On June 10th, the president asked agencies to sell unused property in order to save money. Step One is to admit that you have a problem:
For decades, the Federal Government, the largest property owner and energy user in the United States, has managed more real estate than necessary to effectively support its programs and missions. Both taxpayer dollars and energy resources are being wasted to maintain these excess assets. In addition, many of the properties necessary for the Government’s work are not operated efficiently, resulting in wasted funds and excessive greenhouse gas pollution. For example, over the past decade, the private sector reduced its data center footprint by capitalizing on innovative technologies to increase efficiencies. However, during that same period, the Federal Government experienced a substantial increase in the number of data centers, leading to increased energy consumption, real property expenditures, and operations and maintenance costs.
But here is the trick. If you don’t know that you own something, you can’t sell it and the federal government doesn’t know much about the land and property it owns. Reason Foundation’s Anthony Randazzo and John Palatiello have a new report on the issue. They write:
However, there is no comprehensive, accurate federal inventory of real property,which is the land and everything on it, leading to frequent misuse and underutilization of land and assets.
As it turns out, the states are also terrible at knowing what they own.
Only 16 of the states have well-functioning systems for tracking what they own. And while 17 others states are developing some type of inventory system, another 17 states (plus Washington D.C.) are sorely lacking in this area.