture total square footage, by lease, or to look for opportunities to move DOD organizations in leased space onto installations. As discussed in the report, GAO believes that these recommendations remain valid.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Overreliance on costly leasing is one of the reasons that federal real  property management remains on our high-risk list. Our work over the  years has shown that owning buildings often costs less than operating  leases, especially where there are long-term needs for space, although  under certain conditionssuch as fulfilling short-term needs for  administrative office spaceleasing may be a lower-cost option than  ownership. The General Services Administration (GSA) manages leased  facilities throughout the federal government and plays a significant role in  providing a safe, healthy, and secure environment for employees and  visitors to federal facilities. In September 2013, we reported that for 67 of  89 GSA leases we examined, the government could have saved almost  $1 billion if it had constructed rather than leased space for federal  agencies. The Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with  GSA, has designated responsibility for the security of federal facilities.  The Federal Protective Service, a component of the Department of  Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate,  protects buildings, grounds, property, and the persons on the property  under the control and custody of GSA.
In the 2005 defense base closure and realignment (BRAC) process, the  Department of Defense (DOD) proposed to the BRAC Commission 31  recommendations that involved relocating certain DOD activities from  leased space to government-owned space, which the Commission  approved. As part of the justification for some of these  recommendations, the Secretary of Defense noted that their  implementation would reduce DOD’s reliance on leased space. The  Secretary further acknowledged in his justification for these  recommendations that leased space historically has higher overall costs  than government-owned space and generally does not meet antiterrorism  force-protection standards. In March 2015, the Acting Assistant Secretary  of Defense (Energy, Installations and Environment) testified that a 2004  DOD study concluded that DOD had 24 percent aggregate excess  infrastructure capacity and that the 2005 BRAC recommendations  disposed of only 3.4 percent of this excess.
We have a body of work that has examined the federal government’s  reliance on leased facilities. In addition, we testified before Congress in  May 2014 that assessing security risk at federal leased facilities remains  a challenge. As part of the 2005 leasing-related BRAC  recommendations, DOD planned to vacate about 12 million square feet of  leased space and move DOD tenants into more secure, functionally  enhanced, government-owned facilities. However, as we reported in  March 2013, DOD was unable to provide us with information on how  much of the 12 million square feet it had vacated by the conclusion of  BRAC implementation, because it had not developed a plan or  established a mechanism to monitor those changes over the 6-year  BRAC implementation period that ended on September 15, 2011. To  improve planning for measuring the results of implementing the BRAC  recommendations for a future BRAC, we recommended that DOD identify  appropriate measures of effectiveness and develop a plan to demonstrate  the extent to which the department achieved the results intended from the  implementation of the BRAC. DOD did not concur with our  recommendation, stating that military value, which is based on force  structure and mission needs, should continue to be the key driver for  BRAC and that a business plan process was used to ensure  recommendations were implemented. In our report, we emphasized that  there was nothing in our recommendation that undermined the reliance  on military value in making BRAC recommendations. We also  acknowledged benefits from the business plans that DOD uses. That  said, though, we reiterated that DOD’s business plans are focused on the  implementation of individual BRAC recommendations and not on the  effectiveness of the BRAC process as a whole. In fact, we note that in  March 2012, DOD requested two more BRAC rounds, in part because it  has reported that it still maintains excess facilities capacity at some of its  military installations.
House Report 113-102, accompanying a bill for the National Defense  Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, included a provision that we  review various aspects of DOD’s management of leased space. This  report addresses the extent to which DOD (1) has accurate and complete  data on the number, size, and costs of its leases; (2) has taken actions to  reduce its reliance on leased space since 2011; and (3) has oversight of  the status of security assessments conducted for its leased facilities  contracted through GSA.
To determine whether DOD has accurate and complete data on the  number, size, and costs of its leases, we obtained and analyzed selected  data elements from the real property records contained in DOD’s Real  Property Assets Database (RPAD), as well as data from the military  departments’ and Washington Headquarters Services’ (WHS) real  property inventory systems, for fiscal years 2011 and 2013. Specifically,  we analyzed selected data elements in the lease records for fiscal year  2011 (the final year of a 6-year period to implement the BRAC 2005  recommendations) and fiscal year 2013 (the most recent full year of data  available at the time we initiated this review) to determine whether these  data were sufficiently reliable to provide a basis for managing leases and  externally reporting information on leases. We drew a statistical random  sample of fiscal year 2013 data to assess the reliability of DOD’s real  property lease data. The results of our analysis are generalizable across  all lease records for fiscal year 2013, with a 95 percent chance that the  difference between the estimated and the true population percentage is  within 10 percentage points. We also obtained lease data from GSA for  the real property assets it managed on behalf of DOD for fiscal years  2011 and 2013. However, GSA’s real property management system does  not retain historical information; as a result, GSA researched old files and  compiled the information that was available in an attempt to satisfy our  data requests. Due to a lack of historical information for fiscal years 2011  and 2013, there were a number of inconsistencies in the data provided.  For example, lease numbers were not available for fiscal year 2011, and  the lease start and expiration dates were not available for fiscal year  2013. The lack of such data prevented us from conducting a year-to-year  comparison of the GSA data. However, we were able to use the data to  help us determine the process DOD uses to track its leases and to make  some comparisons of the GSA data with data contained in RPAD to  determine, among other things, what type of data is collected for  management purposes and whether duplicate records existed. We  gathered and analyzed documentation, such as DOD directives and  instructions and military-department guidance reflecting DOD’s and the  military departments’ management of real property and how DOD uses  the data in RPAD. We interviewed officials at the Office of the Assistant  Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations and Environment), WHS, the  real property offices for each of the three military departments (which  include the four military services), and GSA to obtain information about  the management of their real property management systems. Based on  the results of our analysis, we determined that data from RPAD were  neither accurate nor complete, and therefore were not sufficiently reliable  for our use to determine the number of leases and the size and cost of  DOD’s leased assets for fiscal years 2011 and 2013. Further data issues  are discussed within the findings of our report.
To determine the extent to which DOD has taken actions to reduce its  reliance on leased space since 2011, we obtained and reviewed the 2005  Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission report and  identified recommendations for realigning and closing some DOD leased  facilities that had to be implemented by September 15, 2011. We also  reviewed DOD’s 2013 Freeze the Footprint reports that were submitted to  the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—the most current reports  available when we initiated this review—to identify DOD’s planned  initiatives to reduce its domestic office and warehouse space (including  both leased and owned space). We interviewed officials from the Office  of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations and  Environment) to discuss DOD’s policies and ongoing initiatives involving  DOD’s use of leased space. We also interviewed real property officials  from the Department of the Army and gathered documentation on its  initiatives regarding leased space that would assist them in meeting the  Freeze the Footprint requirements. We focused on the Army because, in  its role as executive agent for joint service programs and some defense  agencies, as well as its own mission needs, it has more leases than the  other military departments and WHS combined. We interviewed and  gathered documentation from officials at WHS to determine whether DOD  was reoccupying leased space previously vacated in the National Capital  Region as a result of the 2005 BRAC recommendations. The National  Capital Region was the primary focus of the 2005 BRAC  recommendations that involved moving DOD activities from leased space  to government-owned space. We obtained DOD reports on the number  and location of its leases and interviewed officials who maintain the  leases. We also reviewed our December 2013, report, which identifies  DOD installations that may have available administrative office space  based on the inactivations of 10 Army Brigade Combat Teams that are  expected to begin in fiscal year 2017. We then analyzed the lease data  elements from DOD’s RPAD system for fiscal year 2013 to see if any  opportunities existed for DOD to reduce its leased space based on the  proximity of leased space to installations that could have additional  unutilized or underutilized buildings in the future as a result of planned  reductions in force structure. As noted earlier, we chose fiscal year 2013  data because those were the most recent data available at the time we  initiated this review.
To determine the extent to which DOD has oversight of the status of  security assessments conducted for leased facilities contracted through  GSA, we obtained information regarding facility security assessments of  DOD leased space for fiscal years 2011 and 2013, the same fiscal years  for which we were reviewing DOD’s lease records. We obtained data from  the Federal Protective Service to determine when facility security  assessments had been conducted and when the next security  assessments were scheduled. We reviewed and analyzed the Federal  Protective Service’s tracking schedule for the facility security  assessments it performs for DOD’s leased facilities. We also examined  the Federal Protective Service’s facility assessment schedules for 500  leased facilities in fiscal year 2011 and 484 leased facilities in fiscal year  2013. Many of these facilities had multiple leases or occupancy  agreements. We also met with officials from the Federal Protective  Service to discuss inconsistencies and missing data that we found in its  facility security assessment data. Because some of the data were  incomplete and inaccurate, we determined that the Federal Protective  Service’s schedule for conducting and tracking facility security  assessments was not sufficiently reliable to determine whether the facility  security assessments had been completed as required. We also reviewed  our August 2012 report in which we reported that the Federal Protective  Service’s facility security assessments data contained a number of  missing and incorrect values that made the data unreliable to determine  the extent of their backlog of assessments that needed to be completed.  We discuss these data issues further in the findings of our report. We  reviewed DOD directives and instructions and other related  documentation to determine which DOD organization has oversight  responsibility for facility security assessments and physical security, and  the scope of this responsibility. We interviewed officials in the Office of  the Secretary of Defense with facility and security responsibilities, the  military departments, and WHS to obtain general information on the  status of their facilities meeting security requirements. We also met with  officials from the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and the Federal  Protective Service to obtain information on the standards and status of  facilities meeting security requirements. We also reviewed the Pentagon  Force Protection Agency’s tracking schedule for the facility security  assessments it performs for the DOD leased facilities for which it is  responsible to determine whether required assessments had been  completed. We found that the Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s data  were sufficiently reliable for our purposes. See appendix I for details of  our scope and methodology for this review.
We conducted this performance audit from July 2013 to March 2016 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.  Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain  sufficient and 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.
subsections: section_title: Background
subsections: section_title: DOD’s Real Property Management Program
paragraphs: DOD’s Real Property Management Program is governed by statute and  by DOD guidance documents that establish accountability for real  property and requirements for financial reporting. These laws and  guidance documents require DOD and the military departments to  maintain certain data elements about their facilities to ensure efficient  property management. Three DOD guidance documents—DOD Directive  4165.06, DOD Instruction 4165.14, and DOD Instruction 4165.70— assign responsibilities for managing DOD’s real property inventory to a  number of organizations, including the Under Secretary of Defense  (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), and the military departments.  DOD Directive 5110.4 assigns WHS responsibility for managing the DOD  leased facilities within the National Capital Region that are not managed  by the military departments. For real property accountability, DOD  Instruction 4165.70 provides WHS with the same responsibilities as the  military departments.
DOD Directive 4165.06 assigns overall responsibility for DOD’s real  property, including its leased assets, to the Under Secretary of Defense  (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) and specific responsibilities to the  three military departments. DOD leases are categorized by four real  property types: (1) land; (2) buildings (roofed and floored facilities  enclosed by exterior walls and consisting of one or more levels that are  suitable for single or multiple functions); (3) linear structures (facilities  whose function requires that they traverse land [e.g., runway, road, rail  line, pipeline, fence, pavement, electrical distribution line] and are  reported by a linear unit of measure); and (4) structures (facilities other  than buildings or linear structures that are constructed on or in the land,  e.g., tower, storage tank, wharf, pier). DOD manages its real property  lease data by collecting and compiling designated asset-level data into  RPAD, which is the single authoritative source for all data on DOD’s real  property inventory. RPAD includes real property records for owned and  leased assets that are directly managed by the military departments and  WHS. DOD Instruction 4165.70 requires the military departments and  WHS to keep accurate records of the real property assetsincluding  leased facilitiesunder their jurisdiction, custody, and control. It also  makes DOD real property administrators accountable for maintaining a  current inventory count and up-to-date information about the cost,  functional use, status, condition, and utilization of each real property unit  in the department’s real property inventory, among other things.
DOD Instruction 4165.14 requires that the annual real property inventory  submissions from the military departments and WHS comply with  DOD’s Real Property Information Model, which provides the framework  for all real property data and any associated business rules. The model  contains nearly 240 data elements that are to be maintained in RPAD and  the data dictionary for using these elements. Each of the military  departments maintains its own real property inventory system to track  owned and leased assets that it manages. WHS uses a spreadsheet  based on DOD’s Real Property Inventory Requirements to manage DOD  leased facilities in the National Capital Region that are not managed by  the military departments. At the end of each fiscal year, the military  departments and WHS are to transmit data from their real property  inventory systems to DOD for consolidation in RPAD, and the data is to  be certified by the military departments’ and WHS’s real property officers  as being as accurate and complete as possible. DOD has a verification  and validation process to determine whether each data element has an  entry that is in the correct format and complies with established business  rules. However, when data anomalies are discovered with the data  provided by the military departments and WHS, DOD would need to  provide the data back to the submitting organization for review and  correction as necessary. GSA provides DOD use of facilities that GSA  either owns or acquires under a lease on DOD’s behalf. GSA’s real  property inventory systemReal Estate Across the United Statesis a  real-time database that includes GSA-owned space and GSA-leased  space that it manages and furnishes to DOD for use through occupancy  agreements. The lease data from the military departments and WHS real  property inventory systems that are included in RPAD and their GSA  occupancy agreements should provide a complete picture of DOD’s  leased real property assets. The data for the leased assets that are  directly managed by the military departments and WHS are reported  annually in DOD’s internal reports, such as its Base Structure Report,  and in its submission to the Federal Real Property Profile. Similarly,  GSA reports its own assets that DOD uses or assets that it acquires  under a lease on DOD’s behalf in its annual submission to the Federal  Real Property Profile. According to RPAD managers, to avoid  duplication of assets in its annual submission to the Federal Real  Property Profile, DOD does not report any assets that are leased from  other federal agencies, including GSA. Figure 1 shows the real property  inventory systems that provide the data for reporting on DOD’s real  property assets that are directly leased by the military departments and  WHS and leased assets that DOD uses through GSA occupancy  agreements.
section_title: Agencies Responsible for Security of DOD Leased Facilities
paragraphs: The Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with GSA, has  designated responsibility for the security of federal facilities. The  Federal Protective Service, a component of the Department of Homeland  Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, protects  buildings, grounds, property, and the persons on the property under the  control and custody of GSA. Although the Federal Protective Service is  the primary agency responsible for protecting these facilities, the  Department of Homeland Security may delegate the protection of  buildings to tenant agencies such as DOD. The Pentagon Force  Protection Agency, a defense agency and a component of DOD,  provides force protection, security, and law enforcement to safeguard  personnel, facilities, infrastructure, and other resources for the Pentagon  Reservation and 16 DOD-leased facilities within the National Capital  Region that are managed by WHS. However, the military departments  provide security for the leased facilities they manage, including those  facilities in the National Capital Region.
Facility security assessments are conducted by the Pentagon Force  Protection Agency and the Federal Protective Service, using standards  set by the Interagency Security Committee. The Interagency Security  Committee, which consists of over 100 senior-level executives from 54  federal agencies and departments, develops and evaluates security  standards, and oversees the implementation of appropriate security  measures in nonmilitary federal facilities in the United States. The  Interagency Security Committee was established by Executive Order  12977, and the primary members represent 21 federal departments and  agencies and the associate members represent 33 federal departments  and agencies. DOD, the Department of Homeland Security, and GSA  are primary members, and the Federal Protective Service is an associate  member. The Interagency Security Committee defines the criteria and  processes that those responsible for the security of a nonmilitary federal  facility should use to determine its Interagency Security Committee  baseline facility security level. A facility security level ranges from level I  (lowest risk) to level V (highest risk) and is based on several factors,  including the size of the facility, the number of occupants, the perceived  threat to tenant agencies, the criticality of the tenants’ missions, and the  facility’s symbolic value.
section_title: DOD Is Addressing Data Issues but Its Inventory Database Has Some Inaccurate and Incomplete Data on Leased Assets
paragraphs: While DOD is taking some steps to address data issues, it cannot fully  determine the number, size, and costs of its leases because RPAD  contains some inaccurate and incomplete data. The RPAD data show  that DOD had 5,965 lease records in fiscal year 2011 and 5,538 lease  records in fiscal year 2013 that were within the scope of our review. The  majority of the lease records in both fiscal years were reported by the  Army. These RPAD records include interests in real property that DOD  obtains from private organizations, GSA, and state organizations. Based  on our review of selected data elements in RPAD leasing records, we  found that RPAD contained inaccurate data due to at least one violation  of established business rules in 900 (15 percent) of the 5,965 records in  fiscal year 2011 lease records. In fiscal year 2013 data, we found at least  one violation of business rules in 541 (10 percent) of the 5,538 of lease  records. Most of these errors were in the Army’s lease records; however,  the Army reported to us that it is aware of these issues and is taking steps  to correct future data. We also found that about 5 percent of the Army’s  lease records were not included in RPAD for fiscal year 2011 and fiscal  year 2013. Furthermore, we examined a statistical random sample of  RPAD lease records for fiscal year 2013 and found that there were some  inconsistencies in the lease data between RPAD, the military  departments, and WHS lease records. Specifically, for one of the data  elements we reviewed involving lease costs, we found that 13 percent of  the Army sample records in RPAD were inconsistent with the source  records in the Army’s real property systems. We also performed a more  in-depth review of the Army’s records for multiple assets on a single lease  and found that the Army was not following DOD’s guidance for reporting  on these types of leases. Lastly, although WHS is following DOD’s  guidance for reporting the square footage of buildings, our review of the  WHS lease records found that the square footage of buildings that have  multiple tenants under separate leases was overstated for each lease  recorded in RPAD. Cumulatively, these inaccurate and incomplete data  are indicators of the unreliability of certain RPAD data on the number,  size, and cost of DOD’s leased assets.
subsections: section_title: RPAD Contains Inaccurate Lease Data for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2013, but the Army Is Taking Steps to Improve Its Data
paragraphs: In our review of select RPAD data elements used to determine the costs,  size, and status of DOD’s leased assets, we found that RPAD contained  inaccurate data due to at least one violation of established business rules  in 900 (15 percent) of the 5,965 records from fiscal year 2011 lease  records. In fiscal year 2013 data, we found at least one violation of  business rules in 541 (10 percent) of the 5,538 of lease records. These  rules are identified in DOD’s Real Property Inventory Data Element  Dictionary. While we assessed all DOD RPAD lease records for fiscal  year 2011 and fiscal year 2013, the majority of errors were in the Army’s  lease records. For example, we found that for some lease records, the  lease base annual dollar amount (hereafter referred to as “annual rent,”  which is the amount DOD pays annually for the use of a real property  asset, excluding additional costs such as utilities and parking, among  other things) was greater than the lease annual cost amount (hereafter  referred to as “annual rent plus other costs,” which is the annual rent plus  any additional costs defined in the lease, such as utilities and parking,  among other things). The business rule requires that the annual rent be  less than the annual rent plus other costs. We found that 545 of the 5,965  lease records for fiscal year 2011 and 449 of the 5,538 lease records for  fiscal year 2013 had cost data that did not meet this rule. We also found  that cost data were missing from other lease records. Another DOD  business rule states that for every leased asset there must be an annual  rent and an annual rent plus other costs recorded and the amount in each  data element must be greater than or equal to zero; the business rule  does not specify that the annual rent or annual rent plus other costs may  be empty or null. We found 250 lease records for fiscal year 2011 and a  small number (9 records) for fiscal year 2013 had data missing for the  annual rent.
In addition, according to one DOD business rule, the status of the lease  must not be recorded as “active” or “hold” when a termination date for the  lease has also been recorded. However, we found that 139 lease  records of the 5,965 lease records for fiscal year 2011 and 113 lease  records of the 5,538 lease records for fiscal year 2013 showed a lease  status of “active” or “hold” even though a termination date was recorded  in the system. Therefore, the actual status of these fiscal year 2011 and  2013 leases in RPAD is uncertain. Cumulatively, the lack of accurate  lease data that meet the business rules identified for the lease status and  cost data elements for DOD’s leased assets hampers the department’s  ability to accurately report on the number of leased assets that are still  being used (i.e., active and hold leases) and the overall cost of its leases.
According to the 2013 Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance,  RPAD will accept all submitted data regardless of the outcome of  verification and validation, except in certain instances, such as  substantially incomplete records that render identification of the asset  highly improbable. The RPAD manager told us that errors or warnings  identified in the verification and validation process are submitted to the  military departments and WHS for the opportunity to review and correct  since their systems are considered to be the source of the data. However,  our analysis of the lease records in RPAD found that the errors and  warnings identified by the verification and validation process are not  always corrected by the military departments and WHS in a timely  manner. For example, we found that 341 (63 percent) of the 545 lease  records from fiscal year 2011 records that did not meet the established  business rule that requires the annual rent to be less than annual rent  plus other costs had not been corrected in the fiscal year 2013 RPAD  records.
In our discussions with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials, who  manage the Army’s rental facilities database, these officials stated that  they were aware of many of the data anomalies we found in their records  and are taking steps to improve the Army’s real property data. These  officials told us they began a data quality-management initiative in fiscal  year 2011 to improve the quality of data entries in the Army’s rental  facilities database and to capture lease records that should be accounted  for in their system. One of the primary purposes of this initiative was to  update records with missing data elements. Because Army officials are  aware of these issues and are taking steps to improve the data quality,  we are not making a recommendation on this issue at this time.
section_title: RPAD Contains Incomplete Lease Data for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2013, but the Army Is Taking Actions to Address Some Related Issues
paragraphs: Although the military departments and WHS maintain their own real  property management systems and submit data on their leased assets to  DOD, we found that the lease records in RPAD do not always include all  of the data submitted. Our analysis of fiscal years 2011 and 2013 data  submitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials who manage the  Army Rental Facilities Management Information System (hereafter  referred to as the Army’s rental facilities database) shows that some  lease records that the officials submitted to Army headquarters are not in  RPAD. We compared the Army’s lease records in RPAD to the lease  records maintained in the Army’s rental facilities database to determine  the completeness of the Army’s data in RPAD. We found records in the  Army’s database that were not in RPAD for fiscal years 2011 and 2013.  Army officials who manage the Army’s Headquarters Installation  Information System (hereafter referred to as the Army’s headquarters  reporting system)—the system that the Army uses to submit data to  RPAD—provided us documentation showing that 237 (5.1 percent) of the  4,615 lease records from fiscal year 2011 and 197 (4.9 percent) of the  4,027 lease records from fiscal year 2013 were for assets that had been  disposed of. According to the Army officials, these records for disposed  assets should have been recorded in RPAD. The officials could not  provide an explanation for why records submitted by the Army for these  fiscal years were not in RPAD. According to the RPAD managers, these  records may have been omitted because of errors in transmitting the  data. Nevertheless, because these disposal records had been omitted  from RPAD for fiscal years 2011 and 2013, DOD was not in a position to  accurately report on the number of disposed leased assets in its Federal  Real Property Profile submission.
In addition, we found Army lease records for land parcels in the Army’s  rental facilities database that were not included in RPAD. Specifically, we  found 703 (15.2 percent) of the 4,615 lease records from fiscal year 2011  and 370 (9.2 percent) of the 4,027 lease records from fiscal year 2013  were not included in RPAD. Army officials told us that they did not include  Army land parcel records in their submissions to RPAD because the  accuracy of these records had not been verified. After we discussed  these issues with Army officials, they noted that the Army has an ongoing  effort to review land parcel data and update its records so that these data  can be included in the Army’s future RPAD submissions. Because of this  ongoing effort, we are not making a recommendation on this issue at this  time.
section_title: Inconsistencies in Some Lease Data Exist between RPAD and the Military Departments’ and WHS’s Records
paragraphs: Based on the results of our statistical random sample of the fiscal year  2013 RPAD lease data, we found inconsistencies between RPAD and the  military departments’ (almost entirely the Army’s) and WHS’s lease  records for some data elements related to cost and size of lease assets.  We analyzed a statistical random sample of 132 lease records that had  been submitted by the military departments and WHS to RPAD for fiscal  year 2013. Based on a 95 percent threshold for determining whether the  RPAD data matched the data the military departments and WHS provided  to us as their RPAD submissions for fiscal year 2013, the results of our  sample showed that all but one of the data elements we reviewed had  over a 95 percent matching rate DOD wide. Therefore, we concluded  that the RPAD data were sufficiently reliable for the data elements related  to identifying information about the leases, such as instrument number,  real property asset type, or service reporting component. However, the  annual rent plus other costs data element that is required to calculate the  cost of DOD’s leases had a match rate of about 90 percent, which is  significantly lower than our 95 percent threshold. In the sample data we  reviewed, the Army, which had the largest number of RPAD lease  records, is the only DOD component showing inaccuracies for this data  element. We found that 11 (13 percent) out of 84 of the Army sample  records had data for the annual rent plus other costs data element that  were inconsistent with the source data contained in Army’s real property  systems for instances where there are multiple assets on a single lease.  Given the relatively low match rate for the annual rent plus costs data  element, we determined that we could not reliably report on the cost of  DOD leases.
In addition to our analysis of the sample RPAD records, we performed  additional steps to determine why some inaccuracies were occurring in  the data. We found that the Army is not following guidance for reporting  data when multiple assets are included in a single lease. In addition, we  found the square footage for some leased space is overstated in RPAD.  Details of these problems and the reasons they occurred are discussed in  the following sections.
subsections: section_title: The Army Is Not Following DOD’s Guidance for Reporting Multiple Assets on a Single Lease
paragraphs: Based on the results our sample, we performed a more in-depth review of  the Army’s RPAD records and found that the Army is not following DOD’s  guidance for reporting the annual rent plus other costs for multiple assets  on a single lease. The 2013 DOD Real Property Inventory (RPI)  Reporting Guidance requires that the military departments and WHS  provide a breakout of the annual rent plus other costs for each asset on  the same lease. However, we found that the managers of the Army’s  rental facilities database entered the total annual rent plus other costs for  all assets on a single lease, rather than a breakout of the individual  annual rent plus other costs for each asset, thereby overstating the  annual rent plus other costs for each asset in its fiscal year 2013  submission to RPAD. For example, in fiscal year 2013, the annual rent  plus other costs for a general administrative office space building was  $90,885 and the annual rent plus other costs for a parking garage facility,  which was included on the same lease, was $27,388. However, the  Army’s real property systems showed the total annual rent plus other  costs of $118,273 for each asset.
The 2013 Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance further  states that if lease cost per asset is not computed prior to submission,  cost must be recalculated by the RPAD managers prior to putting data  into their system. We found that the Army had 456 records (about 11  percent) (208 unique occurrences) out of a total 4,210 records that  represent multiple assets associated with a single lease. Additionally,  according to the managers of the Army’s rental facilities system, a cost  per asset is captured under a different data element in their system.  However, those costs still do not match the per asset cost computed by  DOD. Furthermore, according to the managers of the rental facilities  database, they were unaware of this requirement. They stated that they  have consistently been instructed by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  officials to enter the total cost of the lease for annual rent plus other costs  data element. The manager of the Army’s headquarters reporting system  stated that the manager’s office was unaware of these occurrences prior  to our discussions with the manager and that the DOD guidance is clear  on how these costs should be calculated. The total cost of the Army’s  leased assets will continue to be overstated in its RPAD submission until  the Army consistently begins following the DOD real property inventory  reporting guidance for multiple assets associated with a single lease.
section_title: DOD’s Guidance Results in the Square Footage for Some WHS Leased Space Being Overstated in RPAD
paragraphs: In our review of the various data elements used to record information  related to DOD leased assets, we found that DOD’s Real Property  Information Model does not include a data element that captures the  square footage associated with a given lease record. As a result, the  2013 DOD Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance does not  address how the square footage should be documented for each lease.  Rather, only the total square footage of a real property asset (which may  include more than one lease) can be reported in RPAD. The lack of a  data element capturing the square footage for each lease of space in a  single building and the absence of any related guidance results in DOD  not having visibility of the actual square footage associated with each  lease. This is problematic for cases in which there is more than one DOD  tenant in a building because the lease record for each tenant shows the  total square footage of the building, rather than the space that each  tenant actually occupies. As a result, the data from RPAD that identifies  the complete real property record for DOD leased assets (where there is  more than one lease for that asset) overstates the square footage  associated with each lease. For example, for a building that has one  tenant that occupies 27,975 square feet of space and another tenant that  occupies 2,246 square feet, RPAD shows 30,221 square feet for each  lease rather than the space that each tenant occupies. As a result, the  RPAD data would indicate that 60,442 square feet are being leased,  rather than the actual 30,221 square feet.
Based on our review of the WHS sample records that included some  leases of buildings with multiple tenants, we found that the square  footage for 4 (33 percent) of 12 sample lease records were overstated  and the correct amount could not be determined by the data included in  RPAD. Additionally, our review of the entire WHS data for fiscal year  2013 shows that WHS was managing leased space in 88 buildings within  the National Capital Region, and 18 buildings (about 20 percent) had  multiple leases and showed the total square footage of a building rather  than individual square footage associated with a specific lease.
While RPAD is the single authoritative source for all data on DOD real  property inventory, RPAD data cannot be used to determine the amount  of square footage associated with a given lease when there are multiple  tenants occupying space in the same building. Instead, this can only be  determined by the WHS officials who keep track of the square footage for  each lease separately in their leased facility records under the data  element identified as “WHS Re-bill.” Standards for Internal Control in the  Federal Government emphasize the need for federal agencies to  establish plans to help ensure that goals and objectives can be met,  including compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Still, DOD  does not have a plan in place to address the omission of the square  footage for each lease separately in their leased facility records. Until  DOD includes a data element to capture the actual square footage  occupied by each tenant and revises the related reporting guidance,  RPAD will continue to overstate the square footage for buildings with  multiple tenants.
section_title: DOD Has Not Taken Full Advantage of Available Opportunities to Reduce Its Reliance on Leased Facilities
paragraphs: DOD is currently implementing a presidential memorandum and a series  of OMB memorandums instructing federal agencies to maintain or  reduce both owned and leased space; however, DOD is not projecting  any significant reductions in its leased space. Additionally, while DOD has  vacated some costly leased space with the implementation of the 2005  BRAC recommendations, we found some instances in which DOD has  subsequently reoccupied the previously vacated space, potentially  offsetting any savings attributable to implementation of the relevant BRAC  recommendations with new lease and security costs. Furthermore, our  works shows that potential future force structure reductions exist that may  offer DOD and the military services an opportunity to further reduce  reliance on leased space.
subsections: section_title: DOD Has Taken Some Actions to Reduce Leased Space, but Projects Little Change in the Near Future
paragraphs: While DOD has taken some actions to reduce its leased space, we found  that DOD has projected minimal change in its overall lease activities.  Specifically, in its October 2013 report, Revised Real Property Cost  Savings and Innovation Plan for FY13-15 (commonly referred to in DOD  as its Freeze the Footprint report), DOD stated that most of the military  departments did not anticipate significant year-to-year changes in their  current leasing activities. According to OMB Management Procedures  Memorandum No. 2013-02, which clarified the implementation of OMB’s  Freeze the Footprint policy, federal agencies were not to increase the  total square footage for domestic office and warehouse space beyond  their fiscal year 2012 baseline numbers, which were calculated based on  fiscal year 2012 Federal Real Property Profile data, fiscal year 2012 GSA  occupancy agreements, and fiscal year 2012 agency leasing agreements  (for each agency that has independent leasing authority). In its October  2013 Freeze the Footprint reports, DOD stated that many long-standing  leases already had built-in options for renewal, and that in a climate of  stringent funding for the purchase or lease of new real property, and  limited options for relocation, renewal was often the most cost-effective  option. The following highlights some of the concluding comments from  the services included in their Freeze the Footprint reports.
Army: The Army reported that in fiscal year 2013 it was not below the  fiscal year 2012 Freeze the Footprint baseline threshold, but it  expected to be below the threshold by the end of fiscal year 2015.  The Army reported that its leased office and warehouse space (about  1.9 million square feet) represented 41 percent of the Army’s growth  in its leased footprint for fiscal year 2013 and 81percent of the  projected offsets in fiscal years 2014 and 2015 (about 5.2 million  square feet). The Army reported that it intended to achieve its goal of  reducing office and warehouse space to fiscal year 2012 levels  through a program focused on eliminating new lease growth,  significantly reducing existing leases, and minimizing new  construction of office and warehouse space.
Navy: The Navy reported that approximately 55 leases had an option  to renew during fiscal years 2013 through 2015 and that when these  leases expire, the requirement for each lease would have been  revalidated by the occupying activity, with a goal of reducing the  overall square footage where practicable. However, the Navy  projected that it would acquire leased space under GSA occupancy  agreements totaling approximately 144,000 square feet, at a cost of  about $37 million during fiscal year 2013. The Navy also reported that  these additions represented no change in the square footage for its  occupancy agreements, since the square footage associated with  these leases was within the fiscal year 2012 baseline.
Air Force: The Air Force projected a decrease of about 112,000  square feet for five leased-space offices during fiscal years 2013  through 2015, for a total annual cost reduction of $1.3 million a year.  The Air Force also reported that it expected several leases to be  terminated early due to completion of construction projects and  changes in mission requirements, but stated that the exact number of  leases was not yet known at the time its report was issued.
WHS: The WHS report stated that there were no significant changes  to WHS’s office and warehouse footprint from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal  year 2015. WHS’s footprint consisted of space occupied by DOD in  facilities in the National Capital Region that was leased by GSA or the  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was accounted for within the  footprints of these two organizations. WHS reported that it had 88  buildings in its inventory with a total of approximately 6.1 million  square feet of leased space. WHS stated that its facility-management  strategy focused on establishing a policy to monitor growth, reducing  property and facility leases, where possible, and reducing and  consolidating underutilized buildings, among other things. According  to WHS’s Freeze the Footprint report, all requests for new space were  reviewed for compliance with leased space standards and, when  possible, vacant space within the WHS footprint was used to satisfy  requests for new space. If new requests for space could not be met  within the current footprint, then WHS inquired as to the availability of  space on military installations in the National Capitol Region.
section_title: Some Reductions in DOD Leased Space in the National Capital Region Attributed to BRAC Recommendations Have Subsequently Been Offset Due to DOD Reoccupying the Same Space
paragraphs: DOD officials stated that they initially relocated DOD activities from  leased space, particularly within the National Capital Region, to  government-owned space (in some cases to newly constructed facilities)  as outlined in the 31 recommendations approved by the 2005 BRAC  Commission. However, we found that DOD subsequently reoccupied  some of the same leased space after implementing the BRAC  recommendations; thereby offsetting some of the reductions achieved  through the BRAC process. DOD’s justification to the 2005 BRAC  Commission for some of these recommendations was that leased space  is more costly than government-owned space and the existing leased  facilities did not meet antiterrorism/force protection standards. In a March  2013 report, we stated that although DOD reported to the BRAC  Commission that it would vacate about 12 million square feet of leased  space, it did not track the extent to which it had vacated this space.
During this review, we found 12 buildings managed by WHS within the  National Capital Region that have 27 tenants in a total of approximately  1.1 million square feet of leased administrative office space previously  vacated by other DOD organizations as a result of implementing the 2005  BRAC recommendations involving leased space. WHS officials cited a  variety of reasons why this space was subsequently reoccupied. For  example, according to these officials, some of the space vacated as a  result of BRAC was subsequently reoccupied because of new space  requirements for organizations such as the Office of the Special Inspector  General for Iraq Reconstruction and the Joint Improvised Explosive  Device Defeat Organization. Additionally, the WHS officials told us that  the Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Advanced Research Projects  Agency, and the Defense Health Agency needed additional space and  facilities due to changes in mission requirements and consolidation of  satellite locations. Furthermore, these officials stated that the new risk- based Interagency Security Committee standards provide a more flexible  risk-based antiterrorism force-protection standard, which allowed some of  the leased space that was previously vacated to be reoccupied and meet  the new standards. In March 2013, we reported that Army officials did not  track leases that the Army had vacated as a result of BRAC because  those leases were typically long term and could not be terminated at the  time BRAC was being implemented. Rather, the Army simply filled such  space with other service functions not included in BRAC. We also  reported that some leased space may have been vacated as a result of  ongoing DOD initiatives other than BRAC. Therefore, according to DOD,  it was difficult to measure any net reduction in leased space or to identify  what proportion of any reduction was directly due to BRAC actions.
section_title: DOD May Miss Opportunities to Reduce Its Leased Space Because It Has Not Assessed Effects of Future Force Reductions on Existing Leased Facilities
paragraphs: During the course of this review, we found that DOD has not assessed  effects of future force reductions on existing leased facilities and, as a  result, DOD may miss opportunities to reduce its leased space. In  December 2013, we reported that the Army planned to inactivate 10  Brigade Combat Teams on some of its installations, which likely would  result in available administrative office space once these force structure  reductions occur in fiscal year 2017. For this review, we conducted an  analysis of the fiscal year 2013 RPAD lease records and found six Army  leases for general administrative space that are within 50 miles of the  installations with projected force structure reductions. Five of the leases  are Army mission-support leases that are managed by the U.S. Army  Corps of Engineers, and the remaining lease, near Fort Hood, Texas, is  managed by the Army Reserve. According to the RPAD data for fiscal  year 2013, the annual rent plus other costs for these six leases of general  administrative space totaled approximately to $4.1 million for about  249,000 square feet of leased space. See table 1 for details of our  analysis on the leases that are in close proximity to the Army installations  with projected unutilized or underutilized space.
DOD Instruction 4165.70 directs the Secretaries of the military  departments to maintain a program that monitors the use of real property  to ensure that it is being used to the maximum extent possible  consistently with both peacetime and mobilization requirements. It is  important that DOD plan ahead when it anticipates force reductions, in  order to properly assess its future infrastructure requirements. However,  when we shared our analysis with Army officials, they stated that they had  not yet conducted such an assessment. According to U.S. Army Corps of  Engineers officials, it would take approximately 2 years to conduct an  assessment that would determine whether DOD-owned property, other  federally owned property, or leased property is the best resource to  accommodate the requirements of the DOD entity that needs space.  Based on the analysis we shared, Army officials stated that they planned  to take actions to review some of their leases due to the force reductions  at Army installations with Brigade Combat Teams. Each of the leases we  identified represents an opportunity for DOD to determine what effects  future force reductions will have on unutilized or underutilized facilities on  its installations that could potentially be made available to accommodate  DOD tenants currently occupying leased space off the installation.
Subsequently, in commenting on a draft of this report, DOD noted that the  Army had reviewed the individual asset records for the six Army leases  that we identified as being in close proximity to Army installations. Army  officials, though, told us that further review would be required to  determine whether relocation of the organizations in that leased space to  Army-owned installations would be possible. Also, DOD noted in its  comments that the Army had published a new execution order in March  2015 that requires commanders to plan and implement footprint  reductions, giving priority to installations expected to see force reductions,  and specifically emphasizing moving Army activities out of leased space,  where fiscally prudent. Army officials told us that the implementation of  this new execution order, once complete, should be expected to find and  review assets such as we found in our analysis.
section_title: DOD May Miss Opportunities to Reduce its Leased Space because the Availability of Unutilized or Underutilized Space on DOD Installations Is Not Systematically Shared with DOD Leasing Agents
paragraphs: Although DOD Instruction 4165.70 directs the Secretaries of the military  departments to maintain a program that monitors the use of real property  to ensure that it is being used to the maximum extent possible  consistently with both peacetime and mobilization requirements, we found  that that officials do not share information on available unutilized or  underutilized space that can potentially be used when there is a new  lease requirement or when a lease is up for renewal. While each of the  military departments told us that it has a process for requesting leased  space, we found that officials managing leased space did not always  have information on unutilized or underutilized space. We conducted an  analysis of the 5,566 lease records in RPAD for fiscal year 2013 (the  most recent year for which data were available) and found that there were  407 records for general administrative space. The total annual rent plus  other costs for these leases was approximately $326 million for about  17.6 million square feet of leased space. According the military  department officials, the process of requesting leased space takes  several steps to ensure that leased space is used efficiently, including  assessing whether DOD-owned or government-owned space is available  within a 50-mile radius of a lease location. For example, Navy officials  told us that the Navy pursues leasing space only when it has determined  that suitable government-owned space does not exist. Additionally, Air  Force and Army officials provided us with informational checklists that are  to be used when acquiring or renewing leases, including surveying the  availability of government-controlled or DOD-owned space within a 50- mile radius of the lease location. However, as we recently reported in  June 2015, officials at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, service, and  installation levels told us that actively pursuing potential tenants would be  an administrative burden on the installations, especially if there is not a  significant amount of available space on the installation. In our  discussions with Army officials, we found that the U.S. Army Corps of  Engineer officials who manage the Army’s rental facilities database had  not been contacted by the installation officials with projected unutilized or  underutilized space due to the inactivation of the Brigade Combat Teams  on their installations. Army officials started their review of these specific  leases only after we provided them the findings of our analysis.  Furthermore, in June 2015, we reported that DOD officials at the Office of  the Secretary of Defense, service, and installation levels said that they do  not conduct outreach to communicate information regarding unutilized  and underutilized space on military installations in part because the  installations primarily focus on supporting missions within DOD.
Additionally, in our discussion with DOD officials about potential  consolidation opportunities, they stated that there are many other factors  to be considered before an actual decision can be made to move an  activity from leased space onto an installation. For example, in some  cases, the installation’s infrastructure would need to be evaluated to  determine whether it could accommodate additional personnel or whether  the installation’s mission would be affected if space is provided to non- mission-related tenants. DOD officials also stated that the unutilized or  underutilized space on an installation would have to be assessed to  determine whether space is actually usable or in poor condition, rendering  it unusable. In addition, the costs to move out of existing lease space and  reconfigure unutilized or underutilized space to meet new tenants’ needs  must be determined, which in some cases could be a costly expense.
While we recognize that each of these factors are important when making  a decision to vacate leased space in lieu of DOD-owned space, our  analysis demonstrates that some opportunities to reduce reliance on  leased space may be forthcoming to the extent that force structure  reductions or other indicators of potentially available space occur in the  future. Without the installation officials routinely sharing information on  unutilized and underutilized space, DOD leasing agents will not know  whether government owned space; thereby leaving DOD is at risk of  relying on more costly leased space when government-owned space may  be available.
section_title: DOD Does Not Have Oversight of the Status of Facility Security Assessments for All of Its Leased Facilities
paragraphs: DOD does not have oversight of information about the facility security  assessments for all of its leased facilities acquired through GSA. Facility  security assessments are conducted by the Pentagon Force Protection  Agency and the Federal Protective Service, using standards set by the  Interagency Security Committee. Interagency Security Committee  standards state that facility security assessments are the process of  evaluating credible threats, identifying vulnerabilities, and assessing the  consequences of undesirable events. Interagency Security Committee  standards require that a facility security assessment be conducted at  least once every 5 years for security level I and II facilities and at least  once every 3 years for security level III, IV, and V facilities. Our analysis  of data on the scheduling and completion of facility security assessments  by the Federal Protective Service identified late assessments and  incomplete and inaccurate data. We found that the Pentagon Force  Protection Agency had completed the facility security assessments for the  leased facilities for which it is responsible between August 8, 2013 and  January 31, 2014.
subsections: section_title: DOD and the Interagency Security Committee Have Set Standards for Building Security
paragraphs: Prior to December 2012, DOD leased facilities were assessed according  to standards set in DOD’s Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) 4-010-01. On  December 7, 2012, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a  memorandum incorporating the Interagency Security Committee  standards into the Unified Facilities Criteria for all off-installation facility  space leased by DOD and for space occupied by DOD tenants in  buildings owned, operated, or leased by GSA. Current tenants as of  December 7, 2012 were instructed to apply the Interagency Security  Committee standards in accordance with existing or renewed lease  agreements to the extent practicable. In August 2013, the Interagency  Security Committee’s standards were updated in The Risk Management  Process for Federal Facilities: An Interagency Security Committee  Standard. The latest version of the Interagency Security Committee  standards provides an integrated, single source of physical security  countermeasures or actions to take, such as installing vehicle barriers, to  mitigate risks identified through a facility security assessment. According  to Federal Protective Service officials, risk acceptance is an allowable  outcome of the Interagency Security Committee’s risk management  process for federal facilities standard if it is documented and the project  documentation clearly reflects the reason why the necessary level of  protection cannot be achieved.
section_title: Some Late Assessments and Incomplete and Inaccurate Data Exist in the Federal Protective Service’s Facility Security Assessments Data
paragraphs: Our analysis of fiscal years 2011 and 2013 data from the database the  Federal Protective Service used to track scheduled and completed facility  security assessments for facilities leased by DOD through GSA identified  three issues: (1) some assessments were not scheduled within the  required time frames; (2) data on assessments completed, as required, is  unknown; and (3) dates for completed and next scheduled assessments  were not always recorded. The Federal Protective Service’s schedule for  fiscal year 2011 includes 500 leased facilities, and its fiscal year 2013  schedule includes 484 leased facilities. However, we found that DOD  does not have oversight over the Federal Protective Services’ facility  security assessment data and related results for the leased facilities  occupied by DOD tenants for the following reasons:
Some assessments were not scheduled within required time frames.
For fiscal years 2011 and 2013, we found a number of instances in  which the Federal Protective Service did not complete facility security  assessments within the required time frames required by the  Interagency Security Committee standards. The Federal Protective  Service’s schedule of assessments included some facilities for which  the facility security assessments had been scheduled beyond the 3- year or 5-year requirements. For example, there were 12 out of 500  facilities in fiscal year 2011 and the same 12 out of 484 facilities in  fiscal year 2013 that showed scheduled next assessment dates  beyond the required time frame. Federal Protective Service officials  told us that these late assessment dates are most often the result of a  backlog in completing facility security assessments and that they  planned to complete past due assessments for level III and IV  facilities by the end of fiscal year 2014 and level I and II facilities by  the end of fiscal year 2019. In June 2015, these officials revised  their timetable for completing the backlog of assessments and told us  that they are now scheduled to complete the assessments for all  facilities within the next 5 years, by 2020. Until assessments are  completed, DOD tenants could be exposed to unknown risk, because  current facility security assessments have not been conducted.
The number of facility security assessments completed as required by  the Federal Protective Service is unknown. The Federal Protective  Service’s database did not maintain complete and accurate records  for scheduled and completed facility security assessments as of the  time of our review; therefore, the exact number of assessments that  had previously been completed as required as well as whether the  completed assessments were conducted in the required time frames  was unknown. The Federal Protective Service’s facility security  database overwrote previously recorded assessment dates when new  information was entered into the database. Given the lack of historical  data, we calculated that there were 113 out of 500 facility security  assessments that should have been scheduled and completed prior to  the end of fiscal year 2011. However, the Federal Protective Service’s  data show that 3 assessments were completed in fiscal 2012, 109  assessments in fiscal year 2013, and 1 assessment in fiscal year  2014. Similarly, we found that 9 of 484 facility security assessments  should have been scheduled and completed prior to the end of fiscal  year 2013; however, 8 were completed in fiscal year 2014 and 1 in  fiscal year 2015. In follow-up discussions with Federal Protective  Service officials, they told us that their database has been recently  updated to perform ad-hoc queries that will now identify historical  facility information for which no dates have been recorded for either  the last completed assessment or the next scheduled assessment of  a facility.
Dates for completed and next-scheduled assessments were not  always recorded. We found instances in which no dates had been  recorded for either the last completed assessment or the next  scheduled assessment of a facility. Specifically, 133 of 500 facilities  for fiscal year 2011 were missing these dates. Furthermore, these  dates were still missing in fiscal year 2013 for the same 133 facilities.  This means that there could have been at least a 3-year period during  which there were no data recorded on the scheduling or completion of  assessments for these 133 facilities. Federal Protective Service  officials told us that these data were not recorded either because the  assessments had not been completed as scheduled or the information  in the schedule had not been updated by the Federal Protective  Service region responsible for completing the assessments. As a  result, we were unable to determine whether the assessments had  been scheduled or completed within the required time frames or  whether the Federal Protective Service knows the date of the next  scheduled assessment.
Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government states that  internal controls should generally be designed to assure that ongoing  monitoring occurs in the course of normal operations. DOD has taken  actions to establish policies and procedures, such as implementing the  Interagency Security Committee standards into its Unified Facilities  Criteria, to help protect and secure personnel in its off-installation leased  facilities. However, it has not provided oversight of these processes to  ensure that they are followed as intended. According to Interagency  Security Committee standards, results of facility security assessments are  briefed by the organization responsible for physical security of the facility  to the Facility Security Committee, which consists of representatives of  the DOD tenants and any other federal tenants in the facility, the security  organization, and the owning or leasing department or agency. During the  Facility Security Committee’s deliberation process for determining the  security level for its facility, the tenants’ organizations may consult with  their headquarters security representatives about the implementation of  the countermeasures recommended to mitigate identified risks or their  headquarters financial offices about the cost for implementing the  countermeasures.
According to DOD Directive 5143.01, the Under Secretary of Defense  (Intelligence) is responsible for developing physical security policy and  guidance, and overseeing the DOD physical security program, among  other things. However, an Office of the Under Secretary of Defense  (Intelligence) official stated that there is no single entity within DOD that is  responsible for ensuring that all DOD leased facilities are properly  secured, including that facility assessments are completed in the required  time frames according to the prescribed standards. Furthermore, the  Federal Protective Service is not required to report to levels of DOD  higher than the tenant on whether it has completed required facility  security assessments of DOD’s leased facilities. Moreover, DOD does not  have and has not requested access to Federal Protective Service data on  the scheduling and completion of the assessments. In response to a draft  of this report, the Department of Homeland Security noted in its  comments that officials from the Federal Protective Service stated that  their agency’s database and software has been updated to consolidate all  data into a single system for automated tracking and scheduling of  assessments and queries. According to Federal Protective Service  officials, at the time of our audit, their agency had not yet deployed its  new system—Modified Infrastructure Survey Tool version 2.0—which  includes the functionality needed to address the various issues we found.  However, because DOD offices at levels higher than the tenant do not  periodically request and obtain information from the Federal Protective  Service, DOD is not in a position to know whether security assessments  are scheduled and conducted as required. Without this oversight  information, DOD does not have assurance that its leased facilities are  secure. Additionally, better DOD oversight could prompt the Federal  Protective Service to improve the facility security assessment data that it  maintains.
section_title: The Pentagon Force Protection Agency Completed Its Facility Security Assessments within 1 Year after DOD Adopted the Interagency Security Committee Standards
paragraphs: Our review of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s schedule for  completing facility security assessment showed that the assessments for  the limited number of DOD-leased facilities in the National Capital Region  for which it has responsibility for security and law enforcement were  completed within 1 year after DOD had adopted the Interagency Security  Committee standards. Pentagon Force Protection Agency officials  stated that all of these facilities are being assessed annually based on the  Interagency Security Committee criteria for baseline facility security level  determination, at a minimum. Furthermore, according to the officials, of  the 16 DOD-leased facilities within the National Capital Region that are  managed by WHS for which they have security responsibility, the results  of the facility security assessments show that only 2 of the facilities are  compliant with the Interagency Security Committee standards without  accepting additional risk. Additionally, these officials stated that the  remaining 14 facilities meet multiple requirements identified in the  Interagency Security Committee standards, but not all of the  requirements. According to a Pentagon Force Protection Agency official,  if the remaining 14 facilities are not able to meet all requirements, the  appropriate official for the primary tenant in the facility or a selected  designee must determine whether the reported risk for these facilities is  acceptable.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: DOD Instruction 4165.70 requires the military departments and WHS to  keep accurate records of the DOD real propertyincluding leased  facilitiesunder their jurisdiction, custody, and control to help ensure  efficient management of real property assets. However, some of the lease  data in RPAD, drawn from military department and WHS records, are  incomplete and inaccurate. As a result, the RPAD data cannot be fully  relied upon to determine the total number, size, and costs of DOD’s  leased assets. Without complete and accurate data on its leases, DOD’s  oversight of its leased assets and the quality of its external reports is  weakened. Additionally, while the military departments have reported that  they have initiatives under way to reduce leased space, greater  opportunities are possible due to planned force structure reductions  leading to increasing vacancies of on-installation facilities. We found  examples of tenants leasing off-installation space nearby installations  identified for force structure reductions by fiscal year 2017. If DOD does  not require that the military departments evaluate these likely-to-be- vacated facilities in conjunction with leases being renewed—or before  entering into new leases—DOD will not have reasonable assurance that it  will be able to fully identify opportunities to vacate more costly leased  space when appropriate and to move into DOD-owned space.  Furthermore, although Pentagon Force Protection Agency officials have  stated that they have obtained facility security assessments  documentation from the Federal Protective Service for leased facilities  within the National Capital Region, DOD is not requesting information on  the status of the facility security assessments completed by the Federal  Protective Service for all DOD-leased locations. Without periodically  obtaining information on whether facility security assessments for its  leased facilities are being completed in accordance with required  standards and without access to the results of the assessments, DOD is  not in a position to ensure that its tenants in leased space are secure.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To improve DOD’s ability to oversee its inventory of leased real property,  we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following two  actions aimed at improving the accuracy and completeness of data in  RPAD:
Direct the Secretary of the Army to enforce DOD’s Real Property  Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance, which states that for multiple  assets associated with a single lease, the military departments and  WHS must provide a breakout of the annual rent plus other costs for  each asset on the same lease, to avoid overstating costs associated  with such leases.
Direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations and  Environment) to modify the office’s Real Property Information Model  to include a data element to capture the square footage for each lease  of space in a single building and also make a corresponding change  to its Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance to require  that the square footage for each individual lease be reported when  multiple leases exist for a single building, to avoid overstating the total  square footage assigned to each lease in RPAD.
To help reduce facility costs and reliance on leased space, we  recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretaries of the  military departments to require that their departments look for  opportunities to relocate DOD organizations in leased space to  installations that may have underutilized space due to force structure  reductions or other indicators of potentially available space, where such  relocation is cost-effective and does not interfere with the installation’s  ongoing military mission.
To improve DOD’s ability to ensure that its leased facilities are secure, we  recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of  Defense (Intelligence) to request reports from the Federal Protective  Service for all leased facilities on a periodic basis as determined  necessary for oversight. At a minimum, the Under Secretary should  request  the results of the assessments,  the date on which the last assessment was completed for each facility  and the date for which the next scheduled assessment is planned,  and  information on whether these dates meet the time frames established  by Interagency Security Committee standards.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to DOD, GSA, and the Department of  Homeland Security for review and comment. DOD’s written comments  are reprinted in appendix II of this report. In its comments, DOD  concurred with our first recommendation that Secretary of the Army  enforce DOD’s Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance to  break out the annual rent plus other costs for each asset on the same  lease to avoid overstating the costs associated with such leases. DOD  also concurred with our fourth recommendation that DOD improve its  ability to ensure that its leased facilities are secure and stated that it  would collaborate with the Federal Protective Service to obtain the listing  of the leased facilities the agency supports, monitor and provide oversight  of the scheduling of the assessments, and review the results of the  assessments. DOD did not concur with our remaining two  recommendations, which are discussed in detail below. DOD also  provided technical comments that have been incorporated, as  appropriate. The Department of Homeland Security provided technical  comments, which have been incorporated, as appropriate; and GSA had  no comments in response to our draft report.
In its written comments, DOD stated that we did not give the department  full consideration of its efforts regarding leased space and that our draft  leaves a misperception of the department’s commitment to efficient real  property management. DOD also stated that our report mischaracterizes  how DOD used the BRAC process to achieve space reductions and  overstates the extent to which DOD reoccupied leased space vacated  through the 2005 BRAC process. We disagree and believe that our report  neither leaves such a misconception nor presents such a  mischaracterization.
As our report states, DOD proposed to the BRAC Commission 31  recommendations that involved relocating certain DOD activities from  leased space to government-owned space and justified some of these  recommendations by stating that leased space historically has higher  overall costs than government-owned space and generally does not meet  anti-terrorism force-protection standards. Our report also states that DOD  reoccupied about 1.1 million square feet of leased space previously  vacated through BRAC 2005, which DOD’s letter confirmed. DOD stated  in its comments that prudent management includes consideration of  available leased space to accommodate changing demands and new  missions when adequate DOD-owned space is not available. We  recognize that leasing is appropriate at times. Nevertheless, in its March  2015 testimony before Congress, DOD asserted that it had about 24  percent excess capacity prior to BRAC 2005 and that the department  subsequently disposed of about 3 percent of this excess capacity through  BRAC. In its comments, DOD did not indicate the extent to which the  department reviewed remaining excess capacity, if at all, for use by the  organizations that subsequently reoccupied the 1.1 million square feet of  leased space. DOD also disagrees with our conclusion that reoccupying  space that had been vacated through BRAC in order to achieve cost  savings (i.e., vacating leased space and occupying less costly  government owned space) offsets savings attributed to these BRAC  recommendations. While DOD’s letter referenced new mission and lease  consolidation opportunities as the rationale for reoccupying vacated  space, it did not explain how incurring these new lease costs was not, in  fact, an offset to any savings attributable to BRAC from having  reoccupied space just vacated for the purpose of saving money, among  other things. This is particularly significant because DOD expend  appropriated funds through BRAC to construct or lease facilities to  accommodate the DOD organizations that vacated the leased space, only  to later expend additional appropriated funds to reoccupy some of the  same leased space previously vacated.
DOD did not concur with our second recommendation that the Assistant  Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations and Environment) modify the  office’s Real Property Information Model to include a new data element to  capture the total square footage assigned to each individual lease when  multiple leases exist for a single building and make a corresponding  change to its guidance to avoid overstating the total square footage  assigned to each lease in RPAD. In its comments, DOD stated that it  agrees that the issue we identified does exist regarding multiple leases  that are assigned the same building (leases managed by WHS in the  National Capital Region) and that the inclusion of an additional data  element may well serve as an indicator to help resolve this issue.  However, DOD believes that the underlying cause for overstating the total  square footage for these records in RPAD is a data aggregation issue  and has chosen an alternative approach to address the issue we raised.  Specifically, DOD stated that the department is in the final stages of  developing a platform that will transmit data into RPAD, and that will  include the capability to capture square footage for multiple leases in a  single building. DOD stated that its new Data Analytics and Integration  Support platform for transmitting RPAD data will serve as the near real  time data warehouse of the DOD real property inventory and will perform  the data collection, verification, and validation of the real property  inventory data submitted by each military department and WHS; and is  expected to be fully deployed by fiscal year 2017. If implemented  effectively, we believe DOD’s planned new approach for transmitting data  into RPAD should meet the intent of our recommendation, which is to  accurately capture the square footage assigned to each lease when  multiple leases exist for a single building, thereby improving the accuracy  and completeness of the data in RPAD. In the meantime, until DOD’s new  interface is fully implemented, DOD will not have reasonable assurance  that the total square footage for multiple leases in a single building is  accurate versus being overstated, as is currently the case.
DOD also did not concur with our third recommendation that the military  departments look for opportunities to relocate DOD organizations in  leased space onto installations that may have underutilized space. In its  comments, DOD stated that its existing policy requires the effective and  efficient use of DOD real property and that current initiatives undertaken  by each of the military departments and WHS reflect adherence to this  policy. DOD issued its new Real Property Efficiency Plan in October 2015  that highlights the department’s progress in this area. DOD further  stated that—given that each of the military departments and WHS have  implemented initiatives to reduce their dependence on leased space,  especially where existing DOD assets may exist—an additional directive  from the Secretary of Defense is not required. In our report, we note that  DOD guidance directs the Secretaries of the military departments to  maintain a program that monitors the use of real property to ensure that it  is being used to the maximum extent possible consistent with both  peacetime and mobilization requirements. While we understand that DOD  sees no requirement for additional action, we found during the course of  our review that DOD—existing guidance notwithstanding—had not yet  assessed the likely effects of future force reductions on its use of leased  space. Therefore, we believe this recommendation remains valid.
In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that the Army had  issued new guidance to ensure optimal allocation of the best available  facilities to support Army missions, citing a new execution order published  by the Army during the time of our review. While this order was published  in March 2015, it was not referenced by the Army or DOD until we  received the comments at the end December 2015. Upon reviewing the  order, which the Army provided, at our request, we learned that the Army  intends to execute this order in two phases: Phase One, during which the  Army will accurately document existing facility utilization and update its  real property master plan; and Phase Two, during which Army will  implement the updated plan by consolidating its footprint to the minimum  appropriate space and dispose of, or identify for disposal, unneeded  leases and facilities. According to Army officials we spoke with in January  2016, the Army extended the completion date for Phase One from the  end of June 2015 to the end of August 2015 to allow time to fully account  for some planned changes in Army size and force structure. These  officials also told us that, while they have identified some leases for  elimination, they would not have inventory data for this effort until the end  of 2016. According to the execution order, Phase Two is to be completed  by October 2021 and status reports will be submitted to Army  headquarters annually depicting the progress installations have made in  meeting facility footprint reduction timelines and goals. Although we have  not had the opportunity to review the implementation of the execution  order in detail because Army data has not been available, it does appear  to us that, if the process laid out in the execution order is effectively and  fully implemented, it may meet the intent of our recommendation.  However, until the Army effort is completed—given that the Army holds  the majority of DOD leases—we remain concerned that DOD may be at  risk of missing out on opportunities to reduce its leased space at a DOD- wide level.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional  committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Assistant Secretary of Defense  (Energy, Installations and Environment); the Under Secretary of Defense  (Intelligence); the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the  Commandant of the Marine Corps; the Director of Washington  Headquarters Services (WHS); the Administrator, General Services  Administration (GSA); the Director, Office of Management and Budget  (OMB); and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact  me at (202) 512-4523 or LeporeB@gao.gov. Contact points for our  Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on  the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this  report are listed in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To determine the extent to which the Department of Defense (DOD) has  accurate and complete data on the number, size, and costs of its leases,  we obtained and analyzed selected data elements from the Real Property  Assets Database (RPAD) for fiscal years 2011 and 2013, as well as data  from the military departments’ and Washington Headquarters Services’  (WHS) real property inventory systems. We assessed the reliability of  DOD’s real property lease data by (1) interviewing agency officials  knowledgeable about the data, (2) performing electronic testing for  obvious errors in accuracy and completeness, (3) reviewing  documentation for the various real property data systems covered in this  review and taking steps to corroborate certain records and data elements  against the source data provided by the military departments and WHS,  and (4) selecting a statistical random sample of the most current data and  analyzing it by comparing records in the sample to the data submitted by  the military departments and WHS.
We chose to analyze DOD’s leases in fiscal year 2011 because that was  the final year of a 6-year period to implement the 2005 base closure and  realignment (BRAC) recommendations for DOD activities occupying  leased space and the lease records in fiscal year 2013 because those  were the most recent data available at the time we initiated this review.  We also obtained real property data from the General Services  Administration (GSA) for the leased assets it manages on behalf of DOD  for fiscal years 2011 and 2013. However, GSA’s real property  management system does not retain historical information; as a result,  GSA researched old files and compiled the information that was available  in an attempt to satisfy our data requests. Due to a lack of historical  information for fiscal years 2011 and 2013, there were a number of  inconsistencies in the data provided. For example, lease numbers were  not available for fiscal year 2011, and the lease start and expiration dates  were not available for fiscal year 2013. The lack of available data for fiscal  years 2011 and 2013 prevented us from conducting a year-to-year  comparison of the GSA data and from producing any meaningful results  about the number, size, and cost of the leased space DOD occupies  through GSA occupancy agreements. We were able to use the data to  help us determine the process DOD uses to track its leases and to make  some comparisons of the GSA data with data contained in RPAD to  determine, among other things, what type of data are collected for  management purposes and whether duplicate records existed.
The scope of this review included records for real property that DOD  acquires from private organizations, GSA, and state organizations. While  we obtained data on transactions in which a military service or defense  agency acquired real property from another federal agency, military  service, or defense agency—or from another organization within the  same military service or defense agency—we excluded those records  because they are typically permits, licenses, or use agreements rather  than leases, with minimal costs, if any. We used standard statistical  software to link the grant, asset, site, and disposal tables included in  RPAD so that we could analyze the complete records for each DOD  leased asset to determine whether these data were sufficiently reliable to  report on the number, size, and cost of DOD leased assets. We  performed three types of analyses to determine the accuracy and  completeness of 12 specific data elements in RPAD that are used to  provide identifying information on DOD’s leased assets, as well as the  type, size, date, status, and cost of the leased assets.
First, we performed electronic testing for obvious errors in accuracy  and completeness of the 5,965 lease records for fiscal year 2011 and  the 5,538 leased records for fiscal year 2013. Specifically, we  conducted a series of tests to determine whether each data element  contained data, as required, and whether the data satisfied certain  business rules established by the managers of RPAD, such as the  annual rent amount must be equal to or less than the annual rent plus  other costs amount, and the value of these cost data elements must  be greater than or equal to zero.
Second, since the Army had the largest number of lease records in  RPAD—4,695 (approximately 79 percent) of 5,965 records in fiscal  year 2011 and 4,210 (approximately 76 percent) of the 5,538 records  in fiscal year 2013—we compared the records representing the  Army’s lease assets to the lease records maintained in the Army  Rental Facilities Management Information system to determine  whether the data for each of the data elements submitted by the Army  matched the data in RPAD for those same 2 years.
Third, based on a universe of 5,566 lease records from RPAD for  fiscal year 2013 (the most current data available when we initiated our  review), we took a random sample of 132 records and compared this  statistical random sample of records to source data to examine the  extent of data accuracy. Specifically, we compared the RPAD data for  the specific data elements identified earlier to the data the military  departments and WHS submitted from their real property databases  to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy,  Installations and Environment), Business Enterprise Integration  Directorate, to determine whether there were any discrepancies,  errors, or omissions in RPAD. The results of our analysis are  generalizable across all lease records for fiscal year 2013, with a 95  percent chance that the difference between the estimated and the true  population percentage is within 10 percentage points.
We also gathered and analyzed documentation, such as DOD directives  and instructions and military-department regulations reflecting DOD’s and  the military departments’ management of real property and how DOD  uses the data in RPAD. We also interviewed officials from the following  real property management offices and agencies: Office of the Deputy  Assistant Secretary of the Army (Installations, Housing, and  Partnerships); Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy,  Installations and Environment), Business Enterprise Integration  Directorate; WHS (Facilities Services Directorate), Space Portfolio  Management Division; Department of the Army, Chief of Staff for  Installation Management (Operations Directorate), Operations Division;  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Real Estate); Department of the Navy,  Naval Facilities Engineering Command; Department of the Air Force,  Director of Civil Engineers (Installation Operations Branch); and GSA to  obtain information about the management of their real property  management systems.
Based on the results of our analysis, we determined that data from RPAD  were neither accurate nor complete, and, as such, the data were not  sufficiently reliable for our use to determine the number of leases and the  size and cost of all of DOD’s leased assets for fiscal years 2011 and  2013.
To determine the extent to which DOD has taken actions to reduce its  reliance on leased space since 2011, we obtained and reviewed the 2005  BRAC Commission report to identify recommendations for realigning and  closing some DOD leased facilities that had to be implemented by  September 15, 2011. We also reviewed DOD’s 2013 Freeze the Footprint  report, submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to  identify DOD’s planned initiatives to reduce its domestic office and  warehouse space (including both leased and owned space). We also  interviewed DOD and Army real property officials to discuss their planned  initiatives for leased space in order to meet the Freeze the Footprint  requirements. Specifically, we obtained documentation and interviewed  officials from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy,  Installations and Environment), Business Enterprise Integration  Directorate; Department of the Army, Chief of Staff for Installation  Management (Operations Directorate), Operations Division; and U.S.  Army Corps of Engineers (Real Estate). We focused our work for this  objective on the Army because in its role as executive agent for joint  service programs and some defense agencies, as well as its own mission  needs, it occupies and manages the majority of the leases in DOD’s real  property inventory reporting system. We also gathered documentation  and interviewed officials within the WHS (Facilities Services Directorate),  Space Portfolio Management Division to obtain examples of DOD  reoccupying leased space previously vacated in the National Capital  Region as a result of the 2005 BRAC recommendations. The National  Capital Region was the primary focus of the 2005 BRAC  recommendations that involved moving DOD activities from leased space  to government-owned space. We obtained DOD reports on the number  and location of its leases and interviewed officials who maintain the  related lease data. We also reviewed our December 2013 report that  identifies DOD installations that may have available administrative office  space based on the inactivations of 10 Army Brigade Combat Teams that  are expected to begin in fiscal year 2017. We then analyzed some of the  lease data from RPAD for fiscal year 2013 to determine whether any  opportunities exist for DOD to reduce its leased space in geographic  locations that are in close proximity to the DOD installations that may  have unutilized or underutilized facilities based on these planned force  structure reductions. We chose fiscal year 2013 data because those were  the most recent data available at the time we initiated this review. We did  not use DOD’s current utilization of facilities data because in our  September 2014 report we reported that utilization data continued to be  incomplete and inaccurate although utilization data had improved since  we previously reported on them in 2011.
To determine the extent to which DOD has oversight of the status of  security assessments of leased facilities obtained through GSA, we  collected information regarding facility security assessments for DOD- leased space for fiscal years 2011 and 2013. We selected these years to  match our review of DOD lease records. We reviewed and analyzed the  Federal Protective Service tracking schedule for the facility security  assessments it performs for DOD’s leased facilities and found the  information contained numerous data issues, such as assessments  scheduled and conducted outside of required time frames and missing  assessment dates. We examined the facility assessment schedules for  500 leased facilities for fiscal year 2011 and 484 leased facilities for fiscal  year 2013. Many of these facilities had multiple leases or occupancy  agreements. The data we reviewed included 1,043 lease numbers or  occupancy agreements for fiscal year 2011 and 1,051 lease numbers or  occupancy agreements for fiscal year 2013. We held several meetings  with Federal Protective Service officials and gathered follow-up  documentation regarding inconsistencies and missing facility security  assessment data. We also reviewed prior GAO reports on this issue. We  reviewed DOD directives and instructions, as well as other related  documentation, such as the Interagency Security Committee standards,  to determine which DOD organization has oversight responsibility for  facility security assessments and physical security, as well as the scope  of this responsibility. We interviewed officials from the Office of the  Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations and Environment),  Facility Investment Management; Office of the Assistant Secretary of  Defense (Energy, Installations and Environment), Business Enterprise  Integration Directorate; Office of the Under Secretary of Defense  (Intelligence); U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Real Estate); U.S. Army  Corps of Engineers (Operational Protection Division), Directorate of  Contingency Operations; and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to  determine whether DOD receives information on the status of facility  security assessments.
In addition, we interviewed officials from WHS (Facilities Services  Directorate), Space Portfolio Management Division; Office of the Deputy  Assistant Secretary of the Army (Installations, Housing and Partnerships);  Department of the Army, Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation  Management (Operations Directorate), Operations Division; Department  of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command; Department of the  Air Force, Director of Civil Engineers (Installation Operations Branch);  Federal Protective Service; and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to  obtain general information on the status of their facilities meeting security  requirements. We examined the reliability of the facility security  assessments data obtained from the Federal Protective Service by  determining whether (1) facility security levels had been determined for  each facility and (2) facility security assessments had been completed or  planned within the required periods. Because of the incomplete and  inaccurate data, we determined that the Federal Protective Service facility  security assessment tracking data were not sufficiently reliable to  determine whether the facility security assessments had been completed  as required. Additionally, in August 2012, we reported that Federal  Protective Service’s facility security assessments data for fiscal year 2011  contained a number of missing and incorrect values that made the data  unreliable to determine the extent of their backlog of assessments that  needed to be completed. We also reviewed the Pentagon Force  Protection Agency’s tracking schedule for the facility security  assessments it performs for the DOD leased facilities for which it is  responsible to determine whether required assessments had been  completed. We found that the Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s data  were sufficiently reliable for our purposes.
We conducted this performance audit from July 2013 to March 2016 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.
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the contact named above, Harold Reich, Assistant Director  (retired); Maria Storts, Assistant Director; Ronald Bergman; Virginia  Chanley; Tammy Conquest; Linda Keefer; Joanne Landesman;  Jacqueline McColl; Dae Park; David Sausville; James Ungvarsky  (retired); and Michael Willems made key contributions to this report.
section_title: Related GAO Products
paragraphs: Underutilized Facilities: DOD and GSA Information Sharing May Enhance  Opportunities to Use Space at Military Installations. GAO-15-346.  Washington, D.C.: June 18, 2015.
High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-15-290. Washington, D.C.: February  11, 2015.
Defense Infrastructure: DOD Needs to Improve Its Efforts to Identify  Unutilized and Underutilized Facilities. GAO-14-538. Washington, D.C.:  September 8, 2014.
Federal Protective Service: Protecting Federal Facilities Remains a  Challenge. GAO-14-623T. Washington, D.C.: May 21, 2014.
Federal Facility Security: Additional Actions Needed to Help Agencies  Comply with Risk Assessment Methodology Standards. GAO-14-86.  Washington, D.C.: March 5, 2014.
Homeland Security: Federal Protective Service Continues to Face  Challenges with Contract Guards and Risk Assessments at Federal  Facilities. GAO-14-235T. Washington, D.C.: December 17, 2013.
Defense Infrastructure: Army Brigade Combat Team Inactivations  Informed by Analyses, but Actions Needed to Improve Stationing  Process. GAO-14-76. Washington, D.C.: December 11, 2013.
Homeland Security: Challenges Associated with Federal Protective  Service’s Contract Guards and Risk Assessments at Federal Facilities.  GAO-14-128T. Washington, D.C.: October 30, 2013.
Federal Real Property: Greater Transparency and Strategic Focus  Needed for High-Value GSA Leases. GAO-13-744. Washington, D.C.:  September 19, 2013.
Federal Protective Service: Challenges with Oversight of Contract Guard  Program Still Exist, and Additional Management Controls Are Needed.  GAO-13-694. Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2013.
Military Bases: Opportunities Exist to Improve Future Base Realignment  and Closure Rounds. GAO-13-149. Washington, D.C.: March 7, 2013.
Facility Security: Greater Outreach by DHS on Standards and  Management Practices Could Benefit Federal Agencies. GAO-13-222.  Washington, D.C.: January 24, 2013.
Federal Protective Service: Actions Needed to Assess Risk and Better  Manage Contract Guards at Federal Facilities. GAO-12-739. Washington,  D.C.: August 10, 2012.
Military Base Realignments and Closures: Updated Costs and Savings  Estimates from BRAC 2005. GAO-12-709R. Washington, D.C.: June 29,  2012.
Excess Facilities: DOD Needs More Complete Information and a Strategy  to Guide Its Future Disposal Efforts. GAO-11-814. Washington, D.C.:  September 19, 2011.
Federal Real Property: Overreliance on Leasing Contributed to High-Risk  Designation. GAO-11-879T. Washington, D.C.: August 4, 2011.
Federal Protective Service: Actions Needed to Resolve Delays and  Inadequate Oversight Issues with FPS’s Risk Assessment and  Management Program. GAO-11-705R. Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2011.
Federal Protective Service: Progress Made but Improved Schedule and  Cost Estimate Needed to Complete Transition. GAO-11-554. Washington,  D.C.: July 15, 2011.
Homeland Security: Protecting Federal Facilities Remains a Challenge for  the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service.  GAO-11-813T. Washington, D.C.: July 13, 2011.
Federal Facility Security: Staffing Approaches Used by Selected  Agencies. GAO-11-601. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2011.
Federal Real Property: Progress Made on Planning and Data, but  Unneeded Owned and Leased Facilities Remain. GAO-11-520T.  Washington, D.C.: April 6, 2011.
Building Security: New Federal Standards Hold Promise, But Could Be  Strengthened to Better Protect Leased Space. GAO-10-873. Washington,  D.C.: September 22, 2010.