Since the early 1990s, GSA and the federal judiciary have been carrying out a multibillion-dollar courthouse construction initiative to address the judiciary’s growing needs. In 1993, the judiciary identified 160 court facilities that required either the construction of a new building or a major annex to an existing building. From fiscal year 1993 through fiscal year 2005, Congress appropriated approximately $4.5 billion for 78 courthouse construction projects. Since fiscal year 1996, the judiciary has used a 5­ year plan to prioritize new courthouse construction projects, taking into account a court’s need for space, security concerns, growth in judicial appointments, and any existing operational inefficiencies. The judiciary’s most recent 5-year plan (covering fiscal years 2005 through 2009) identifies 57 needed projects that are expected to cost $3.8 billion. GSA and the judiciary are responsible for managing the multibillion-dollar federal courthouse construction program, which is designed to address the judiciary’s long-term facility needs. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC), the judiciary’s administrative agency, works with the nation’s 94 judicial districts to identify and prioritize needs for new and expanded courthouses. The U.S. Courts Design Guide (Design Guide) specifies the judiciary’s criteria for designing new court facilities and sets the space and design standards that GSA uses for courthouse construction. First published in 1991, the Design Guide has been revised several times to address budgetary considerations, technological advancements, and other issues, and the guide is currently undergoing another revision. GSA provides a range of real property services including maintenance, repairs, alterations, and leasing to numerous federal agencies and the federal judiciary. The Public Buildings Amendments of 1972 made several important revisions to the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act. First, the 1972 law created a new revolving fund, later named FBF. Next, it required agencies that occupy GSA-controlled buildings to pay rent to GSA, which is to be deposited in the revolving fund to be used for GSA real property services. GSA charges rent based on appraisals for facilities it owns and the actual lease amount for facilities it leases on the tenants’ behalf. The legislation also authorized any executive agency other than GSA that provides space and services to charge for the space and services. The rent requirement is intended to reduce costs and encourage more efficient space utilization by making agencies accountable for the space they use. GSA proposes spending from FBF for courthouses as part of the President’s annual budget request to Congress. GSA has been using the judiciary’s 5-year plan for new courthouse projects since fiscal year 1996 to develop requests for both new courthouses and expanded court facilities. GSA also prepares feasibility studies to assess various courthouse construction alternatives and serves as the central point of contact with the judiciary and other stakeholders throughout the construction process. For courthouses that are to be selected for construction, GSA prepares detailed project descriptions called prospectuses that include the justification, location, size, and estimated cost of the new or annexed facility. GSA typically submits two prospectuses to Congress. The first prospectus generally requests authorization and funding to purchase the site and design the building, and the second prospectus generally requests authorization and funding for construction, as well as any additional funding needed for site and design work. Once Congress authorizes and appropriates funds for a project, GSA refines the project budget and selects private-sector firms for the design and construction work. Figure 1 illustrates the process for planning, approving, and constructing a courthouse project. Courthouse projects continue to be costly, and increasing rents and budgetary constraints have given the judiciary further incentive to control its costs. The judiciary pays rent to GSA for the use of the courthouses, which GSA owns, and the proportion of the judiciary’s budget that goes to rent has increased as the judiciary’s space requirements have grown. According to the judiciary, rent currently accounts for just over 20 percent of its operating budget and is expected to increase to over 25 percent of its operating budget in fiscal year 2009, when the rental costs of new court buildings are included. Additionally, in fiscal year 2004, the judiciary faced a budgetary shortfall and, according to the judiciary, reduced its staff by 6 percent. In September 2004, the judiciary announced a 2-year moratorium on new courthouse construction projects as part of an effort to address its increasing operating costs and budgetary constraints. During this moratorium, AOUSC officials said that they plan to reevaluate the courthouse construction program, including reassessing the size and scope of projects in the current 5-year plan, reviewing the Design Guide’s standards, and reviewing the criteria and methodology used to prioritize projects. Judiciary officials also said that they plan to reevaluate their space standards in light of technological advancements and opportunities to share space and administrative services. Our work in the 1990s showed that decision makers within GSA and the judiciary had wide latitude in making choices that significantly affected costs. The judiciary’s 5-year plan did not reflect all of the judiciary’s most urgently needed projects. However, the judiciary has since made some of our recommended changes. We also found that the judiciary did not compile data that would allow it to determine how many and what types of courtrooms it needs. The judiciary concluded that additional data and analysis were not necessary. In 1995, we testified that a primary reason for differences in the construction costs of courthouses was that GSA and the judiciary had wide latitude in making choices about the location, design, construction, and finishes of courthouse projects. These choices were made under circumstances in which budgets or designs were often committed to before requirements were established. In addition, design guidance was flexible, and systematic oversight was limited. As a result, some courthouses had more expensive features than others. While recognizing that some flexibility was needed and that some costly features may be justifiable, we found that the flexibility in the process should have been better managed. We recommended that GSA and AOUSC clearly define the scope of construction projects and refine construction cost estimates before requesting project approval and final funding levels; establish and implement a systematic and ongoing project oversight and evaluation process to compare courthouse projects, identify opportunities for reducing costs, and apply lessons learned to future projects; and establish a mechanism to monitor and assess the use of flexibility within design guidance to better balance choices made about courthouse design, features, and finishes. GSA and the judiciary said that since 1996, they have also taken several actions to improve the courthouse construction program, including developing priority lists of locations needing additional space (the 5-year plan), revising the Design Guide, and placing greater emphasis on cost consciousness in its courthouse construction guidance for GSA. In a 2004 congressional briefing, we reported that GSA had attributed some cost growth in courthouse construction projects to a number of factors, including changes in the scope of the projects. In Buffalo, New York, for example, GSA had to change the scope of the courthouse project and acquire an entirely new site in order to achieve the necessary security­ based setbacks from the street. The judiciary said that funding delays have slowed the progress of the program by creating a backlog of projects, and increased costs by 3 to 4 percent per year because of inflation. The judiciary also indicated that limiting the size of courthouses to stay within budget has resulted in space shortages sooner than expected at some courthouses. In a 2004 report related specifically to a new federal courthouse proposed for Los Angeles, we found that the government will likely incur additional construction and operational costs beyond the $400 million estimated as needed for the new courthouse. Some of these additional costs are attributable to operational inefficiencies. Specifically, the court is split between a new building and an existing courthouse in Los Angeles, both of which will, according to the judiciary, require additional courtrooms to meet the district court’s projected space requirements in 2031. In 1993, we reviewed the long-term planning process used by the judiciary to estimate its space requirements. We found that AOUSC’s process for projecting long-term space requirements did not produce results that were sufficiently reliable to form the basis for congressional authorization and funding approval of new construction and renovation projects for court space. Specifically, three key problems impaired the accuracy and reliability of the judiciary’s projections. First, AOUSC did not treat all districts consistently. For example, the procedure used to convert caseload estimates to staffing requirements did not reflect differences among districts that affect space requirements. Second, according to AOUSC’s assumptions about the relationship between caseloads and staff needs, many district baseline estimates did not reflect the districts’ current space requirements. For example, when a district occupied more space than the caseload warranted, future estimates of needs were overstated. Third, AOUSC’s process did not provide reliable estimates of future space requirements because the methodology used to project caseloads did not use standard acceptable statistical methods. We recommended that AOUSC revise the long-term planning process to increase consistency across regions, establish accurate caseload baselines for each district, and increase the reliability of the projected caseloads by applying an accepted statistical methodology and reducing subjectivity in the process. In May 1994, we testified that the judiciary had implemented some of these recommendations. For example, on the basis of our recommendation, whenever a decision was made to proceed on a particular building project, AOUSC provided GSA with detailed 10-year space requirements for prospectus development and an overall summary of its projected 30-year space requirements for purposes of site planning. In 2001, we reported that since 1994, AOUSC had continued its efforts to improve its long-term planning process in implementing our previous recommendations.