Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Department of State's maintenance of its overseas facilities at 14 posts.
GAO found that: (1) State's Office of Foreign Building Operations (FBO) lacked complete information on the condition of its overseas buildings and properties and on the costs to maintain, or rehabilitate them, but estimated that it could cost as much as $450 million to eliminate the backlog of maintenance and repairs; (2) reasons for the poor condition of U.S. property included the age of the buildings, neglect or deferral of maintenance, and low skill levels of maintenance workers; (3) none of the 14 posts visited managed maintenance operations systematically, conducted annual property condition surveys, or developed annual work plans linking posts' resource needs to annual budgets; (4) some posts did not meet priority maintenance needs relating to facility safety; (5) FBO exercised insufficient oversight of overseas maintenance activities; (6) the posts did not use the FBO Real Estate Information Management System effectively; and (7) lack of accountability and an absence of internal controls resulted in unauthorized or improper uses of maintenance funds at some posts. GAO also found that FBO took such steps to improve overseas real property management as: (1) initiating efforts to identify maintenance and repair requirements; (2) establishing two regional centers to provide additional maintenance assistance to posts; and (3) initiating an overall maintenance system and hiring facility managers for all newly constructed office buildings.
