USD/BTC = $70,638
Block 941,426
TL:DR

An independent panel has determined that the United States' federal real estate portfolio has accumulated about $50 billion of deferred maintenance and repair liabilities.

In a new report, the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB), which was established to identify ways the federal government can reduce or consolidate its real estate holdings as well as save on costs, said the General Services Administration (GSA) receives federal funding totaling only 0.375% of its portfolio's functional replacement value (FRV) , about $620 million annually. This is significantly less than the industry standard of between 2% and 4%.

This has resulted in a portfolio "with deferred maintenance backlogs that increase building lifecycle costs, accelerate asset deterioration and degrade facility performance," officials said.

"Congress is never going to be able to appropriate its way out of this problem," says PBRB Acting Chairman Talmage Hocker. "The only way to handle this is through a radical reduction in the GSA's portfolio size.

"This mounting backlog of deferred maintenance and repair costs is crippling federal agencies' ability to deliver on their missions and endangering the health, safety and welfare of the federal workforce," Hocker said.

In fact, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, officials said, has recently asked Congress for the authority to manage maintenance and repair of federal courthouses itself, citing an "in crisis" situation in which judges have been trapped in elevators for extended periods of time and courtrooms ceilings have collapsed.

To get to a 2% FRV industry benchmark, officials said, the size of the federal real estate portfolio must be reduced by 80%; however the main obstacle to achieving this is "the lack of funding necessary to vacate and dispose of these underutilized, high-cost assets."

In the hopes of rectifying the situation, the board has eight recommendations:

• Incentivize action by establishing a clear and speedy process that delivers property sale proceeds for use in upcoming sales,
  Maximize private capital through leases and other public-private partnerships in an effort to consolidate office holdings, lower total costs and create flexibility;
• Reform the underfunded Federal Buildings Fund (FBF) and "aggressively pursue" a rent pricing policy that ensures agencies are paying adequate rent;
• End the strategy of having certain buildings financially support the rest of the portfolio;
• Adjust federal rules to allow for decision-making that better reflects current economic conditions and supports more cost-effective choices;
• Increased flexibility when it comes to authorizing funds for building shell improvements in exchange for rent credits, increasing access to capital and streamlining project delivery;
• Requiring the collection of the data necessary to make the best portfolio-wide decisions about which assets to retain, consolidate or divest; and
• Expansion of the PBRB's role in working with federal real estate agencies and Congress.

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War department asks for $200B to drop bombs on Iran through a this peace through strength BS yet struggle to manage its real estate assets. Not enough funding to maintain them or to leave and get rid of them. What an absolute joke. The 700k BTC is just the tip of the iceberg.