Real Property: GSA Is Taking Steps to Improve Collection and Reporting of Repair and Alteration Projects' Information

Each year, GSA spends hundreds of millions of dollars on R&A projects to address the repair, renovation, or modernization needs of the more than 1,600 federally owned buildings under the agency's custody and control—the average building's age is 47 years old. In fiscal year 2018, Congress appropriated $666 million in obligational authority from the Federal Buildings Fund for GSA's R&A program. Collecting information is fundamental to monitoring progress and assessing projects' performance.

GAO was asked to review issues about GSA's collection of information needed to manage its R&A projects. This report examines how GSA (1) collects information on individual R&A projects and (2) assesses the performance of R&A projects.

GAO reviewed documentation on the systems that GSA uses to support its management of the R&A program, as well as internal GSA reports on regional offices' use of the system that tracks projects' status. GAO also interviewed officials from GSA's central office and four regional offices to understand the types of information collected on R&A projects and how the information is input in GSA's systems. To identify the regional officials to be interviewed, GAO selected a non-generalizable sample of four capital R&A projects and eight small R&A projects, active between October 2013 and August 2017, based on a preliminary analysis of GSA data.

The General Services Administration (GSA) requires its regional offices to collect information on their repair and alteration (R&A) projects electronically and is working to improve the completeness and timeliness of this collection. Since 2011, GSA has required its regional offices to input and update information on both capital projects (those costing more than $3.095 million as of fiscal year 2018) and small projects (those costing less than $3.095 million). Officials from the four regions GAO interviewed said they find this system to be useful for forecasting how a capital project will progress. Regarding small projects' information, GSA has taken steps to improve regional offices' collection by, for example, conducting monthly checks to ensure that all small projects have been created in the system, assessing the number of projects that have missing information, and introducing a simplified way that GSA's regions can enter information in the system. GSA officials reported that, moving forward, they are continuing to emphasize the importance of collecting complete and timely information, which is needed to assess the performance of all R&A projects.

GSA uses schedule- and budget-focused measures to assess the individual, the regional, and the national performance of capital and small R&A projects and is working to create a consistent understanding of performance. GSA's measures rely on information input by regional officials. For example, during the construction phase, GSA uses two “project delivery” measures, which compare a project's estimated schedule and budget with actual outcomes. GSA produces regional and national reports detailing projects' performance relative to these measures. However, not all regional officials GAO spoke with view these reports as useful because they are not specific to the officials' information needs. As a result, some regions have created their own reports, contributing to an inconsistent understanding of R&A projects' performance across the agency. GSA has conducted outreach to its regions and has begun to introduce new “dashboard” reports that present a consolidated view of R&A projects' information. Moving forward, GSA's ability to assess R&A projects' performance will continue to rely on regional officials' complete and timely input of information for both capital and small projects.

The General Services Administration (GSA) spends hundreds of millions  of dollars each year on repairs and alterations to the approximately 1,600  federally owned buildings under its custody and control. Repairs and  alterations not only are important to keep buildings operating efficiently  but also are increasingly important as buildings age and require  renovation or modernization. In fiscal year 2017, GSA reported that the  average age of its buildings was 47 years old and that the backlog of  deferred maintenance for these buildings exceeded $1.4 billion. We have  previously reported that deferring maintenance and repair can reduce the  overall life of federal facilities, lead to higher costs in the long term, and  pose risks to safety and agencies’ missions.

As the needs of the aging federal inventory exceed available resources, it  is important that the repair and alteration (R&A) projects that GSA funds  to address these needs are completed efficiently and cost-effectively.  Collecting information on these R&A projects is fundamental to monitoring  their progress and assessing their performance; our prior work has shown  the extent of information collected on these projects can be limited. You  asked us to review issues related to GSA’s collection of information  needed to manage its R&A projects. This report discusses how GSA (1)  collects information on R&A projects and (2) assesses the performance of  R&A projects.

To determine how GSA collects information on individual R&A projects,  we reviewed documentation on the project information systems that GSA  uses to manage its capital projects—those with total construction costs  that exceeded $3.095 million—and small projects—those with total  construction costs exceeding $25,000 and less than or equal to $3.095  million. We also interviewed officials from GSA’s central office about the  project information systems and regional officials’ use of these systems.  In addition, we reviewed GSA project reports from 2015 to 2017 from the  system used to track small projects’ status to assess the extent to which  GSA’s 11 regional offices may have varied in inputting complete and  timely R&A project information. We reviewed the information in these  reports to identify potential trends in regions’ complete and timely entry of  R&A project information and interviewed GSA officials about the sources  of information used to generate the reports and steps they take to ensure  its accuracy.

We also obtained data from GSA for all active R&A projects from October  2013 to August 2017. These years represent the period after GSA  officials said they began tracking small projects in the system used to  track status information and the most recent year for which data were  available. We analyzed the data for completeness and interviewed GSA  officials about how the data were generated and found them to be  sufficiently reliable for the purposes of selecting projects to further our  understanding of how GSA collects information on its R&A projects.  Specifically, we used this data to select 12 R&A projects, including four  capital projects and eight small projects, to understand the types of  information collected on these projects. We also discussed the selected  projects with officials from the four regions—including project team  members who worked on these projects—to understand the specific  project detail, budget, and schedule information being tracked and how  the information was input in the project information systems. Furthermore,  we visited two of the four selected regions based on their proximity to our  field office locations.

To select these 12 projects, we first identified those regions that had  capital projects categorized as “substantially completed” during this time  period as few capital projects are completed in a given year; seven  regions were identified using this criterion. We then narrowed our  selection to four regions that had varying degrees of performance based  on our initial review of GSA reports containing regional schedule and  budget targets. Specifically, to ensure that we were not selecting four  comparable regions, we selected two regions that GSA reported had  surpassed schedule and budget performance targets and two regions that  had not. Each of these four regions had one substantially completed  capital R&A project in the time frame, and we selected two small R&A  projects from each region—those with the highest and lowest estimated  costs when their respective construction contracts were awarded. The  information obtained from the review of 12 selected projects and  interviews of regional officials is not generalizable to all R&A projects and  regions, but provides insight into how information is input by regional  officials, how it is used by GSA’s central office and selected regional  officials, and any issues affecting its completeness or timeliness.

To determine how GSA assesses the performance of R&A projects, we  reviewed internal guidance and guidelines on the agency’s project-level  performance measures, performance goals, and performance reporting  related to R&A projects. In addition, we reviewed performance reports  produced by GSA from its project information systems to understand  regional R&A projects’ performance relative to GSA’s performance  measures. We also reviewed documentation on GSA plans to develop  new performance reporting on capital and small projects, including R&A  projects, and outreach plans to understand regional officials’ reporting  needs. Finally, we interviewed officials from GSA’s central office—as well  as officials from four selected regions, described above—to discuss the  use and usefulness of these project performance reports.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2017 through July 2018,  in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.  Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain  sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that  the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and  conclusions based on our audit objectives.

GSA spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on needed repairs  to the more than 1,600 federally owned buildings under its custody and  control, which are occupied by a wide variety of federal tenant agencies.  The agency’s R&A program provides repairs and alterations for buildings  to ensure that they will protect both the government’s investment and the  health and safety of buildings’ occupants, support the transfer of federal  agencies from leased space, and be cost-effective.

GSA prioritizes capital and small R&A projects for selection differently.  GSA gives priority to repairs to prevent deterioration and damage to  buildings, their support systems, and operating equipment. GSA’s central  office uses criteria based on agency-wide strategic goals to rank and  prioritize projects for funding. According to GSA’s Fiscal Year 2019  Congressional Justification, the agency prioritizes R&A capital projects  relative to a set of six criteria, each of which consider factors such as  space consolidation, customer priorities, project urgency, facility  conditions, historic status, and code compliance. For small R&A projects, GSA’s central office reviews those with estimated costs exceeding  $250,000 and develops an “approved” list of projects for its regions using  criteria similar to those used to prioritize capital projects. GSA’s small  R&A projects primarily focus on building repairs and equipment and other  replacement issues.

The Federal Buildings Fund (FBF), established by the Public Buildings  Act Amendments of 1972 and administered by GSA, is the primary  source of funds for all operating and capital costs associated with federal  space—including repairs and alterations. GSA collects rent from tenant  agencies, deposits it into FBF, and is appropriated obligational authority  by Congress to fund real property acquisition, repairs and alterations,  operation, maintenance, and disposal. As shown in figure 1, the amount  of funding appropriated in obligational authority for R&A projects has  steadily decreased since fiscal year 2014—and has been below the  amount GSA requested each fiscal year. According to GSA officials, this  decline in funding has contributed to the agency’s backlog of deferred  maintenance. In fiscal year 2018, GSA requested more than $1.4 billion  for R&A activities; $666 million in obligational authority was appropriated  from the FBF to perform major and minor repairs and alterations. GSA  has requested $909.7 million for R&A activities for fiscal year 2019.

GSA’s Public Buildings Service manages R&A projects through its central  office in Washington, D.C., and 11 regional offices. GSA’s central office  establishes programming, design, and construction standards and  guidance, and provides technical backup, as needed. GSA officials in  both the central and regional offices are involved in assessing the needs  of federal facilities and guiding R&A project development and execution.  Once a project is authorized and funded, GSA’s regional offices oversee  the design and construction phases of the project, from the procurement  of design through the management of construction until project closeout.

Further details of GSA’s R&A project design and construction delivery  process are shown in figure 2.

GSA Collects Information on R&A Projects Electronically and Is Taking Steps to Improve the Collection of Small Project Information

Regional GSA Offices Collect Information on Capital and Small R&A Projects Electronically

In order to track projects, GSA has developed numerous systems that  regional officials are required to use to collect information electronically  on R&A projects. Each of these systems is used to collect different types  of information, such as information on potential projects or funding details.  These systems are used throughout the phases of GSA’s project design  and construction delivery process, starting at the point that a potential  project is first identified, and each system serves various management  purposes, as noted in table 1.

While GSA uses all of these systems to collect information on R&A  projects, ePM/ePMXpress is the system used to track a project’s progress  because it supports and facilitates the tracking of project status and  related performance reporting. GSA regional officials initially create  records of capital projects in ePM early in the planning process—about 2  years before funding is requested from Congress—and for small projects  in ePMXpress soon after they are authorized for initial funding. Once a  project is entered into ePM/ePMXpress, GSA project team members  (which include the project manager, other regional GSA staff, and may  include external contractors) populate and update key types of project  information at specific points in the project’s design and construction  delivery process.

GSA’s central office first introduced ePM as a pilot project in 2009 and, to  establish consistency in the information collected, issued minimum  requirement guidelines for the project information to be input in the  system in 2011. These guidelines require project team members to  enter specific information on both capital and small projects into ePM.  GSA introduced ePMXpress in late 2012, and it provides regional officials  with a simplified interface to input and track small project information. This  simplification is reflected in the types and amounts of information GSA  requires project teams to collect in ePM compared to ePMXpress:

For capital projects in ePM, there are 42 modules such as project  details, funding, contracts, and schedule data.

For small projects in ePMXpress, there are 7 modules—program  information, project details, project team details, schedule, funding,  project manager financials, and file manager information.

Within these modules, project team members are required to input  specific baseline and actual milestone dates in ePM/ePMXpress for  both small and capital projects, including when a project’s design is  complete, when construction is authorized to begin, and when  construction is substantially complete. Capital projects require 57  milestones, compared with up to 16 milestones for small projects.

See appendix II for additional information on the specific types of  information that regional GSA officials are required to collect on their  capital and small R&A projects.

GSA guidelines also encourage project team members to collect and  record additional R&A project information in ePM/ePMXpress—beyond  what is required for capital and small projects—as a best practice.  Officials from GSA’s central office said storing additional information in  this system encourages collaboration across both project teams and  regions, promotes a project management culture that results in more  efficiency, and allows GSA to more efficiently prepare reports for its  customers. Officials from three of the four regional offices we contacted  provided examples of project team members in their region inputting more  information on their R&A projects than required by GSA’s central office.

For example, officials in one region said they have required their project  team members to collect additional information on their projects that allow  the region to monitor staff workload, forecast the number of future small  projects that may be needed, and ensure that officials have sufficient  resources available to oversee their region’s projects.

GSA Is Continuing Efforts to Improve Its Collection of Small R&A Project Information

According to GSA officials, they have seen improvements in the collection  of capital R&A project information since first requiring regional offices to  use ePM. Officials from GSA’s central office said that since ePM was first  introduced in 2009, they have worked with regional officials to adjust the  types of information that project team members must input to improve the  completeness, timeliness, and usefulness of project information collected.  As a result, GSA officials reported that project team members are now (1)  consistently creating capital R&A projects in ePM and (2) regularly  updating information on these projects in a complete and timely manner,  throughout the agency’s project design and construction delivery process.  Officials from GSA’s central office said they verify that the projects have  been entered into ePM when regional officials request them for inclusion  in GSA’s budget, a process that occurs during a project’s early planning  stages. These officials added that once a capital project is funded,  project team members are required to actively manage its details in ePM,  providing regular updates through various reporting tools. Furthermore,  they stated that, as few new capital projects are funded each year, each  capital project is highly visible and subject to a degree of scrutiny that  leads to the identification and correction of any errors in ePM. In  addition, according to GSA officials, missing project information would be  captured in regional performance reports. For these reasons, GSA  officials said they do not develop reports on the creation of capital  projects in ePM or the timeliness of updates made to these projects.

Project team members we interviewed said that having information on  capital R&A projects in ePM is useful in a number of ways. For example,  project team members from all four regions we interviewed said they find  the “earned value” tool in ePM to be useful for project management. This  tool uses schedule and budget information to forecast how a capital  project is expected to progress and analyzes progress as new information  is added. In addition, officials from two regions stated that ePM is a good  tool for storing project documents for internal agency use, and officials  from one of the regions said ePM offers a useful means to securely  transmit capital project documents to both internal and external  stakeholders.

GSA also reported improvements in the completeness and timeliness of  updates to small projects’ information in ePMXpress in recent years. GSA  conducts monthly checks to assess the number of small projects in  ePMXpress with information that is either missing or out of date and  issues reports to its regions summarizing the results of these checks. In  May 2015, GSA issued an internal memorandum that reiterated its  existing requirement that all small R&A projects be created in ePMXpress  and updated in a complete and timely manner. In October 2016, GSA’s  reports showed that, of all small R&A projects in ePMXpress, on average,  5 percent had schedule data errors and 7 percent had budget data  errors. These rates varied across GSA’s regional offices, from 0 to 11  percent for schedule errors and 1 to 16 percent for budget errors. To  reduce the rate of budget data errors, in 2017 GSA began using some  contract award information available in EASi or FMIS to assess small  projects’ performance, instead of relying on information input in  ePMXpress. GSA’s central office officials said that they found the  information in these systems to be more up to date. After GSA  implemented this action, its September 2017 report showed that less than  one percent of small R&A projects had errors in their schedule or budget  data. Specifically, nine of GSA’s 11 regions had no small R&A projects  with schedule errors, and 10 regions had no budget errors.

GSA has reported that the rate at which project team members initially  create all of their small R&A projects in ePMXpress has also improved in  recent years. Each month, officials from GSA’s central office take steps to  verify that funded projects have been created in ePMXpress by manually  reconciling information between ePMXpress and IRIS. GSA’s stated  goal is to have 100 percent of small projects created in ePMXpress, and  its guidelines require project team members to create all small projects in  ePMXpress within 30 days of being approved for funding. We found that  recent GSA reports on this reconciliation showed that the overall  percentage of small projects having been created in the system has  improved. At the beginning of fiscal years 2016, 2017, and 2018,  nationwide compliance trended from 81 percent to 95 percent to 92  percent, respectively. In addition, the lowest percentage of small projects  created in ePMXpress in any one individual region at the start of fiscal  year 2016—61 percent—had improved to 88 percent by the outset of  fiscal year 2017 and was 85 percent at the beginning of fiscal year 2018.  At that time, the percentage of small projects created in ePMXpress  ranged, by region, between 85 and 100 percent. GSA officials said they  expect to find some small projects to be missing in ePMXpress because,  in some cases, not enough time will have elapsed between the date of  funding and the date of the reconciliation. GSA officials explained that  they are continuing to take steps to emphasize the importance of having  complete and timely information on all small R&A projects in ePMXpress  to its regional offices. For example, to support the expectation that all  small projects are created in ePMXpress, one official from GSA’s central  office said monthly meetings are held with regional officials to discuss  expectations for the completeness and quality of the project information.

Regional officials, including project team members, told us that  ePMXpress is not useful to their work on small R&A projects, a situation  that has limited the extent to which the officials use this tool, an outcome  that can affect the completeness and timeliness of small project  information. Specifically, officials from one region said that they view  ePMXpress solely as a tracking tool for GSA’s central office, not as a  project management tool. In addition, some regional officials said they do  not find ePMXpress to be effective as a project management tool  because ePMXpress does not allow them to collect information on useful  project details, such as why schedules or cost estimates change during a  project or why certain events happened. Project team members from  three regions said that they continue to maintain offline “cuff records”— which allow them to customize their notes on why things happened during  a project—because they are easier to access and update. Similarly,  officials from all four regions we interviewed noted that the process of  manually creating and updating all of their small projects in ePMXpress— of which there are hundreds each year—is time consuming. Furthermore,  small R&A projects can often be started and completed in a short period  of time, and can be completed before a project team is required to create  a record in ePMXpress (within 30 days of a project’s approval). For this  reason, officials from one region said that it is not useful to use  ePMXpress for these projects. Officials in another region also reported  that one of the functions that makes ePM useful for managing capital  projects—that it can securely transmit documents outside of GSA—is not  useful for small projects because they do not require as much interaction  with external parties.

GSA has begun considering replacement systems for ePM/ePMXpress  that GSA officials suggested could include the automated creation of  projects upon project approval. As of March 2018, GSA had developed a  statement of work to begin pursuing a replacement for ePM/ePMXpress.  According to officials from the Office of GSA’s Chief Information Officer,  the overall goals of a replacement include ensuring that it is easier for  project team members to use than the current system. However, the  capabilities of any such system are not currently known, nor are the ways  in which a different system would affect the challenges reported by  regional officials.

In the meantime, GSA is continuing to emphasize the importance of using  ePMXpress to create and capture information for all small R&A projects to  its regional offices, as the agency is using the information to support both  ongoing and new efforts. For example, creating and updating project  information in a timely manner improves GSA’s ability to assess R&A  projects’ performance at the individual, regional, and national levels, as  discussed later in this report. In fiscal year 2018, GSA plans to use  project information input in ePM/ePMXpress to support its efforts to  improve communication with tenant agencies, and GSA guidelines state it  will be important that project team members use ePMXpress throughout  all project phases for their small projects and ensure that the required  information is up to date. In addition, the overall amount of information  that project team members are required to input will increase moving  forward because GSA is now requiring staff to create additional small  projects in ePMXpress in a shorter period of time. In March 2018, GSA  both reduced the time that project teams have to create small projects in  ePM/ePMXpress from 30 to 15 days and also began requiring that  additional, non-R&A small projects be created in the system. GSA has  estimated this will result in approximately 1,100 additional projects being  created in ePMXpress each year.

GSA Uses Schedule and Budget Measures to Assess the Performance of R&A Projects and Is Taking Steps to Improve Reporting

GSA Uses Schedule- and Budget-Related Performance Measures to Assess R&A Projects

GSA’s central office assesses the performance of capital and small R&A  projects across its regional offices by focusing primarily on schedule and  budget-related measures. According to internal GSA guidelines on  performance measures, measuring projects’ schedule and budget  performance allows GSA to continuously improve the project delivery and  accountability of its work in order to demonstrate good stewardship of its  stakeholders’ limited funding.

GSA assesses the performance of R&A projects using a few key  measures. First, GSA uses a “timely award” measure. According to  internal GSA guidelines on performance measures, the “timely award”  measure reflects the effectiveness of early planning by assessing the  timeliness of the obligation of funds for construction contracts following a  project’s initial authorization. This measure is based on schedule  information that project team members input in ePM/ePMXpress and, as  mentioned earlier, budget information from the FMIS and EASi systems to  compare planned obligations, projected contract award amounts, and  planned contract award dates to actual results. Specifically, GSA officials  stated that a project’s performance relative to the timely award measure  is determined based on the percentage of awards that are made within  set timeframes. This measure varies slightly between capital and small  projects; for example, a capital project is viewed as successful if 90  percent of its planned obligation dollars are awarded within 30 days of its  planned “baseline” award dates set at a project’s outset, and partially  successful if this awarding occurs within 45 days. Conversely, a small  project is deemed successful if 85 percent of its planned obligation dollars  are awarded within 30 days of its baseline award dates or within 10  percent of its estimated construction costs. If 80 percent of these funds  are awarded within 45 days or 20 percent of estimated construction costs,  a small project is considered partially successful with respect to this  measure.

GSA also has two “project delivery” measures. Once construction begins,  GSA uses information from ePM/ePMXpress, EASi, and FMIS to assess  whether projects are delivered “on-schedule” and “on-budget” by  comparing the alignment of a project’s (1) estimated baseline schedule  and budget to its (2) actual schedule and budget. As shown in figure 3,  GSA’s project-delivery measures focus on the time between the start of  construction and substantial completion, which is the date on which a  project is suitable for occupancy. GSA’s project delivery targets are to  have 85 percent of R&A projects be completed within 10 percent of their  baseline schedules, and 85 percent of them to have total costs within 10  percent of their baseline budgets. GSA reported that it uses these  measures to understand how capital R&A projects contribute to its  agency-wide strategic objective to establish GSA as a more effective  provider of real estate services for all agencies. According to GSA  officials, tracking the rate at which capital projects—including capital R&A  projects—are completed on time and within budget helps regional officials  manage project expectations with their customers.

GSA reported that most of its R&A projects met the agency’s overall  timely-award and project-delivery performance targets in fiscal year 2017.  For the timely award measure, GSA reported that in fiscal year 2017, 93  percent of capital projects had their planned obligation dollars awarded  within 30 days of their baseline award dates and that 87 percent of small  projects had awards made within 45 days of their baseline dates. For  the project delivery measure, GSA reported that 99 percent of all capital  projects completed on-schedule and 99 percent were on-budget in fiscal  year 2017. In that same year, GSA reported that 88 percent of small  R&A projects were on-schedule and 86 percent were on-budget. GSA  arrived at these results by rolling up information on individual projects’  performance. Officials from GSA’s central office said that capital projects  are typically completed on-schedule and on-budget at a higher rate than  small projects because capital projects have a more comprehensive  planning process and are often reviewed by third parties, and they said  that this process tends to result in more accurate baseline estimates.  These officials also said that, while GSA has assessed the performance  of its capital projects for 14 years and its regional officials have grown  familiar with measurement of these projects, the agency only began  assessing small projects’ performance in the past 3 years and regional  officials are still growing accustomed to the idea of measurement on  projects with lesser costs.

GSA officials are able to adjust the baseline schedule milestones and  cost estimates against which the agency assesses performance when  circumstances requiring additional time or funding arise during a project’s  construction phase. According to an internal GSA document detailing  requirements related to performance measures and reporting for capital  projects, it is more difficult to change baseline milestones for a capital  project than to adjust the dates for a small project because once a capital  project’s baselines are input in ePM, they can only be altered through an  adjudication process involving GSA’s central office. As described by  officials in one GSA region, this process focuses on determining whether  the reasons provided to support a request are strong enough to justify a  baseline change. If such a change is approved by the central office,  actual performance will then be compared against adjusted baseline  milestone dates or cost estimates. GSA officials stated that, although  there is no such adjudication process for small projects, any changes to  schedule or budget baselines must be approved by regional management  or, in some cases, officials from the central office depending on the  context of the change.

The brief nature of some small R&A projects may affect the entry of their  information and the interpretation of the reported performance. For  example, we found that all eight of the small projects we reviewed had  either missing baseline dates or baseline and actual milestone dates that  matched exactly in the system. When asked why this may occur, officials  from one region explained that small R&A projects with short durations  can sometimes be completed before a project team is required to create  the project’s record in ePMXpress. This can result in either missing data  or baseline and completion dates simply being entered in a single  session. Officials from GSA’s central office said that they rely on  regional officials to input accurate information throughout the course of a  project, as baselines are set and actual milestones are either met or  exceeded.

GSA Reports on R&A Projects’ Performance at Regional and National Levels and Is Introducing New Reporting Intended to Create a Consistent Understanding of Performance

GSA’s central office produces regional and national reports and provides  them to their regional offices to facilitate internal discussion on R&A  projects’ performance. Specifically, GSA shares the reports containing  regional and overall results of its timely award measure, project delivery  measures, and the previously discussed reconciliation measure to  encourage conversations among senior GSA leadership and regional  management. For example, one report compares projects’ actual  progress with baseline milestones using the project delivery measures to  assess the accuracy of teams’ planning. GSA also shares R&A project  delivery measure results with the Office of Management and Budget  when compiling its annual performance reports.

Regional officials varied in the extent to which they viewed R&A  performance reports as useful, and some regions have developed their  own approaches to understanding projects’ performance. For example,  officials in all four GSA regions we interviewed said that some reports  distributed by the central office are not specific to their information needs.  Officials from one of these regions described one report as having little  value because it is difficult to understand what message the report is  intended to convey. Officials from another region said they do not find a  particular report to be useful because—in addition to the timely award  measure that GSA emphasizes in working to understand R&A project  performance—it also includes less prominent milestones in identifying  whether a project is on schedule. These officials said that while their  region focuses on significant milestones like a project’s contract award  date (“timely award” measure) to assess progress, the report often flags  projects as being behind schedule based on less critical interim  milestones that can be done concurrently with other tasks, such as  submitting a document for legal review. When regional officials have not  found the reports shared by GSA’s central office to be useful, some said  they rely on varying sources of information to understand performance.  For example, officials from one region we interviewed said they use raw  data, made available by the central office, to create reports that they feel  offer a more complete picture of performance in their region and highlight  projects that may be at risk. Similarly, officials from another region said  they create custom consolidated reports to discuss projects and obtain an  overall impression of the information available, track and assign  workloads, and assess any relevant trends emerging across projects.

Officials from GSA’s central office said they are aware that some regions  have not found R&A performance reports to be useful. These officials 1)  acknowledged that the extent of information and features that  ePM/ePMXpress offers is less than some regions have told them they  need to manage their projects and 2) said updating these reports only  once or twice per month is not often enough for some regions. The  officials added that some regions’ opting to rely on other sources of  information has contributed to an inconsistent understanding of R&A  projects’ performance across the agency. GSA has been conducting  outreach to its regional offices to better understand what information  regions find useful to understanding their projects’ performance. GSA’s  plan for this outreach states that one of its aims is to ensure that regions  clearly understand the purpose, outcome, and value of new reports being  developed. According to this plan, GSA intends to assess the  effectiveness of its outreach by gathering feedback from regional officials  and reviewing analytics on usage of the reports developed.

As outreach to regions continues, GSA has begun to introduce what  officials describe as “self-service dashboard” reports to present a  consolidated view of R&A project information, with the intent of promoting  a consistent understanding of performance across the agency. According  to GSA’s outreach plan for one of the forthcoming dashboards, GSA  intends for these new reports to improve the transparency and timeliness  of information on R&A projects, increase accountability, help identify  information gaps and redundancies, and expand knowledge sharing  across the agency. Even with these dashboards, GSA officials  acknowledge that some regional offices may also continue to rely on  other sources of information but added that the near real-time nature and  ability to filter information offered by the dashboards will allow regional  officials to do more with the information that their project teams input on  their projects than in the past.

Specifically, GSA recently introduced a Capital Program Information  Dashboard, which is an interactive, online presentation of information on  all capital projects—including R&A projects—that is updated as often as  daily, in some cases, using information from ePM, IRIS, FMIS, and other  sources. The overall Capital Program Information Dashboard consists of  a series of dashboards that present project information in a number of  ways. For example, the National Summary Dashboard is comprised of  three sections:

Program Measures Performance: This section provides a national and  regional view of schedule and budget performance for capital projects,  using the 85 percent fiscal year 2018 target as a reference line to  show how each region is performing.

Program Award Performance: This section provides a national and  regional view of capital projects’ performance with regard to GSA’s  timely award measure, displaying comparisons of actual contract  award dates and original baseline dates.

Program Summary: This section provides a national and regional view  of capital projects, both by dollars appropriated and by the number of  projects, for categories including: active projects, projects declared  substantially complete within the current fiscal year, and overall  combined totals. This section displays these values at a regional level  in chart form and by state in an interactive map.

At the same time that GSA introduced regional and national-focused  dashboard reports on capital projects, it also introduced (1) a Project  Details Dashboard for capital projects that provides project-level  information by region and state and (2) a Project Award Performance  Dashboard that provides capital project-level information for planned  awards; this dashboard can be filtered by fiscal year, program, vendor,  project name, and contract type or number. Both of these dashboards  have multiple sections; for example, the Project Award Performance  Dashboard includes sections that focus on performance relative to the  project delivery and timely award measures, highlight capital projects that  may require adjustments to their schedule or budget baselines, and detail  reasons for requested changes to baselines.

In April 2018, GSA also launched a draft version of a dashboard for small  projects that it expects to give regional officials direct access to up-to-date  information on their small R&A projects. Similar to the Capital Project  Information Dashboard, the Small Project Dashboard will integrate  information from systems including ePMXpress, IRIS, EASi, and FMIS.  GSA’s plan for implementation states that this dashboard will present  regional officials with a consolidated view of program and project  information that includes status updates on timely-award and project- delivery measures. GSA expects that this dashboard, which is to be  finalized before the end of fiscal year 2018, will offer “near real-time  access” to small project information and reports to facilitate program  management and data-driven decision-making. Finally, GSA officials said  the agency is also planning to introduce a dashboard that will provide its  customer agencies with up-to-date information in 2018. GSA expects this  report to remove the delay between the inputting of project information  and its accessibility to all parties involved, making the information more  transparent both internally and externally.

GSA’s ability to assess and understand the performance of R&A projects  will continue to rely on project team members’ entry of information as it  finalizes its set of dashboard reports. GSA documentation on the  introduction of the Small Projects Dashboard states that because  ePM/ePMXpress will continue to serve as a key source of schedule  information, regional officials’ regular input of R&A project information will  be needed to make the dashboards meaningful. This documentation  also suggests that regional officials consider entering additional project  information, beyond what is required, so it will be available to them in the  dashboards. Officials from GSA’s central office acknowledge that their  ongoing outreach to the regional offices emphasizes the importance of  complete and timely information—as discussed earlier—to the agency’s  ability to comprehensively understand R&A projects’ performance.

We provided a draft of this report to GSA for comment. An official in  GSA’s Audit Management Division told us in an email that the agency had  no comments on the draft report.

We will send copies of this report to appropriate congressional  committees and the Administrator of the General Services Administration.  In addition, we will make copies available to others upon request, and the  report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at  http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact  me at 202-512-2834 or rectanusl@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices  of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last  page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report  are listed in appendix III.

Our objectives were to discuss how GSA (1) collects information on repair  and alteration (R&A) projects and (2) assesses the performance of R&A  projects. The scope of the work focused on R&A projects from two R&A  program funding streams: “capital” R&A projects (those with costs greater  than $3.095 million) and “small” R&A projects (those with costs less than  or equal to $3.095 million and greater than $25,000); we did not include  projects related to new building construction projects or reimbursable  work authorization projects, which are those performed by GSA but  funded by other federal agencies to improve or renovate federal facilities.  We collected information on systems supporting GSA’s management of  its R&A projects, including its Electronic Project Management  (ePM/ePMXpress) system, Pegasys, Financial Management Information  System (FMIS), Inventory Reporting Information System (IRIS), and  Enterprise Acquisition Solution integrated (EASi) system. Despite some  discussions of the accounting systems involved with R&A projects, this  review did not involve a financial audit of the R&A program. We also  reviewed our prior work and reports from the GSA’s Office of Inspector  General to obtain background information and identify any existing audit  findings on the R&A program that might be relevant for our objectives.

To determine how GSA collects information on individual R&A projects,  we reviewed documentation related to the R&A program, both provided to  us by GSA and found on the agency’s web site. In addition, we reviewed  GSA reports of the rates at which regional officials have created and  updated information on their small projects in a timely and complete  manner in ePMXpress. By reviewing reports generated by GSA’s central  office—which are (1) based on their manual reconciliation of information  between ePMXpress and IRIS and (2) based on the GSA identified errors  in on-budget and on-schedule data in ePMXpress, EASi, and FMIS—we  were able to assess the variance between regions in the extent to which  project team members created their small R&A projects in ePMXpress— and subsequently updated this information as projects move forward— between 2015 and 2017. We reviewed the information in these reports to  identify potential trends in regions’ complete and timely entry of R&A  project information and interviewed GSA officials about the sources of  information used to generate the reports and steps officials take to ensure  its accuracy. However, we did not independently verify the accuracy of  the data contained in these reports.

We also selected 12 R&A projects using GSA’s central office data from  October 2013 through August 2017 to understand how information is  input into the systems by regional officials, how it is used by officials from  GSA’s central office and selected regional offices, and whether there are  any issues affecting the information’s completeness or timeliness. We  selected the 2013 to 2017 time frame because this time period represents  the period after GSA officials said that they began tracking small projects  in the system used to collect information on project status, and the period  represents the most recent data available at the time of our selection. For  our project selection, we obtained data from GSA central office for all  R&A projects that existed but not were closed out as of the beginning of  fiscal year 2014 or had been added since the beginning of fiscal year  2014. We reviewed documentation on the collection of the data and  analyzed the data for missing information and found the data to be  sufficiently reliable for the purpose of selecting projects to understand  how R&A project information is input by regional officials and how it is  used across GSA.

To arrive at these 12 projects, we selected projects from regions that had  one or more capital R&A projects categorized as having been  substantially completed between October 2013 and August 2017, as most  regions undertake few capital projects in a given year. We initially  identified seven GSA regions that had substantially completed at least  one capital project during this timeframe and narrowed this number to  four regions—GSA regions 5, 6, 7 and 9—which had varying degrees of  performance based on our initial review of GSA reports containing  schedule and budget metrics. Specifically, to ensure that we were not  selecting four comparable regions, we selected two regions that  surpassed GSA performance targets and two regions that did not surpass  their performance targets. In addition, we gave preference to regions in  proximity to our field offices’ locations to minimize costs associated with  site visits. Within each of the four selected regions, we identified the sole  capital R&A project that was substantially completed between October  2013 and August 2017, for a total of four capital projects. We then  selected two small projects—those with the highest and lowest  “Estimated Cost of Construction at Award” and had been active between  October 2013 and August 2017—for a total of eight small projects (see  table 2 for list of selected projects).

We conducted interviews with regional officials from these four regions— visiting two of the four regions that were located near our field offices.  During those interviews, we discussed data entry processes and posed  questions both specific to the region’s selected projects and the R&A  program more broadly. During interviews with both GSA’s central and  regional offices, we asked officials to explain how the IRIS,  ePM/ePMXpress, EASi, and any other systems are used throughout the  planning and execution of R&A projects. Specifically, we reviewed and  discussed processes related to project information collection in general  with regional officials and specific project detail, budget, and schedule  information with the project team members who input information on the  selected capital and small projects into these systems; for example, we  raised questions about instances in which baseline and actual dates  matched for some projects. Information on the projects we selected is not  generalizable to all R&A projects, and the views of the regional officials  interviewed are not generalizable to all of GSA’s regional offices.

To determine how GSA assesses the performance of its R&A projects,  we requested and reviewed documentation from GSA on the extent to  which the agency evaluates the performance of its R&A projects and  inquired about the project information systems used to produce related  performance reports. In addition to the documents provided by GSA, we  used publicly available annual reports and budget justifications detailing  GSA’s overall goals and mission and the ways in which GSA has stated  that the R&A program supports these aims. After an initial review of  documents provided by GSA, we identified and requested specific internal  guidance and guidelines, information on the criteria used to select  individual R&A projects for funding, and reports related to both capital and  small projects’ performance. We used information contained in some of  these reports to identify the performance metrics GSA has established for  assessing R&A projects’ performance and to assess overall regional  performance relative to these metrics, as reported by GSA. We did not  independently verify the accuracy of the on-schedule and on-budget  figures reported by GSA, a methodological consideration that was beyond  the scope of this review; our focus was on how GSA assesses the  performance of R&A projects—not on the results of their assessments.  We also interviewed officials from GSA’s central office and the four  regional offices to discuss the agency’s assessment of R&A projects’  performance and the performance reports provided to regional officials.  Furthermore, we reviewed information about GSA’s plans to introduce  new “dashboard” reports and outreach that officials from GSA’s central  office had conducted to understand regional officials’ reporting needs.  Finally, we interviewed these central-office officials and officials from the  selected regional offices described above to discuss the use and  usefulness of the performance reports.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2017 to July 2018 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.  Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain  sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that  the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and  conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: General Services Administration’s Capital and Small Project Data-Entry Requirements for ePM and ePMXpress

The tables below show the details and differences in the General  Services Administration’s (GSA) data entry requirements for capital  projects in ePM and small projects in ePMXpress. Although some of the  ePM modules may not be applicable for every project, there are  mandatory fields and functions in each that drive GSA’s metrics,  measures, and standardized reports. Table 3 identifies the elements  required, by GSA’s fiscal year 2018 measures, for capital projects and  indicates whether each is used in a key performance indicator.

Table 4 identifies the small-project data entry requirements for  ePMXpress, as required for fiscal year 2018 measures, and whether they  are used in a key performance indicator.

Table 5 contains a list of standard project milestones that must be  maintained by GSA project managers in the ePM and ePMXpress  schedule modules, as identified in table 3 for capital projects and table 4  for small projects.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Nancy Lueke, Assistant Director;  Chad Williams, Analyst-in-Charge; Terence Lam; Les Locke; Cynthia  Nelson; Josh Ormond; Amy Rosewarne; Kelly Rubin; James Sweetman,  Jr.; and Crystal Wesco made key contributions to this report.

The General Services Administration (GSA) spends millions yearly to maintain approximately 1,600 federally owned buildings. Without repair and alteration projects, building safety may decline and operating costs may increase.

GSA collects information from its regional offices to monitor progress and assess the performance of building projects. Timely and complete information used to create reports is essential for GSA to have an understanding of regional and national performance. Some regional offices said that GSA’s reports don't meet their needs to manage the projects.

GSA is introducing new dashboard reports to help address this issue.