Approximately 725 employees of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service, the real estate shop that operates as the federal government’s landlord, have accepted the “deferred resignation” offer from the Office of Personnel Management.
According to a Federal News Network report based on input from unnamed “sources familiar with the situation at GSA,” this represents a nearly 13% reduction of the service’s workforce. With this mass departure, the service now has roughly 5,600 employees.
The departures do not include employees in their probationary period that were recently fired by the GSA, nor is it including a planned workforce reduction that will result in more terminations.
GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian announced the departures in an internal email, stating those who accepted the deferred resignation offer were placed on administrative leave “to begin their next chapter.” However, questions were raised over whether the Public Buildings Service will have the manpower needed to enact its goals of shrinking the portfolio of government office space.
“You’re talking about getting rid of the people, but you haven’t yet accomplished getting rid of the work that those people are doing,” said an unnamed former GSA official in an interview with Federal News Network. “Get rid of the buildings, then get rid of the property managers who service those buildings and get rid of the project managers who manage the construction projects at these at these federal buildings. You don’t need as many people to operate GSA, especially if you get rid of federal buildings. It’s federal buildings that drive headcount at GSA. If GSA was purely a leasing organization, the amount of people you need would be drastically reduced.”
The former GSA official added the offloading of federal properties is complex and not easily achieved with a smaller workforce.
“This isn’t anything new – GSA has been trying to get rid of federal buildings,” the former official stated. “There’s laws and policies that stand in their way. And the issue of money — how do you pay to get people out of the buildings? How do you pay to do environmental remediation? There’s a lot that goes into it.”
as a commercial real estate asset manager I understand the necessity of the disposition of the unnecessary federal real estate holdings as soon as possible. Most Federal leases are cancellable without penalty upon reasonable notice. all that needs to be done is begin doing just that, negotiating with those landlords final cancellation details then creating the document and all parties signing it then its done. Except the GSA workforce is not set up to do anything in the most expeditious manner. Therefore I believe the GSA staff needs to be further reduced and some independent advisors and temporary employees from private industry be employed to speed up the process. GSA staff will be mired in “this is the way we have always done things at the GSA” regulatory controls that will show things down considerably.
Most business tenants in this situation would hire a commercial office broker to market the properties for Sublease if there is no cancellation provision in the lease . If there is a cancellation provision it is exercised and the Agency that is occupying the space moves to a facility that consolidates the remaining and number of necessary employees now in attendance in person at the office.
Since most existing GSA employees are only in the mode of acquiring space not divesting it, I suggest the GSA hire competent persons from private industry to handle these matters. It will speed up the process and save millions of dollars in the time it takes to cancel all those lease deals.