If you think getting an immigration bill, say, or healthcare reform through a bitterly divided Congress is hard, try an annual budget. In mid-September, Congress, having been unable to agree on that budget, passed what is…

“It’s really expensive to be poor.” This was the comment from Dr. Dorothy Robyn, the GSA’s Public Buildings Commissioner, at yesterday’s Federal Real Property Association conference in Washington, DC. How true! GSA’s inability to adequately fund improvements to its real estate assets is costing it money on both sides of the ledger–revenue and operating costs. […]

Each year, the House and Senate authorize each federal agency, department, or program to spend a specific amount of money, and the President signs the bill into law. But this money may not be spent until Congress also has explicitly appropriated it for a given purpose. An agency may, for example, be authorized to spend […]

Yesterday, President Obama submitted his FY 2013 budget to Congress.  What was perhaps most surprising was that the budget, on the top line, actually grew slightly to $3.803 trillion.  As the Brookings Institute’s William Gallston noted in a brief opinion piece published today, the budget largely reflects Obama’s political strategy going into this election year. […]

The House Appropriations Committee voted last Wednesday (June 20, 2012) to cut about $100 million from the scandal-plagued GSA’s budget for next year. The legislation—as well as an amendment that denies bonuses to GSA officials under investigation for misconduct—was approved by the full committee with a voice vote. The approved FY 2013 Financial Services and […]

The Bipartisan Budget Act provides some modest relief to sequester-driven discretionary spending cuts. The red line illustrates the discretionary spending levels allowed under the sequester provisions. The green area shows the discretionary spending increases provided under the Ryan-Murray agreement. (Graph: House Budget Committee) “Clearly this is not a Grand Bargain but it was never meant […]

Which federal agency began moving into its current headquarters building on November 22, 1963—the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated? The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—the national aviation authority of the United States—has the power to…

In January 2018, then–Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced a sweeping program to reorganize the department, the largest such reorganization since its founding in 1849. Zinke’s plan involved dividing the United States into thirteen regions,…

Our GSAXCHANGE team, the investment sales and finance arm of Colliers Government Solutions, just published their inaugural “Government Market Insight” report, which includes an overview of sales activity and trends in the federal sector. Among their…

The federal debt held by the public in the second quarter of 2014 was $12.57 trillion. That equates to 72.6% of GDP, down slightly from the post-WWII peak of 74.0% that was recorded in the first quarter of this year. This slight reduction is the only good news that will be reported for the remainder of this article. Rapidly […]

After a cliffhanger Senate vote on July 31, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has its first permanent director in 7 years. B. Todd Jones, acting director since 2011, now officially heads a…

With over 1,000 leased facilities, often in single-tenant buildings, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is a staple of many federal investor portfolios. Like other federal agencies, however, SSA has been dutifully implementing the “Reduce the Footprint”…

The government real estate sector is the largest in the United States. It’s also the most complex because the government’s procedures for acquiring, managing and disposing of real property are subject to layers of regulations, policy, legislation and executive orders. Making sense of it all can be challenging, but Colliers’ Government Solutions team understands how […]

The title of a new report by the US General Services Administration (GSA), issued on January 30, 2020, speaks volumes: “Child Care Centers in GSA-Controlled Buildings Have Significant Security Vulnerabilities.” The 30-page report that follows, drawing…