As many Americans in the private sector return to their offices, it appears most federal employees have opted to continue working from home, leaving government buildings empty and costing taxpayers.
A review of 24 federal agencies by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicated that empty office space costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year, a problem that has been exacerbated by a rise in the number of federal employees working remotely.
“Federal agencies spend about $2 billion a year to operate and maintain federal office buildings regardless of the building’s utilization,” GAO stated in its report. “In addition, agencies spend about $5 billion annually to lease office buildings.”
The issue was apparently pervasive even before the government-imposed lockdowns and transition to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At a meeting of the FRPC in January 2023, more than half of the agency officials in attendance acknowledged that their headquarters buildings had excess space prior to the pandemic,” the GAO said in its report. “For example, we calculated for one of the headquarters … that if all assigned staff entered the building on a single day, it would still only use 67 percent of the building’s capacity based on its usable square feet.”
Now, it seems most employees do not come into their offices anymore. The GAO estimated that 17 of the 24 agencies it examined used, on average, 25% or less of their assigned office space.
Furthermore, GAO stated that “federal office space involves opportunity costs — the loss of potential gain from alternatives uses of the resources involved — to both the federal government and the local economy.”
It went on to state that “unneeded federal properties and land could be put to productive use,” noting that buildings could be sold to the private sector to increase local tax bases and shore up taxpayer resources.
“The pandemic has lowered the utilization of headquarters of office space and may have added to the amount of unneeded space that existed prior to the pandemic,” the GAO concluded. “This moment presents a unique opportunity to reconsider various aspects of the federal government’s real property portfolio.”
In 2016, the Federal Property Management Reform Act was passed to address the issue of vacant taxpayer-funded office space, but so far, it has done little to mitigate the problem, per The Wall Street Journal.
At the time of the law’s passage, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) stated, “It’s been clear to me and to many others for a long time now that we can get better results and save taxpayer dollars by simply improving the way we manage federal property.”
“This bipartisan bill will do just that by requiring federal agencies to account for their properties and help the government get a better handle on its vast assets,” he continued. “These commonsense reforms signed into law today will increase efficiency across the federal government and help to ensure that we are being better stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
Years later, however, the weight of empty federal buildings continues to burden federal taxpayers.