Summary

This report discusses new leased space in Washington, D.C., that the Public Buildings Service--part of the General Services Administration (GSA)--acquired for the Secret Service's Uniformed Division. GAO reviews the circumstances that resulted in the lease being awarded without the Public Buildings Service first submitting a prospectus for the project to GSA's Senate and House authorizing committees, as provided by law and the Public Buildings Service's policies and procedures. GAO provides a chronology of events in the acquisition of the lease.

GAO noted that: (1) a lack of adequate internal controls over the leasing process at the General Services Administration's (GSA) National Capital Region (NCR) resulted in PBS' awarding a lease for SSUD on August 5, 1998, above the prospectus dollar threshold without first preparing and submitting a prospectus for the lease to GSA's Senate and House authorizing committees; (2) there was confusion about the costs that were to be considered in determining whether a prospectus was needed; (3) specific written guidance on how to calculate the cost did not exist; (4) although the space requirements increased about 40 percent--from about 50,000 square feet to about 70,000 square feet--during the acquisition process, procedures did not call for the revalidation of the decision that a prospectus was not needed when the space requirements or market rental rates used to make the decision changed during the acquisition process; (5) after a congressional staffer asked questions about the lease on August 31, 1998, NCR officials reviewed the award of the lease and determined that a prospectus should have been prepared and submitted to GSA's Senate and House authorizing committees as provided for in section 7(a) of the Public Buildings Act of 1959, as amended, 40 U.S.C. 606(a), and PBS' policy and procedures; (6) subsequently, NCR has instituted a new policy requiring its Portfolio Management Division to verify all leases before they are awarded; and (7) still, GSA has not developed specific guidance on how to calculate the cost to be used to determine whether a prospectus should be prepared, nor has GSA determined that it needs to revalidate prospectus decisions when space requirements or market rental rates change.