Since 2011, Congress has been pulling money from a building fund managed by the federal government’s real estate arm, the General Services Administration, and using it to cover other parts of the federal government, the GSA’s administrator, Edward Forst, testified May 13. Now nearly half of the agency’s 1,600 properties are in fair or poor condition, he said.
“GSA's repair backlog has exploded by 408%,” Forst told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Among other things, more than 1,300 buildings in the agency's portfolio need new elevators, HVAC systems, fire suppression updates and electrical repairs, he said.
Congress created GSA’s federal building fund in the 1970s. The agency was authorized to collect rents and keep the proceeds from property sales and use the money to maintain and upgrade the properties in its portfolio. But Congress has “hijacked” the fund, as Forst put it, diverting $15.6 billion over the last 15 years, $22 billion in inflation-adjusted terms. That has led to a backlog that, by some estimates, is as high as $50 billion, he said.
In its fiscal year 2027 budget request, released in early April, GSA is asking Congress to give it access to 100% of the funds it collects in rents and sale proceeds. To press the point, Forst sent a letter May 22 to House and Senate leaders signed by 22 federal department heads, including Secretary of State Marcio Rubio, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Forst addressed two other ways Congress is impeding GSA's maintenance of federal property:
Insufficient appropriations. Congress has been giving GSA only about half of the roughly $1.2 billion in budget authority the agency’s been requesting each year. “This funding failure accelerates the deterioration of our infrastructure,” Forst said.
Per-project spending limit. Congress requires the agency to get congressional approval any time it needs to spend more than $3.96 million on a project, and approval typically takes more than a year. “No private sector real estate portfolio manager could operate successfully or would under these limitations,” said Forst, who previously held positions at Cushman & Wakefield, Bankers Trust and Goldman Sachs.
The agency is calling on Congress to let it undertake work without approval for projects up to $75 million in cost, which would enable it to start work immediately on several projects in its pipeline. “This would allow GSA to fix roofs before they fail, replace elevators before they trap people and upgrade fire and life safety systems before lives are at risk,” he said. “Market conditions have pushed basic maintenance costs well above current thresholds,” Forst said, “trapping us in bureaucratic delays while buildings deteriorate.”
More than 125 of the agency’s properties are 100 years old or more, he said.
“Many are architectural treasures that bear witness to history and embody American democracy and craftsmanship.” And the GSA doesn’t have the funds it needs to maintain them. Delaying maintenance increases its cost, Forst noted.
The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City, for example, completed in 1907, needed $73.7 million in repairs 10 years ago, but the money wasn’t there. Now the repairs are $152.3 million — “a staggering $78.6 million increase driven purely by delay,” he said.
