EPA Can Further Reduce Space in Under-Utilized Facilities

Although EPA has been releasing unneeded space since 2007, it continues to have under-utilized space. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) owns or leases facilities for EPA use. At 13 of the 16 facilities reviewed, we estimated that EPA had 433,336 square feet of under-utilized space as of February 2012. EPA is limited in what type of space it can release back to GSA before a lease expires. Space can only be released if it is marketable; configuration issues and the cost to relocate employees can pose problems. If all under-utilized space in our sample was marketable, we estimate EPA could save up to $21.6 million annually by releasing under-utilized space. Also, EPA does not have a policy for determining when it should be housing contractors on-site in its facilities. Contractors occupied an estimated 197,000 square feet in the sampled facilities. We estimated that EPA spent up to $9.9 million annually in housing contractors on-site at the sampled facilities. EPA lacks accurate, current, and complete information on the number of personnel and usable square feet (USF) in its Strategic Lease and Asset Tracking Enterprise (SLATE) system for its GSA-owned/leased offices. As of April 2012, SLATE had incorrect personnel information for 13 of the 16 facilities sampled (81 percent), and 5 of 16 facilities sampled (31 percent) had incorrect information on USF. SLATE recorded a net 548 more personnel than what EPA facility managers had provided for the sampled facilities and a net 235,918 less USF than the sampled facilities had. Additionally, the entire USF of 325,128 for the Region 5 Ralph H. Metcalfe building was not reported in SLATE. This occurred because updates to SLATE are sporadic and inconsistent. Inaccurate data in SLATE hamper EPA's ability to make informed decisions about managing its facilities.