Public Buildings: Budget Scorekeeping Prompts Difficult Decisions
(Testimony, 10/28/93, GAO/T-AIMD/GGD-94-43).

Budget scorekeeping rules continue to drive the General Services
Administration (GSA) toward short-term leases even when ownership
clearly offers superior short-term and long-term cost advantages.  GAO
testified that resolution of this problem would entail hard choices
among competing priorities for limited federal dollars.  As long as
total discretionary spending is controlled by tight caps, greater
spending on public buildings will be accompanied by cuts in other areas
of the budget.  Whether to boost funding for public buildings at the
expense of other programs is a decision Congress will have to make.
Current scoring rules require GSA to fully justify full funding purchase
options--a difficult argument to make in the current budgetary
environment, but one required of all spending programs today.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-AIMD/GGD-94-43
     TITLE:  Public Buildings: Budget Scorekeeping Prompts Difficult 
             Decisions
      DATE:  10/28/93
   SUBJECT:  Real estate leases
             Cost control
             Federal procurement policies
             Cost effectiveness analysis
             Real estate purchases
             Federal office buildings
             Federal fund accounts
             Budget administration
             Budget scorekeeping
IDENTIFIER:  Federal Buildings Fund
             
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