[General Services Administration 1980 Annual Report]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

RARY
FGO PUBLIC
SAN D
1 6 0 3 5
'iUL
1980
GENERAL
ANNUAL
SERVICES
REPORT
ADMINISTRATION
JUN 10’81
OUlL
NuudlKi
For a quick grasp
of GSA operations
and scope, see
GSA at a glance/3
Comparison of
selected operations/5
Organization chart/6
Regional map and
summary/39
1980 Accomplishments, New Directions
• Improvement of the process for procuring computer and telecommunications equipment.
These changes to revitalize and upgrade administrative support functions for the federal government are a good
Professional management systems—operated by a more skilled work force-thrust the General Services Administration into a much stronger position to fulfill the new administration’s priority of keeping the cost of government at the lowest possible level.
By year’s end these changes by the nation’s provider of administrative support services to other federal agencies were beginning to pay dividends in the form of savings to taxpayers. Examples were: a 15-percent reduction in motor pool fuel consumption; savings of $2 million on a six-month copypaper contract obtained competitively rather than by multiple award; and reduced rates for federal travelers at hotels and on selected air and rail routes. But such early rewards of better management are tempered by the knowledge that some of the results of improvements in 1980 will not be visible for several years.
Some of the solid foundations in 1980 of future benefits included:
•	Expansion of in-service training— both technical and managerial.
•	Beginning of long-range planning to replace ad hoc decisionmaking.
•	Professionalization of contract management through a new contracting officer warrant program.
•	Increasing attention to contract administration in the regions with special focus on quality assurance and contract performance.
•	Creation of a needs-oriented supply system—which uses market research and analysis to determine the best means of dealing with various supply industries and examines needs and order patterns of federal agencies.
•	Establishment of a property management reform program to ensure efficient use of each item.
•	Development of a five-year space management plan and a 10-year plan for better energy utilization in buildings.
start, but the job is far from complete.
GSA will not rely on the past for solutions to tomorrow’s problems. It will continue the search for the best answer to the question how best to provide cost-effective administrative services to the federal government’s many and varied program agencies. The government and the nation it serves have changed substantially since GSA was created in 1949. The government has changed in size, scope, variety, and to some extent in nature. GSA has changed rapidly to meet the challenges and must continue to change to cope with the realities of the future.
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GSA at a Glance
Not a workday goes by without federal employees receiving substantial support—from desks and pencils to advice on computer systems—from the General Services Administration (GSA). It is the government’s builder and landlord, wholesaler and retailer, transportation expediter, communications and data-processing expert, property and utilities manager, and historian and records keeper.
To accomplish these broad supply and service tasks, GSA has a work force of nearly 35,000 in its Washington, D.C., headquarters, 11 regional centers, and local offices. These men and women are organized into six services: Public Buildings, Federal Supply, Transportation and Public Utilities, Automated Data and Telecommunications, Federal Property Resources, and National Archives and Records.
An outline of service activities follows with detailed reports under separate chapters beginning on page 13.
GSA employee draws Venetian blinds to keep out summer sunlight, which can raise room temperature by many degrees in a few minutes. Energy conservation was a major GSA concern in 1980.
Builder and landlord
The Public Buildings Service (PBS) manages federally owned and leased space in some 10,000 buildings. It designs and constructs new buildings as approved by Congress and restores historic ones for federal workspace and public pride and enjoyment. Under the art-inarchitecture program, it graces public buildings with works by contemporary American artists, while its ‘Living Buildings’ program opens them up to civic, educational, and cultural events both during and after business hours. The Federal Protective Service keeps them secure.
With a monthly energy bill that can run as high as $20 million, energy conservation is a foremost PBS concern. By applying modern technology and common sense, it has cut energy use in public buildings by a third in recent years. Energyefficient new construction and retrofitting of older structures promise further reductions.
Wholesaler and retailer
The Federal Supply Service (FSS) buys, stores, and distributes the millions of day-to-day items that federal employees need to do their work—office supplies and machines, furniture, tools, and appliances. It spends some $3 billion annually, saving around $725 million through centralized buying. Sixteen strategically placed depots and 69 retail stores handle stor
age and distribution aided by a computerized order and followup system.
Under special procurement procedures, millions of FSS-spent dollars are channelled to areas of high unemployment, small and socially or economically disadvantaged businesses, workshops for the blind and severely handicapped, and Federal Prison Industries, Inc.
Transportation expediter and utilities manager
The Transportation and Public Utilities Service (TPUS) keeps the federal government mobile and oversees the rates it pays for utilities such as water, gas, and electricity.
TPUS buys cars, vans, and trucks for use by federal agencies and for the 90,000-vehicle interagency motor pools located in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. Emphasis is on smaller vehicles that use less fuel and on training operators in efficient driving.
As the federal travel agent, TPUS writes federal travel regulations, obtains special services and discounts for government travelers, arranges for freight services, and audits transportation charges to the government by commercial firms.
The service’s utilities experts negotiate contracts and help represent the gov-
3
ernment as a consumer in utilities rate hearings before regulatory bodies.
Communications and data processing expert
The Automated Data and Telecommunications Service (ADTS) oversees the procurement and management of data-processing and telecommunications equipment and services for the federal government. It reviews planned computer purchases and leases for potential cost savings, arranges for data processing and remote computer services, and helps agencies save money by sharing underutilized computers.
ADTS operates the Federal Telecommunications System (FTS), the world’s largest private telephone, data, and facsimile transmission network. In 1980 the FTS transmitted 230 million long-distance calls at half the commercial cost.
As the federal disaster communications coordinator, ADTS maintains special emergency communications teams around the country. It also provides secure communications for such groups as the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Property manager
The Federal Property Resources Service (FPRS) squeezes every drop of federal use out of personal property, from typewriters to helicopters, and from government real estate. Anything not used by one agency is transferred to another if possible. When necessary, personal property is repaired and rehabilitated under FPRS contracts, mostly with small businesses. When federal use is exhausted, personal property is offered for donation to eligible state and local nonprofit organizations or for sale to the public. Surplus real estate may be donated for public recreation or airports or sold for development.
FPRS also stores, inspects, and maintains the national stockpile of strategic and critical materials—from feathers to industrial diamonds—held to protect U.S. industry from a sudden cutoff during a war or other national emergency.
Historian and records keeper
The National Archives and Records Service (NARS) is the keeper of the nation’s history, aide to history researchers, and foe of unnecessary government records.
Historic documents are carefully preserved at NARS Washington headquarters and 11 regional archives. Popular and scholarly publications list and explain these documents, official records, photographs, films, and sound recordings.
Employees at the Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Md., retrieve a box of records in response to an agency request. Across the country, records centers answered 18 million reference requests.
Six established presidential libraries and one under construction keep important papers and mementos of past administrations. The daily Federal Register prints federal regulations for the benefit of agencies and the public.
Fifteen federal records centers around the country store agency records. Under an intensive “throw-away” campaign, records of administrative but no historic value are put on microfilm or microfiche and the originals discarded. Center records experts train federal managers to simplify or eliminate paperwork and to pare records to a minimum.
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Comparison of Selected Operations
	1970 (Actual)	1980 (Actual)	1981 (Estimate)
Public Buildings Service Square footage of space in GSA inventory (except outside parking) 		270,300,000	228,900,000	233,500,000
Government-owned space		163,200,000	138,400,000	138,300,000
Leased space 		54,100,000	90,500,000	95,200,000
Number of occupants of buildings 		805,667	860,594	882,000
Number of leases		6,715	5,317	5,400
Construction completions		117,000,000	135,000,000	250,000,000
Repair and alteration workload performed		$42,200,000	$144,400,000	$199,500,000
Repair and alteration backlog, end of year		$479,700,000	$1,573,700,000	$1,744,200,000
Federal Supply Service Total procurement 		$1,491,000,000	$3,085,000,000	$2,375,000,000
Government-wide purchases by means of Federal Supply schedules 		$707,000,000	$1,648,300,000	$1,411,000,000
Number of supply distribution points		80	86	86
Stock sales		$493,886,000	$817,828,000	$858,000,000
Nonstock sales		$327,083,000	$398,201,000	$126,000,000
Transportation and Public Utilities Service Interagency motor pools in operation		97	99	99
Mileage of interagency motor pools		568,132,000	985,400,000	985,400,000
Vehicles in interagency motor pools in use, end of year. .	51,892	85,494	85,500
Average miles per gallon of vehicles in interagency motor pools		12.9	15.3	16.3
Motor pool sales		$51,085,000	$198,300,000	$240,221,000
Federal Property Resources Service Transfers of personal property to other federal agencies and donations (acquisitions cost)		$996,600,000	$816,400,000	$1,215,000,000
Personal property rehabilitation (replacement cost)		$176,000,000	$885,690,000	$1,038,400,000
Strategic and critical materials in uncommitted inventory, end of year (market value)		$7,126,600,000	$14,853,797,000	$14,437,497,000
Strategic and critical materials sales commitments		$238,300,000	$51,252,000	$516,300,000
National Archives and Records Service Records centers (number)		14	15	15
Inventory at year end (cubic feet) 		10,528,172	14,082,428	14,725,000
Inquiries handled		9,146,360	19,591,000	20,020,000
Automated Data and Telecommunications Service Federal Telecommunications Fund sales 		$128,544,000	$447,814,000	$555,868,000
Intercity FTS calls 		$74,625,000	$230,000,000	$246,000,000
Automated Data Processing Fund sales 		$16,871,000	$125,287,000	$167,870,000
Federal Information Centers Number of inquiries		2,080,000	7,600,000	8,000,000
Agencywide End of year employment, full-time permanent		36,400	32,432	30,613
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Administrator
Deputy Administrator
Office of External Affairs
Offices:
Public Information
Industry and Customer Relations
Consumer Affairs
Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations
Office of Acquisition Policy
Directorates:
Contract Clearance Management and Review Acquisition Policy Federal Procurement
Regulations
Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
Information Security Oversight
Office of Plans, Programs, and Financial Management
Staffs:
Executive
Program Coordination
Offices:
Planning and Analysis
Budget
Finance
Data Systems
Office of Human Resources and Organization
Offices:
Civil Rights
Security and Occupational Safety and Health
Employee Development and T raining
Organization and Management Administrative Services Personnel
Security and Occupational Health
Office of Ethics
Eleven Regions and Headquarters Cities
GSA Board of Contract Appeals
Audit Reports Control Office
Office of Inspector General
Executive Staff
Offices:
Audits
Investigations
Inspections
Special Projects
National
Capital Region............Washington, D.C.
Region 1..........Boston
Region 2..........New York
Region 3..........Philadelphia
Region 4..........Atlanta
Region 5..........Chicago
Region 6..........Kansas City
Region 7..........Fort Worth
Region 8..........Denver
Region 9..........San Francisco
Region 10.........Auburn
Organization Chart of the General Services Administration
Office of General Counsel
Executive Staff
Divisions:
Claims and Litigation
General Law
Public Buildings
Automated Data and Telecommunications
Transportation and Public Utilities
Procurement
Disposal
Public Buildings Service
Staffs:
International Projects
Special Programs
Offices:
Program Support
Contracts
Buildings Management
Design and Construction
Federal Protective Service Management
Space Management
I Federal Supply Service
Staffs:
Acquisition Planning Management
Offices:
Customer and Industry Relations
Contract Management
Contracts
Property Management
Programs and Requirements
Supply
Supply Policy
Centers:
National Furniture
National Tools
Federal Property Resources
Service
Staffs:
Special Projects
Program Support
Offices:
Stockpile Management
Personal Property
Real Property
Stockpile Transactions
Transportation and Public Utilities Service
Executive Staff
Offices:
Motor Equipment
Transportation and Travel Management
Public Utilities Transportation Audits Automotive Management
Automated Data and
Telecommunications Service
Executive Staff
Offices:
Information Resources
Procurement
Software Development
Policy and Planning
Systems Engineering and
Operations
National Archives and Records Service
Staffs:
National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Program Support
Offices:
Federal Register
National Archives Presidential Libraries Federal Records Centers Records and Information
Management
Program Development
Public Programs and Exhibits
Staff Offices
Visitors to the Baltimore, Md., Federal Information Center browse through the many available pamphlets; right, staff conference at office of a small, minority-owned firm awarded a contract by GSA.
Staff offices provide policy, oversight, personnel, budgeting, long-range planning, information tracking, legal counsel, and other support to the six operating arms of GSA. In 1980 they had two special objectives: greater professionalism and higher productivity among agency workers and managers.
By year’s end, several milestones had been reached. Training was accelerated, particularly in contracting. Computerized information tracking was expanded. An improved contract clearance process, with emphasis on accountability and integrity, was implemented. A customer relations staff was established and began resolving especially tangled problems for GSA clients.
Finally, an evaluation of possible new management paths for the agency was obtained from the National Academy of Public Administration, a private, independent organization.
Professionalizing contracting
All GSA contracts, from a few thousand dollars to multimillion dollar systems acquisitions, now come under the skilled scrutiny of a warranted contracting officer and a clearance group. Both examination systems were shaped and nurtured by the Office of Acquisition Policy, a staff group responsible for ensuring the most efficient procurement policies by the agency.
The contracting officer warrant program selected, trained, examined, and warranted personnel. Only those qualified by education and experience were approved. At the year’s end, about 700 were warranted with dollar ceilings on authority; about 300 had unlimited warrants.
All major proposals are studied by the Systems Acquisition Review Council, manned by top GSA executives and specialists. It examines whether a purchase is necessary and if it will do the job required. It provides guidance to the Administrator in alternatives.
In 1980 the Council rejected a proposed $440-million acquisition to upgrade the federal phone system in Washington, D.C., on the grounds that existing service was adequate. It turned down a proposal for special open-space furniture because of high cost and conflicting evidence on suitability. It approved an innovative purchase of electric typewriters chosen by performance test and a contract for special cutrate federal airfares on routes with heavy federal traffic.
Tackling problems on a broader scale, Acquisition Policy worked with procurement groups from other agencies to replace individual agency regulations with a unified system of Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). Such a system would be easier to control, be more responsive to policy changes, and help cut procurement overhead. It also could encourage competitive bidding.
A section of Acquisition Policy, the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, joined other GSA staff offices in structuring business conferences for women and minority entrepreneurs. It also helped ensure contract opportunities for them.
Professionalizing the workforce
Professional development courses for employees were offered chiefly through the National Training Center of the Office of Human Resources and Organization. The chief subjects were contracting and contract administration, space and buildings management, supply management, information management, and travel and transportation management. By the end of the year, the Center had trained
4,600 nonsupervisory procurement and supply technicians, and 2,900 specialists.
To identify present and future needs for job skills and professional competency, career boards were established for key agency occupational groups and began evaluations.
Less formal training told every GSA employee about the agency’s new standards of conduct and how to resolve questions of ethics on the job.
Employees whose professional advancement or fair job evaluation had been threatened by discrimination had recourse to the new Office of Civil Rights. Many old complaints were cleared up, and the average time for final agency decisions was reduced from 15 months to less than 30 days.
On-the-job safety and health became the responsibility of a new, consolidated Office of Security and Occupational Safety and Health. Its first goal was reduction of the agency’s $8.4 million annual outlay resulting from employee injury and illness.
Improving planning and its tools
The Office of Plans, Programs, and Financial Management established an automated information system as a management tool. The system lists costs, activity rates, volume of business, and other data. Another group designed and initiated an integrated budgeting system for regions and headquarters for tracking expenditures and funding.
To make sure modern, flexible computers and programs support sophisticated budgeting, fund control, and planning, the Data Systems group obtains them. This year the group surveyed and analyzed GSA hardware and software and completed a plan of gradual replacement with advanced equipment and programs.
Services to suppliers and clients
As the agent in the supply chain from private businesses to federal clients, GSA maintained Business Service Centers in 13 major cities.
The Centers spread news of federal business opportunities to small and large firms and advised potential federal suppliers on how to do business with the government. Last year 143,678 individual counseling sessions were conducted in Centers, in smaller towns under the Center “Circuit Rider” program, and at meetings and seminars. Two hundred and thirteen seminars were held to explain federal business opportunities for women and 2 for minority entrepreneurs.
The new Office of Customer Relations, with regional personnel plus a nucleus at GSA headquarters, became the advocate for federal clients of all parts of the agency and exercised its authority to cut across administrative lines to resolve problems and deliver aid. To improve the helpfulness of GSA employees to customers, the new office developed a training program, incentives, and job performance criteria.
Serving the Public
The Consumer Information Center continued its role of putting the expertise of federal agencies at consumers’ fingertips through the Consumer Information Catalog. Free and published quarterly, the Catalog lists more than 200 selected publications of consumer interest. This year, more than 25.6 million copies of publications on automobiles, energy savings, health, housing, recreation, child care, and employment were ordered.
News of consumer publications was provided to the nation’s media twice weekly through “New for Consumers” releases and monthly through “Federal Consumer Focus” radio-TV scripts.
For answers to questions about federal programs or in finding the right federal office to help a citizen, GSA operates 41 Federal Information Centers in metropolitan areas with toll-free telephone access from 43 other cities. This year free telephone access was extended statewide in Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.
Center specialists answered more than 7.6 million inquiries in person, by mail, or by telephone. Subjects included taxes, available federal jobs, how to obtain passports, immigration and naturalization regulations and contacts, Social Security programs, and Veterans Administration benefits.
Office of General Counsel
GSA’s range of responsibilities requires diversified legal services. Counsel attorneys draft legislation proposed by GSA and advise on other prospective legislation. They draft or review federal procurement regulations, assure that procurement documents conform to law and regulations, including small business requirements, and participate in utility contract negotiations for the best rates for federal consumers. Other subjects range from litigation to labor, contracts to civil rights, and administrative law to property law and torts. Counsel lawyers represent the agency in disputes before the GSA Board of Contract Appeals and assist the Department of Justice in cases involvinglGSA.
This year, the Office of General Counsel revamped and updated the Basic Laws and Authorities Handbook for the agency and constructed an extensive Handbook index to assist users.
The office also prepared GSA Order ADM 5080.4 establishing new procedures for settling claims and disputes about GSA contracts. The new usage is consistent with the Contract Disputes Act of 1978, existing federal procurement regulations, and GSA policy. The duties and responsibilities of contracting officers, counsel, and management officials are defined; and ways are detailed for resolving disputes by mutual agreement and for disposing of claims fairly without unnecessary litigation.
Other Counsel activities included: • Legal assistance in using the half-fare airline coupons GSA bought from private travelers in 1979. Through coupon use, GSA saved over $1 million in federal travel funds in two months.
•	A successful suit, through the Department of Justice, on behalf of GSA and other federal agencies to establish that the California sales tax on federal leases of cars and other personal property was improper. California was ordered to refund taxes collected since the beginning of 1979.
•	Representing the government as a consumer of telecommunications services in rate proceedings before the Federal Communications Commission and state utility commissions. Proposed telephone rate increases could jump the operating costs of federal agencies $200 million in 1981.
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Staff of the Office of Inspector General, above, hold a midsummer case
Board of Contract Appeals
The prompt and just resolution of disputes over GSA, Treasury, and Education contracts and those of several other agencies and commissions is the primary purpose of GSA’s Board of Contract Appeals. The Board also hears suspension and debarment matters and appeals involving charges of violating the Ethics in Government Act.
This year the Board completed a reorganization in response to the Contract Disputes Act of 1978. Board membership was increased to 11 judges with extensive backgrounds in government contract law plus an office of staff counsel and an administrative/technical services division. The result was a more truly independent Board,.
Office of Inspector General
To ferret out fraud, abuse, or mismanagement in GSA, the staff of the Office of Inspector General conducts investigations, audits, and inspections. During 1980, the Office issued 94 administrative subpoenas to individuals and firms that had done business with GSA and brought 72 indictments and informations. Sixty criminal convictions and guilty pleas, involving 22 GSA employees and 33 firms, resulted. The Office recommended debarment of 52 firms and individuals and suspension of another 52; 31 debarments and 43 suspensions took place.
This year, to strengthen its operations, the Office hired about 50 realty, con
conference; note the casual dress and drawn blinds for keeping cool.
tract, and quality assurance experts and engineers for work in targeted programs or the GSA regions. Other employees were trained in auditing specialties, such as leasing and surplus property disposal, and in analytical investigative methods, tracing computer crime, and legal procedures. A whistleblowers’ hotline received complaints about GSA management or services or suspected criminal activity.
In-depth studies were begun of office space utilization by federal agencies (including vacant office space owned or leased by the federal government), the efficiency of contract management in buildings construction, the equity of architect/engineer selection for term contracts, pricing and control of multiple award contracts, equity of distribution of GSA-controlled property do-donated through state personal property offices, consultant contracting, the GSA Penalty Guide for employee misconduct, and other programs.
The space utilization study will be completed early in 1981 and forwarded to Congress, at whose request it was made. Most of the other studies have been completed and recommendations made. The GSA Penalty Guide was rewritten to tailor disciplinary action to the offense.
Security oversight
The Information Security Oversight Office monitors the classification, declassification, and safeguarding of national security information. It receives policy direction from the National Security Council and reports to the President.
This year Security Oversight continued its compliance inspections program and began special studies on such subjects as systematic declassification, classification guides, standardization of security forms, and how to apply computer technology to information security. To educate federal officials, it held a two-day symposium on security and individual rights with speakers of national stature.
Presidential transition
When a new president is elected, GSA has a unique responsibility under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 (Public Law 88-277). It administers and accounts for the funds Congress appropriates for an orderly presidential transition and provides all necessary supplies, services, and facilities. In 1980 Congress appropriated $2 million for the use of an incoming president and $1 million for the use of the outgoing chief in the event the voters decided on a change.
By the close of the year, GSA had provided a townhouse on Lafayette Square, near the White House, for the use of President-elect Reagan; seven floors of office space for transition staff; furniture, telephones, copiers, and other office equipment; and letterhead inscribed “Office of the Presidentelect.”
Arrangements were made to transport 25,000 cubic feet of President Carter’s official papers and files to Atlanta, Ga., for storage until the creation of a presidential library.
GSA repair crew spruces up the townhouse at 716 Jackson Place, Washington, D.C., near the White House, for President-elect Reagan.
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The Federal Supply Service
GSA’s Federal Supply Service (FSS) made significant changes in its procurement policies and practices the past year by adopting “best buy” procurement methods and helping bring federal purchases into better alignment with executive agency needs and inventories.
Taking aim at better buys
As a first step toward the governmentwide policy objective of reducing the number and complexity of federal specifications, FSS began housecleaning its own complex system. In the past, specifications for even a minor and common item, such as a screwdriver, could fill tens of pages.
During fiscal year 1980, FSS switched 589 of its detailed specifications to streamlined commercial item descriptions (CIDs). Not only was much future paperwork and overhead avoided, but competition on procurements rose 22 percent to supply greater potential for savings and fairer distribution of business opportunities.
At the FSS Research and development Laboratory, a chemist (left) applies paints to cement blocks before testing for weather resistance; technician (right) monitors continuous performance testing of electric typewriter brands and models.
Simultaneously, top-dollar multiple award schedules were reviewed to identify where the greatest savings might be achieved by substituting competitive procurement. (Multiple award contracts are negotiated rather than bid and are made with several firms concurrently on similar products.) Some of the schedules examined in 1980, and their approximate annual purchase volumes, were: copy machines, $200 million; film, $73 million; typewriters, $50 million; light bulbs, $26 million; projectorsand cameras, $23 million; dictating equipment, $13 million; calculators, $10 million; microfilm readers, $7 million; and disinfectants, $4 million.
By year’s end, 23 schedules with an annual traffic of $488 million had been analyzed. Thirteen, worth $85.4 million, were cancelled and are being converted to competitive bidding. Another $113 million of procurement was transformed into 91 commercial item descriptions. Further, a test competitive procurement was concluded for electric typewriters. It took into account bid price plus operating and repair cost as calculated from performance tests conducted by FSS’s own testing laboratory.
Full-scale competitive procurements began for copier paper, an item removed last year from the multiple award system, and the first round resulted in contracts for $20 million and a savings of $2 million. Additionally, a definite-quantity procurement valued at $1.4 million resulted in savings of $75,000.
Other competitive procurements underway by the close of 1980 and their annual values were: typewriter ribbons, $6 million; smoke detectors, $1 million; wastebaskets, $570,000; and desk trays, $150,000.
Life-cycle costing techniques similar to those used for the electric typewriter purchase were applied to other procurements as well. Though not a new effort in FSS, life-cycle costing is being applied increasingly and in 1980 helped obtain “best buys” of air conditioners, washers, dryers, stoves, refrigerators and water heaters.
For those items continuing on multiple award schedules, FSS contracting officers reviewed mail-order and discount-house prices when negotiating contracts to make sure Uncle Sam was getting the best possible buy.
Further, an escape clause initiated in late 1979 allowed a customer agency, if it found an item at a lower price than in the schedule because of a promotional or one-time inventory sale, to buy the “retail” item and send a purchase order copy to FSS for evaluation. In 1980, 211 special purchases were reported and 89 evaluated. Only 34 were identical to schedule goods or services and at a lower price, and for these the cost differentials mostly were
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These chairs were among the roomsful of Federal furniture—all unaccounted for—discovered under the leaking roof of Washington’s Pension Building. Furniture should have been re-used donated, or sold.
small and due to special circumstances, such as price wars between suppliers.
Putting some facts into federal procurement
While methods of procurement were being reviewed and revised for many goods and services, procurement in one large category—furniture—came to a standstill
The GSA Administrator imposed a governmentwide moratorium on furniture buying in October 1979 which carried over to 1980. The action was taken pending an all-agency inventory of furniture in storage and the establishment of strict controls on furniture buying, including a process of justifying orders. In February the Office of Management and Budget extended the freeze through the fiscal year. Departments and agencies were required to prepare annual procurement plans.
The new procedures are expected to overcome previous problems of poor inventories of repairable or easily rehabilitated furniture. Some groups were suspected of shuffling usable but older items to unrecorded storage and off their lists to justify orders of new, stylish furniture.
Poor inspection of new furniture deliveries at FSS warehouses and customer agencies meant that defective items escaped not only discovery and report but consequent correction at the manufacturer’s expense.
Orders of “systems furniture” for use in large, undivided office space on the grounds of saving money were unsupported by proof of financial benefit.
By the close of 1980, the GSA Administrator and FSS management had taken the following steps toward some furniture procurement solutions:
• Under Operation Clean Sweep, a task force was mobilized to locate and inventory furniture hoards. Investigators found 49,000 pieces worth $50 million in 149 facilities, mostly in the Washington, D.C., area.
• The FSS unit responsible for all aspects of the furniture program, the National Furniture Center, began examining proposed agency furniture expenditures for fiscal 1981. The Center also began preparing commercial item descriptions for use in competitive bids. • And to help agencies make better use of what they already have, the Center began developing furniture rehabilitation and replacement standards.
• Existing systems furniture “demonstration” projects, which had already cost $25.5 million, came under rigorous evaluation to determine whether using systems furniture to save office space actually results in identifiable, substantial savings.
Improving procurement support and supply distribution
After FSS contracting officers achieve a “best buy,” other functional experts must make certain the government gets what it pays for, that orders are delivered on time and to the correct place, that defects or damages are dealt with promptly, and that warehoused stock is kept to a minimum and handled efficiently. Perhaps most important of all are better planning, coordination, and tracking of procurements.
Coordination.—Through a new system of commodity centers, FSS began concentrating in one place the expertise necessary to plan coordinated procurements to meet the real needs of customer agencies and to oversee the results. Examples are the National Tools Center, begun in June 1980, and the National Furniture Center begun the year before. In September a third commodity group-for acquisition of motor vehicles and related products—was approved and designated for transfer from FSS to the Transportation and Public Utilities Service.
FSS also established an Office of Property Management, staffed by senior management specialists, to promote more cost-effective utilization of personal property. Several interagency task forces have been set up to work on specific aspects of property management such as furniture inventories.
Mutual supply and property management problems and objectives of federal agencies also will be addressed by the newly formed Federal Supply Management Advisory Council chaired by the Administrator of GSA. The Council includes representatives of executive agencies with purchases of $1 million or more a year. Its goal is to further standardize and integrate supply and property management systems, procedures, and capabilities.
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Self-service store sales
Fiscal years 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Quality control.—To make certain it gets what it pays for, FSS has a twopronged quality assurance program. Quality assurance specialists randomly sample and inspect items at manufacturers’ plants; and manufacturers with proven quality control and inspection systems may ship on their own certification with only occasional government inspection. The latter is known as the quality assured manufacturer program. Innovations in the quality assurance program initiated in 1980 included geographic rotation of inspectors on a five-year cycle, a training and certification program plus tighter supervision for inspectors, and more stringent requirements for participation.
Contract administration.—Traditionally, the quality assurance specialist’s job also included contract administration,
such as following up on delinquent purchase orders, interpreting contract terms when necessary, and initiating action on contract termination. A more disciplined and specialized approach was begun in 1980 when the administrative function was turned over to a separate official called an administrative contracting officer. This should result in faster response to contract problems and serve as a further step toward timely delivery of quality merchandise.
Warehousing and delivery.—Continuing its nationwide consolidation program, FSS closed its supply distribution depot in Bayonne, NJ. At the same time, the facilities in Belle Mead, NJ., and Stockton, Calif., were modernized with carousel storage systems and improved conveyors, freeing needed floor space for bulk storage. FSS plans to reduce its 16 depots to 12 by 1987 with continued modernization of those retained.
This will include automation of receiving and locator files, better space utilization through rotary bins and high-rack systems, and automated workload projection and other routine management reports plus the potential for automated bin selection and bulk storage and retrieval.
Retail distribution.—At the other end of the distribution system, the FSS self-service stores continued to tighten control over a reduced stock selection, having eliminated the items most vulnerable to abuse or fraud or in only minimal demand. A new automated system of recording shopping plate numbers as they are used allows identification of unused plates for possible recall. Another automated system records lost or stolen plates. GSA personnel unconnected with the stores now conduct stock inventories; annual store audits are planned; and FSS managers make frequent announced and unannounced store visits to check procedures and receipts and verify sales.
Store sales at 69 locations in fiscal 1980 were down to $43.4 million compared with $60.8 million four years earlier.
Value of selected types of supply delivery to FSS client agencies
Multiple award
schedules
 k_
"6
T3
From depots
■■■■■■■■■a c
_o
Direct deliveries
2,400
2,000
1,600
1,200
800
400
0
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
Fiscal years
15
The
Federal
Property Resources
Service
Two buildings, formerly part of Goucher College, were conveyed to the City of Baltimore after years of federal use. One now houses the Mayor’s Office of Manpower Resources.
A small unit within GSA (about 1,000 employees) but with large financial leverage, the Federal Property Resources Service (FPRS) continued to save millions of dollars for local and federal taxpayersand return substantial receipts to the U.S. Treasury. In 1980 its redistribution of land, buildings, and personal property (from bulldozers to Secret Service dress uniforms) between federal agencies and from federal agencies to State and local governments and to eligible nonprofit groups saved taxpayers about $1.7 billion. Sales of real and personal property not wanted by any government or nonprofit group returned $198.8 million to the U.S. Treasury.
Obtaining maximum yield from federal lands
As the government’s real estate agent; FPRS has the responsibility of turning
A potential bidder examines a car before an auction of motor vehicles managed by FPRS. For other pictures of the sale, turn the page.
idle federal landsand buildings to profit and local benefit. This may mean sale for commercial development, transfer between federal agencies, or donation for public, health, or educational use.
Two outstanding sales were completed in 1980: the 573-acre Air Force Plant in Wichita, Kans., to the Boeing Wichita Co. for $44.7 million; and an 850-acre parcel of former Navy land at Quonset Point to the Rhode Island Port Authority and Economic Development Corp, for $8.8 million. While the first was the highest value sale ever negotiated by GSA, it also provided 1,500 extra jobs for the community as Boeing expanded local operations. Further, Boeing estimatesan investment of $200 million, much of which will be spent locally, for plant expansion and improvement in the next few years. The Quonset Point sale is the cornerstone of a plan to attract new industries and 6,000 to 10,000 jobs to Rhode Island.
Total real estate sales by FPRS for fiscal year 1980 were $83.8 million.
For improved productivity from semiidle structures and areas, FPRS transferred 4,736 acres and buildings worth
$23.6 million from one federal agency to another. Further, it completed more than 200 surveys of federal holdings to check agency utilization.
Properties no longer needed by any federal agency were made available to state and local governments and nonprofit groups for parks, airports, wildlife refuges, and historic, health, and education projects. The total worth of real estate conveyed at a discount was $37 million.
Parcels ranged, just for parks and recreation, in size and value from a fraction of an acre in Lake Michigan worth about $5,000 to about 680 acres of the former Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico worth $5.5 million. The latter already included an 1 8-hole golf course, a clubhouse, a community center, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a skating rink, and handball and tennis courts. It was donated to the Puerto Rico Public Parksand Recreation Administration. The former, occupied by a lighthouse, went to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
In the past 10 years, 829 parks totaling 93,044 acres and valued at more than $354 million have been donated. Every state, plus Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the District of Columbia have received land.
Managing personal property
Typewriters, computers, desks and chairs, helicopters, cars, and construction equipment are just some of the personal property items used by federal workers on the job. Like real property, personal property is cycled by
17
Under a program managed by FPRS, a contract workman prepares a metal desk for electrostatic refinishing and later use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
FPRS to other federal agencies when the original owner no longer needs it and may be donated if federal re-use is impractical. Items neither recycled nor donated are sold to the public.
In fiscal 1980, FPRS transferred goods originally worth $470 million from one federal office to another “as is.”
Simultaneously, the service managed programs for the overhaul, repair, or maintenance of 3.1 million pieces of personal property ranging from truck tires through office furniture. The furniture programs alone enabled the rehabilitation of 319,418 worn or defective pieces to office readiness and helped blunt the effect of thefurniture purchase freeze. Most work on furniture and other items was performed under contract by small businesses, supplemented by workshops for the handicapped, minority businesses, and Federal Prison Industries, Inc. Contract payments totaled $54 million.
In a related program, agencies reported the recovery of almost 2.6 million troy ounces of silver from government scrap film and film-developing chemicals. The value of the recovered silver was $54 million for the year.
Donations of personal property that originally cost $340 million benefited small-town to big-time public and nonprofit recipients in 1980 that might otherwise have had to do without. A high school marching band in Iowa
received gold-braided uniforms once worn by the Secret Service uniformed police at the White House. Several museums were given space-age artifacts from NASA moon- and planet-exploring projects. Louisiana was the recipient of a backup power system for the State Capitol. The Northampton, Mass., school system acquired a computer that helps deaf children learn to speak.
Finally, personal property items that couldn’t practically be used by federal groups or eligible donees were sold to the highest public bidder. For the third consecutive year, FPRS sales receipts in 1980 set records. About $61 million was collected from over 1,000 public sales, and receipts were 65 percent greater than in 1979. Sales overhead was kept to a minimum, and every $1 spent by the sales program returned $17 to government coffers. Of special note was the auction of 3,200 lease-expired cars, wagons, and vans from the federal fleet for $5.7 million, or substantially more than the residual value.
A special sale: silver and history
A two-stage sale, planned and managed by FPRS, dispersed the last uncirculated silver dollars held by the U.S. Treasury to the American public. The 978,107 coins were minted in Carson City, Nev., between 1878 and 1893.
Cost avoidance by personal property rehabilitation
Replacement costs
Rehabilitation payments
100 Bi
0
1975
I
1976
I I I I
1977	1978	1979	1980
18
Fiscal years
Fiscal
years
Sales receipts from surplus personal property
1976	1977	1978	1979	1980
After vehicles are examined (see the first page of this section), cars and trucks are auctioned singly. A sales item is indicated by a marker held by a GSA employee (right), buyers hold up identity numbers to bid (left), and the auctioneer and his assistants note and record bids and winners. Vehicles may be worn or outmoded ones from the federal fleet or have been federally confiscated.
In the first stage the bulk of the coins (923,000) was offered at fixed prices of $45 to $65 per silver dollar. An order processing center was arranged in San Francisco, Calif. Later, 54,820 numismatically more valuable coins were offered to the highest bidders by mail.
When all bids and orders were in and filled or returned to the sender, sales revenue topped $62 million. This was the single most successful coin sale held by GSA, which in the 1970s sold 1.9 million similar silver dollars.
Operating the National Defense Stockpile
FPRS buys, sells, and maintains critical and strategic materials for the National Defense Stockpile according to the policy decisions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Fiscal year 1980 activities concentrated on dispersing unneeded materials. Sixteen commodities, in quantities worth $49.2 million, were sold. Major disposals were in tungsten, industrial diamonds, industrial diamond crushing bort, and vegetable tannins. The proceeds went to the National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund for future acquisitions. No appropriation from the transaction fund was authorized to purchase commodities this year.
More disposals are planned for 1981 from the stockpile’s 92 commodities in holdings worth $14 billion. Currently, 34 commodities are stored in quantities greater than necessary while 45 others are deficient in quantity.
Better storage and packing of the present inventory were emphasized also. Stocks at more than 100 locations across the country were inspected for good security (holdings in opium alone are worth $30 million), protection against deterioration for such goods as cordage fibersand thorium nitrate, and prevention of environmental contamination.
FPRS also sold surplus raw materials, such as mercury, for other federal agencies in 1980. Sales of gold for the U.S. Treasury were worth $759.5 million.
The Public Buildings Service
Efficiency of operation and energy conservation were the twin goals with which the Public Buildings Service (PBS) entered the 1980s. Managers adopted some fresh approaches to building planning, contracting, and construction. They also set new objectives for energy use and instituted construction and retrofit programs to meet them.
Planning for excellence
In constructing the efficient building of the future, the first planning step will be carefully choosing specific objectives. Together with budget, square footage, and other standard factors, architect/engineers will consider these objectives as the basis for design development. Once a building is complete, a postoccupancy evaluation will assess how well objectives were met and may suggest future design changes.
To support its design and construction program, PBS began automating its storage, editing, and retrieval of construction specifications. In 1981 the new system will be fully operational with telecommunication links in all GSA regions except the National Capital Region.
At the budget development stage, PBS adopted a “capitalized income approach” for all projects budgeted after October 1980. This means that investment budget is determined, in part, by a building’s income-generating ability. Projects begun before October, including buildings in Springfield, Mass., and Savannah, Ga., will be used to test the approach.
GSA building maintenance employees (left) clean the Treaty Room in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House; GSA staff (right) close blinds and draw drapes for summer energy conservation.
Contract and construction management
The first step in the management of construction contracts is scrutiny under the new PBS contract clearance system. Negotiated prime contracts of $250,000 or more and modifications to contracts of $100,000 or more are reviewed before award. The review checks conformance with laws, regulations, and sound business practices and allows PBS to evaluate its own contracting proceduresand the performance of its contracting officers. During fiscal 1980—the first full program year—207 contracts were examined, of which 41 were rejected.
Contract clearance helped identify further training requirements for officers. In 1980 about 1,100 received training in construction, lease, and service contracts; contract law and terminations; and contract negotiation.
PBS in 1980 dropped its nine-year-old construction management program. In it, a PBS manager oversaw all phases of
a building project from budgeting through contracting to final inspection. A project could require 10 or more separate contracts.
Most future construction awards will be the result of lump-sum, general construction bids. Projects that must be phased will be limited to four stages: demolition, foundation, superstructure, and finishes.
Pioneering in energy savings
As the federal landlord and the fourth largest federal energy consumer, GSA knows that planning buildings and managing space for efficient energy use is important. Its direct cost for utilities in fiscal 1980 was $171 million. A pioneer in energy conservation and new technology for office buildings, PBS in the mid-seventies constructed demonstration buildings in Manchester, N.H., and Saginaw, Mich. Manchester, analyzed in 1980, uses 30 to 50 percent less energy than similar buildings in the same environment. In
21
the past five years, 15 other buildings have been designed for energy efficiency and are completed or in construction. They will avoid more than $600,000 annually in energy costs.
During 1980, PBS reduced energy allowances for construction to 25,000 to 35,000 Btu’s (British thermal units) per square foot, depending upon the site, climate, and occupancy. For buildings begun between 1974 and 1979, the target was 55,000 Btu’s.
For existing federal buildings, planning began for installing 123 solar energy systems for heat and domestic hot water. They will be financed with a $4 million grant from the Department of Energy and are expected to save 17 million Btu’s per year. Retrofit engineering surveys were begun to identify further energy-saving possibilities.
New energy performance standards were developed by PBS for leased space. Prospective lessors were required to provide energy-use data for evaluation for all buildings under construction and for existing buildings of 30,000 or more square feet.
Together, these new strategies should substantially supplement the energy savings GSA already has made. Energy use in GSA-controlled buildings in fiscal 1979 was down to 45 trillion Btu’s from 61 trillion in 1973 despite expanded space. Average annual savings equaled 2.8 million barrels of oil.
Construction outlook
In fiscal 1980, GSA received congressional approval of 62 prospectuses, valued at over $1.9 billion, to provide federal working space through new construction, lease construction, and leasing (approvals in 1979 were only $173 million). The bulk of the 1980 approvals ($1.5 billion) was for leasing.
Under proposed legislation, often called the “Moynihan Bill,” more construction would be undertaken by GSA to reduce leasing. GSA would borrow construction funds from the U.S. Treasury and repay with interest over 30 years. In the past GSA used a variety of financing methods. Federal space was also bought by “lease construction” when a contractor built to federal specifications with his own fundsand leased the completed building on a long-term contract. As a result of the latter, the annual federal rent bill has climbed to $680 million.
The proposed legislation also would require long-range project planning. PBS annually would show Congress its plans for construction and maintenance and its progress toward placing 75 percent of all federal workers in government-owned space within 20 years.
The “Moynihan Bill” was not approved by the Congress in 1980, but it is expected to be back on the agenda
in 1981. If passed, it could mean a multibillion dollar program for new construction and repairs and alterations over the next two decades.
Construction progress
Buildings completed in 1980 included the $85.8 million Social Security Administration offices in Baltimore, Md.; a $3.9 million federal office building in Carbonale, III., with solar collectors
Skylight of the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., as seen from the uppermost of nine stories of hallway arcades. Much of the interior was restored in 1980.
Percentages of government-owned buildings in year ranges
1974- 1969-1964- 1959- 1954- 1949- 1944- 1939- 1934-1929- 1924- 1923
79	73	68	63	58	53	48	43	38	33	28 or
Year construction completed	earlier
22
and other energy-efficient features; the $70 million Social Security Administration computer center in Woodlawn, Md.; the $51 million Richard B. Russell Federal Building and Courthouse in Atlanta, Ga.; and the $24.7 million Strom Thurmond Federal Building and Courthouse in Columbia, S.C.
Design contracts were awarded for federal office buildings in San Jose, Calif., and Savannah, Ga., and for renovation of the U.S. Custom House on New York City’s Bowling Green. The design for a federal building in Miami, Fla., was completed. A construction contract was awarded and ground broken for the new federal building and courthouse in Springfield, Mass., and a lease-construction contract was awarded for a federal office building in Providence, R.l.
Preserving our architectural heritage
A contrasting construction and retrofit program renovates and preserves old federal buildings of architectural note. Since such historic buildings are usually in central cities—sometimes decaying, often deserted at night—their rejuvenation adds a second benefit. The modern office space plus the shops and restaurants added under the Cooperative Use Act of 1976 are an economic stimulus both during and after business hours.
The beauty of the original design emerges as workmen plaster ceiling and restore fine moldings of Washington’s Old Post Office. Where the
molding was severely decomposed, a base of metal lath or mesh was attached and new molding constructed to match the old.
GSA-controlled space, government-owned and leased
300“*
250 —
1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981
estimated
23
Years
interior views of the Pension Building in Washington, D.C., whose restoration was approved by Congress this year. Columned central court (left) is surrounded by two floors of arcade walkways and two of balconies open-
ing onto office space. The central hall is visible (above) through the railing of the fourth floor balcony. Plastic sheeting and net under the roof stops leaks and falling roofing.
Major renovations in progress are the old post offices in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Mo., and the Custom House in New York City. A new project—restoration and renovation of the Pension Building in Washington, D.C., was approved by Congress this year.
The most extensive renovation underway is that of the Federal Triangle, a complex of federal buildings stretching over nine blocks and bordered by the Capital’s two most famous avenues, Pennsylvania and Constitution. The originally planned Triangle was never completed, and its most recent component—the Federal Trade Commission building—dates from 1937-38.
In January PBS contracted for design of a master plan to complete the Triangle. By July the contractor had presented a half dozen concepts for blending office, retail/commercial, landscaped, and public space. A final plan is expected in the summer of 1981.
Protection, convenience, art—and fun
The security and protection of federal employees and visitors is the job of the Federal Protective Service of PBS. In 1980 it instituted a crime awareness and prevention program based on a 24 new mandatory, standardized, nation-
wide reporting system. Now the Protective Service can identify crime trends and patterns and alert workers for their self-protection.
The Protective Service provided security at Cuban refugee processing centers at Ft. Chaffee, Ark., Ft. McCoy, Wis., Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa., and Ft. Allen, Puerto Rico. The 650 officers assigned were drawn from all GSA regions, and many were members of the highly trained SORT (specialized operations response teams).
Another segment of PBS oversaw a large retrofit program to make federal buildings more accessible to the handicapped by installing self-opening doors, wheelchair ramps and curb crossings, lowered drinking fountains, and wheelchair-wide restroom doors and stalls. A third group wrote and supervised the adoption of new temporary federal building accessibility standards. A final version will be issued in 1 981 in harmony with the guidelines of the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board.
The handicapped not only use and work in federal buildings, they are a major supplier of such conveniences as snack bar and cafeteria service and help keep buildings clean and in good repair inside and out.
Federal Protective Officers remove demonstrators blocking the Pentagon’s mall entrance during an antinuclear demonstration.
Maintenance and custodial services worth nearly $6 million were performed by the handicapped in 1980, and 11 new contracts for similar duties, worth more than $2 million, were awarded under the provisions of the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act. To encourage still more contracting with the handicapped, GSA published a guide to the Act and its opportunities and distributed it to managers of workshops for the handicapped and to federal procurement agents. And to better manage existing operations, PBS began instituting an automated custodial management system to record requirements and project workloads.
Under the Randolph-Sheppard Act, PBS continued agreements with the blind for operation of over 500 snack bars in federal buildings. As a result of negotiations in 1980, 13 blind-operated cafeterias were added to the four already open.
To complement the architecture of new or renovated federal buildings— and enliven the eyes of visitors and workers—18 new artworks were installed in lobbies, courtyards, and public plazas under the continuing Art-in-Architecture program. All works were by contemporary American artists.
Early in the year, 100 studies, maquettes, paintings, and drawings of Art-in-Architecture works, in the design and proposal stage, were transferred from GSA to the National Museum of American Art, formerly the National Collection of Fine Arts, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. These small-scale preliminary renditions of and studies for finished art of monumental size were on exhibit at the National Museum throughout the summer and then went on tour across the country.
In addition to permanent art, local temporary art exhibits plus cultural, recreational, and educational activities were accommodated in public portions of federal buildings and selected rooms and auditoriums under the ‘Living Buildings’ program. Since 1979, when the program began, 12,000 events have been hosted on federal property at little or no cost to local groups. This year, special arrangements were made to house traveling exhibits from the Smithsonian in midsize and smaller cities where otherwise they would not have been accessible to the public.
Professional federal employee (upper left) uses new sink in a restroom retrofitted for handicapped workers and visitors; at the headquarters of the Department of Justice, a worker exits through self-opening doors. Visitors to the National Museum of American art view early studies (below) for Mark Di Suvero’s Motu Viget, now on the lawn of the Grand Rapids, Mich., federal building and for (bottom) William Goodman’s Solirio at the federal building in Las Cruces, N. Mex.
25
The
Transportation and Public Utilities Service
Pentagon employees arrive in a van operated under the federal ridesharing program. Clerk (opposite) of TPUS’ Transportation Audits Division examines charges on vouchers.
Energy—paid for as fuel for cars or trucks, gas or electricity for public buildings, heavy freight haulage, or rail or air tickets—is a major federal expense each year. Since 1979, the Transportation and Public Utilities Service (TPUS) of GSA (formerly part of the Federal Supply Service of the same agency) has kept tight rein on energy costs by:
• Setting and administering policies, such as centralized driver credit card control for the 440,000 cars, wagons, vans, and trucks of the federal fleet.
•	Operating the 90,000-vehicle Interagency Motor Pool in a fuel-efficient manner.
•	Auditing freight and transportation bills for mistakes and overcharges.
•	Negotiating and contracting for special discounts on air and rail fares and
Savings at the pump
The GSA Interagency Motor Pool— which operates shuttlesand radio dispatch cars and “rents” cars to federal travelers—built in savings at the pump when it bought 15,000 fuel-efficient vehicles in fiscal 1980. Of these, 7,900 were compact and subcompact cars with ratings of 25 to 30 miles per gallon. Many were equipped with manual transmissions for driving economy. Simultaneously, the pool sold many of its larger cars and wagons with big fuel appetites.
To further reduce gasoline consumption, the pool set a goal of 10 percent use of gasohol instead of gasoline, and TPUS federal fleet managers encouraged other federal agencies to push gasohol use in their vehicles. In a
GSA-National Park Service experiment in the Curecanti National Recreation Area in Colorado, the Park Service fueled all its vehicles, boats, and maintenance equipment with a gasohol mixture 25 percent alcohol instead of the usual 10 percent. A 25-percent mixture of alcohol, if it proves practical in use, could save 1.8 million gallons of gasoline a year. If all motor pool vehicles used a 10-percent blend, 725,000 gallons of gasoline could be saved yearly.
Savings by drivers and riders
To alert and train drivers, motor pools posted signs reading “Check Tires— Inflate to Maximum Pressure” on gas pumps and in maintenance shops. Sunvisor sleeves were printed with reminders to obey speed limits, accelerate smoothly, and anticipate traffic flow. Selected pool drivers began a special training program in vehicles equipped to show immediately the relation of fuel use to driving practice.
All federal employees were the target of another TPUS conservation effort: the development and implementation of a federal ridesharing program. Groundwork was laid in 1980 with the appointment of a coordinator for each
hotel/motel rates for federal travelers. • Purchasing utility services for federal use at the lowest possible rates by negotiation of contracts and, when necessary, representing the U.S. Government as a consumer in rate proceedings before regulatory agencies.
This year a new TPUS section, the Office of Automotive Management, was transferred from the Federal Supply Service. It will procure or set the rules for federal procurements of vehicles, accessories, and parts. Emphasis will be on acquiring fuelefficient, long-lasting vehicles at the best market time and price.
Sunvisor sleeve is in use on all GSA motor pool vehicles and available to the fleets of other agencies.
A federal traveler signs for his specially scheduled airline ticket office (SATO) discounted ticket at a Washington, D.C., operated by a commercial carrier.
received responsible offers from four carriers covering 11 city pairs. Six-month contracts were awarded in May for service beginning J uly 1. Savings for the contract period were $5.4 million.
A second solicitation for service between 102 city pairs was issued in September for the period January-June 1981 and brought responsive offers from 10 carriers covering 47 city pairs. The resulting contracts, which provided discounts up to 60 percent of regular coach fare, were expected to save another $12 million.
June marked the completion of another money-saving travel plan—mandatory use of Amtrak metroliner coach service by federal employees traveling between Washington and New York City unless other transport proved less costly. The TPUS-negotiated 20-percent discount saved the U.S. Treasury some $1.8 million.
federal agency and a subcoordinator for each worksite. A publicity campaign encouraged maximum use of car pools, van pools, and public transportation.
Agency coordinatorswill periodically report rider figures and publicity to TPUS during 1981. TPUS-run training sessions are scheduled for subcoordinators on the administration of ridesharing and on van acquisition by ridesharers. The backbone of the workshops will be the just-published TPUS
manual, Ridesharing Management Handbook for Federal Employees.
Cut-rate federal travel
Whether they traveled by plane or train, many federal employees went at reduced ratesand stayed in discounted hotel rooms at their destinations, thanks to TPUS negotiating power.
In February TPUS solicited bids from airlines for reduced air fares for federal travelers between 17 pairs of cities and
TPUS also negotiated discounts of 15 to 20 percent at 41 hotels and motels in the 13 southeastern cities most visited by federal travelers. This pilot program was so successful-with projected savings of over $1 million in the first year—it will be expanded nationwide. A TPUS-published federal travel directory for the southeast lists hotel/ motel locations and rates, airports and transportation to them, airline and car rental names and telephone numbers,
Motor pool vehicles, miles driven
Station wagons
Standard cars
Compacts
Subcompacts
400
300
200
100 —
500^

1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
28
Years
GSA motor pool radio dispatch cars receive periodic maintenance for top fuel efficiency under heavy use.
and city maps. A national directory will be issued in 1981.
Relocation entitlements
For federal travel of a more permanent nature—relocating an employee and his or her family when it is in the government’s interest to do so—TPUS is reviewing moving allowances to bring them more into line with those in industry. Recommendations being coordinated with the offices of Personnel Management and Management and Budget could affect reimbursements for movers fees, hotel/motel or other temporary housing charges, and house hunting and house selling expenses.
Audits yield paybacks
Fiscal 1980 was the fifth year in which GSA audited governmentwide transportation charges. It received 3.6 mil-
lion transportation bills for nearly $1.6 billion. Of these, 755,000 were audited, and over 61,000 overcharge notices were issued for a total of $12.25 million. TPUS also processed 5,961 claims against the government totaling nearly $3.7 million and allowed about $2.4 million in payments.
Better control of claims by and against the government should result from an automated transportation accounts receivable and payable system implemented in 1980.
Cost-effective utilities management
TPUS avoided spending an estimated $5.6 million tax dollars in fiscal 1980 by negotiating or approving 41 public utilities contracts, either for individual federal agencies or areawide. Among the 41 were contracts that resulted in:
•	A $2.4-million, one-time saving for the Department of Energy’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in West Hackberry, La.
•	An annual savings of $1.9 million through an area wide 10-percent discount from a northern Virginia utility company for large civilian installations. • A $345,400 annual reduction from a District of Columbia utility for a GSA heating plant.
TPUS estimates that an additional $100,000 was saved for each areawide agreement by the elimination of paperwork and administrative procedures by individual utilities users.
TPUS saved more federal utility dollars by representing the government as a consumer before utility ratemaking and regulatory bodies (except for telecommunications). Testimony by TPUS personnel resulted in a 1980 cost avoidance of $7.7 million.
TPUS staff also testified in rate-dispute cases that resulted from auditing utility bills. A 1980 example involved alleged overcharges of $155,150 and is pending before the appropriate regulatory commission.
Motor pool vehicles, miles per gallon
Station wagons
Standard cars
Compacts
Subcompacts
1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980
Years
29
The
Automated Data and Telecommunications Services
The Automated Data and Telecommunications Service (ADTS)—with federal responsibilities for procuring and managing these functions and the necessary support equipment and software-restructured itself in 1980 for streamlined action. Procurement and support were centralized in the Office of Program Management; the technical aspects of planning and research were consolidated in the Office of Systems Engineering; and the Office of Governmentwide Management took over policy development and the nontechnical aspects of planning, research sponsorship, and evaluation.
To pass maximum benefit of its reorganization to its clients, ADTS simplified procurement and management regulations. For example, it devised a short, optional version of agency requests to GSA for independent purchase that will be on trial for a year. During this period, agencies also can competitively purchase equipment valued up to $500,000 (instead of the previous $300,000 limit) without GSA approval.
More independence in agency purchases was backstopped by the agency liaison officer program, which assigned senior GSA analysts to help selected agencies evaluate technology and understand regulations. Assignments in 1980 included the Department of the Interior, the Air Force, and the Social Security Administration.
A telephone specialist in Atlanta, Ga., expedites services, accounting, and improvements to ADTS clients for the Federal Telecommunications System (FTS).
New responsibilities
Before word processorsand photocomposers reached their present computerized complexity, they were procured through the Federal Supply Service of GSA. In mid-1979, responsibility was transferred to ADTS, which made its first purchases in fiscal 1980. For word processing equipment alone, the ADTS cost avoidance was $15.9 million.
ADTS also began operating the Federal Procurement Data Center, formerly in the Department of Defense, for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. The Center monitors federal spending by collecting quarterly data on purchases of less than $10,000 and on contracts exceeding $175,000.
In May, ADTS formed the Office of Software Development and assigned it the task of reducing the almost $3 million a year spent by federal agencies on software. Simultaneously, it should upgrade the services obtained for the dollars spent. Upgrading is urgent because federal software costs have more than doubled over the last seven years while the sophistication of the product has fallen far behind industry standards and federal requirements.
The software office established three corrective approaches:
•	Improving existing software systems and spreading the use of those proved efficient.
•	Discovering and testing useful new software systems and converting them for federal programs.
•	Developing new software programs that are efficient, easy to maintain, and adaptable to a variety of equipment.
In the Office of Software Development, the Federal Conversion Support Center offers federal clients software conversion planning and procurement services. The Federal Compiler Testing Center, another segment, helps computer firms selling to the government to meet the Federal Information Processing Standards. A third segment publishes the Federal Software Exchange Catalog,
Protecting data and equipment
ADTS wrote new security regulations for all federal data processing and telecommunications centers, whether operated by GSA or another agency. They became effective in August and included procedures for protection of data from unauthorized disclosure, insuring adequate climate control for computers, correct placement of smoke detectors for fire safety, countermeasures in emergencies or natural disasters, the designation of security officers, analyzing the risk at a particular installation, and scheduling facility security audits and inspections.
Data processing services
As the federal data processing manager, ADTS contracts for such services as systems analysis and programming, data entry, computer output microfilming, and equipment maintenance on behalf of other federal agencies. They used, on a reimbursable basis, $27 million worth in 1980, for a cost avoidance of nearly $4.3 million.
31
Remote computer services from private companies, a special category, were furnished through the teleprocessing services program. During fiscal 1980, the net value of services delivered was $85 million under multiple award schedule contracts with 47 firms and an estimated $100 million under basic agreements with 92 companies. Cost avoidance under the schedule contracts was calculated at $50 million annually. Major awards under the basic agreements included an $8.5 million contract to support Army recruitment and enlistment that is expected to save about $24 million, or 75 percent of what was previously paid for comparable service over the life of the contract.
Agencies with limited data processing requirements avoided costs through the ADTS sharing program. Sharing exchanges at each GSA regional office matched one agency’s needs with another’s excess computer capacity— anywhere in the country. Since sharing began in 1972, some $1.73 billion in data processing costs have been avoided, including about $264 million in 1980 alone.
ADTS also bought, through the Automated Data Processing (ADP) Fund which it manages, about $1 million worth of equipment for leaseback to agencies. The purchases, because of special terms, meant a cost avoidance of $300,000.
In Atlanta in the FTS system, a telephone operator (left) offers assistance; a COMCEN operator forwards a message (upper right); and a computer technician teleprocesses data.
The Federal Telecommunications System
Federal managers talk to each other and send data messages on the Federal Telecommunications System (FTS). It links every federal department, agency, board, and commission in the country, and in fiscal 1980 transmitted 234 million long-distance calls at half the expense per commercial call.
One cost-pairing factor was the competitive purchase of FTS equipment from private companies and its hookup to the government network. Purchases have included teiphone instruments, switching equipment, operator services, cabling, and maintenance.
ADTS completed its first major competitive purchase of FTS transmission facilities from a tariff carrier (such as a local telephone company) in 1980 for $5.1 million. It provided 192 satellite circuits between Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, Calif., and an option for 120 more over 10 years. If the option were exercised, the total cost would be $24 million, or $15 million less than for equal circuit quantity under the old agreement with a regulated utility.
The Advanced Record System (ARS) of FTS enables federal agencies to exchange data and written messages rapidly and economically through 1,800 stations in the 50 States and Puerto Rico. Large federal facilities with heavy message flow may have exclusive use of an ARS station; smaller groups share at Federal Communications Centers (COMCENs). Located in all GSA regional headquarters and 80 other cities, Centers offer message, facsimile, and data transmissions; telegram and international cablegram service; and secure traffic to military and civilian terminals.
The Federal Secure Telephone System was adopted in 1980 to serve civilian agencies and succeeded the pilot Executive Secure Voice Network. It is interoperable with other secure voice systems, such as those of the Department of Defense.
Emphasis on energy conservation has multiplied federal use of another FTS service-teleconferencing. Some 6,000 teleconferences were held in 1980 compared with 1,886 five years earlier.
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National Capital Region and regions 6 and 9. Center planners, engineers, and technicians designed and assembled, installed, and maintained new communications facilities. At 21 field offices, technicians ran parts depots and offered quick troubleshooting and repair service. They also maintained systems and equipment, distributed new hardware, and trained personnel in operation and routine maintenance.
Management information systems
Capability where it counts: emergency communications
ADTS responded to 23 national disasters and emergencies in 1980 with voice and/or data lines and equipment as quickly as overnight. Communication linkup started the flow of emergency workers and supplies to where they were needed and enabled the Federal Emergency Management Agency to direct actions effectively.
The single largest effort of the year was in Washington after the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Other major communications support was for Cuban and Haitian refugee relocation centers and temporary camps near Miami and Key West, Fla., and at Ft. Chaffee, Ark., Ft. McCoy, Wis., and Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa. At the refugee centers, telecommunications for transmitting data to and from offices of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service was of special importance.
Emergency—and secure—telecommunications received technical aid through the Electronic Service Centers in the
FEMA photo FEMA emergency operator coordinates information on damage and victims after Hurricane Allen in Texas using special voice access lines and electronics supplied by ADTS.
ADTS continued its management information systems on automated data equipment held by federal agencies and that equipment’s use. Inventory was by location, purchase price, manufacturer, system, central processing unit, and peripheral equipment. At the end of fiscal year 1980, the total was 15,142 computers and 292,683 pieces of peripheral equipment valued at about $5.6 billion. Federal agencies and the public were provided with 698 system information retrievals. Data were also published in two annual volumes, Automatic Data Processing Equipment Inventory and Automatic Data Processing Activities Summary.
A second inventory listed circuits and equipment used for data, record, and facsimile communications. At the year’s end, the count was 1,919 telecommunications systems with 35,087 circuits and 49,765 pieces of equipment. During 1980, 300 retrievals were provided.
Cost avoidance through FTS intercity service
Fiscal years
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The
National Archives and Records
Service
The National Archives and Records Service (NARS) charted a new course during the year. Under the direction of a new Archivist of the United States, it reorganized its administration to cope better with growing holdings, increased demand from users, the preservation of archival materials, and the challenge of new technologies. All these changes were instituted to improve the care and the availability of the valuable records of the United States.
Under the reorganization, an office of program development was established to study and improve basic archive processes such as appraisal, arrangement, description, and preservation. The office will assess current and potential applications of modern technology to NARS records storage, preservation, and information retrieval.
Planning for preservation and protection
Preservation planning will be supported by the new Archives Advisory Committee on Preservation. The 18 members are experts on the safekeeping and restoration of paper, magnetic tape, film, and other materials.
Materials preservation will be further aided by a preservation officer to coordinate policies and serve as liaison between NARS and professional organizations.
Citizens follow transcripts of Nixon White House tapes while listening at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. By the year end, 13,000 persons had heard portions of the 12% hours of tapes made public.
A major preservation challenge emerged from a survey of the nation’s oldest paper records—those prior to 1821. NARS found some 15,000 cubic feet of pre-1821 records scattered through 60 record groups in eight record repositories. All are considered intrinsically valuable due to age, rarity, and association with the nation’s birth. Preservation and/or restoration cost would be roughly $17 million.
A Paper Preservation Task Force completed the first in a series of studies to establish priorities for preservation of NARS holdings.
To bolster protection of its valuable holdings, NARS appointed a security and safety officer. Job responsibilities range from checking the efficiency of fire and intrusion alarm systems through accountability for records and the control of keys to restricted areas for particularly valuable documents.
Technician and modern microfilm camera reproduce an early patent drawing for copying and distribution.
Microfilm: touchstone to document access, storage control
Preserving paper documents in compact form on microfilm reached a new high with some 2.3 million images processed in fiscal year 1980 at a cost of $590,000.
Because of the copying program, many records will be more widely available for reference. Further, preserved original documents will be spared excessive handling and deterioration. As a bonus, expensive storage space will be emptied when microfilm copies replace bulky original documents of no innate value.
Lower reference costs may result as well as wider records availability. Multiple copies of microfilm can be made conveniently and widely dispersed and then quickly and cheaply retrieved for researchers. This year,
interlibrary loans of microfilm— previously made in the 11 regional archives maintained by NARS around the country—were consolidated in the branch at Fort Worth, Texas. Central loan of copies cut costs and is expected to cut customer waiting time. Each of the other regional archives branches kept one copy of the basic microfilm file for use by on-site researchers.
One major audiovisual copying project, a two-year program to transfer 6.4 million feet of chemically unstable nitrate motion pictures onto safety film, was completed during the year and another begun. The second was
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a similar transfer for 2.2 million frames of the earliest U.S. aerial survey. It was taken from 1934 through 1942 for crop estimates and agricultural planning and included 85 percent of the American landscape. The conversion, at same size, will be useful to geologists, geographers, archaeologists, historians, and landuse planners.
Enhancing archival collections
Many valuable records were accessioned by NARS during the year, including the records of the President’s Commission on Three Mile Island. This probe of the malfunction of the Pennsylvania nuclear-fueled power plant and its impact on the locality was immediately in demand after being received. Researchers included former commission staff members, regulatory agencies, the counsel for the power utility that runs the plant, journalists, and foreign governments.
Ten thousand photographs from another presidential commission, this one on the coal industry, were added to the audiovisual archives. The photos were taken to document improvements in the coal mining industry and in miners’ living conditions.
A third major accession was the collection of records of the Ervin Committee’s Senate investigation of Watergate.
Broadening collection accessibility
Public use of the collections of the National Archives continued to increase in 1980 with 2.8 million reference requests being serviced in Washington, D.C., and 11 regional archives. Requests were made by letter, telephone, and visit. There were 200,000 research visits to the main building, 49,800 to the regions.
Visitor attendance at the main building’s Exhibition Hall was up 190,000 to 870,000, partly because of a major exhibition of photography called “The American Image.” These pictures documenting America’s past were culled from NARS collections. Attendance was swelled, too, by smaller displays such as “The All-American Sport: Baseball as Business,” “An Afro-American Album,” and “Stars and Gripes Forever,” an amusing documentary on the federal bureaucracy. Plans are being formulated to send “The American Image” on a two-year national tour.
Reaching out with publications
Books published by the Archives made collections more widely known and used. This year the United States and the Soviet Union jointly issued the first major collection of documents on the early history of the relations between America and Russia. The period covers 1765-1815. Included are such items as correspondence
between Thomas Jefferson and the Csar Alexander I and a letter from Catherine the Great of Russia to George III declining to lend him troops for use against the American colonies.
Other publications were a conference volume on the history of American women, volumes four and five of the Guide-Index to Military Operations of the Civil War, and a’28-page booklet reproducing the drawings of black artist Charles Alston.
A NARS affiliate, the National Historical Publicationsand Records Commission, made grants totaling $4 million in 1980 to assist public and private institutions in preserving, arranging, describing, and publishing documents important to the study of U.S. history. All were matching or cost sharing.
Preserving and presenting presidential collections
Presidential library accessions in fiscal 1980 included some 1.6 million manuscript pages, 12,000 still photographs, 143,000 feet of motion pictures, and 3,100 objects. This brought the holdings of the six operating presidential libraries, the soon-to-open Ford Library and Ford Museum, and the Nixon presidential materials project to over 170 million pages, 1.7 million photographs, 11 million feet of film, and 150,000 objects.
NARS records storage, administrative and historical
Administrative records
Historical records
■■■■■■■■I
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Fiscal years
References performed by the Federal Records Centers
 C
Years
Bolstered by the new John F. Kennedy Library, attendance at the library museums totaled 1.7 million for 1980. The Kennedy Library drew more than 600,000 visitors and researchers in its first full year of operation. The 10-year total for the system now stands at 14 million people. The libraries furnished 216,000 items upon request by researchers, responded to 16,000 written and 38,000 oral inquiries, furnished 539,000 reproductions of documents, and received 7,066 visits by scholars.
Coping with paper pileup
As more federal agencies realized how much money could be saved by having NARS microfilm their records, the copying program grew to 18 million images in 1980 at the 15 Federal Records Centers. The savings came after the information was captured on film, when many of the original bulky documents (such as computer printouts of highway safety statistics from the Department of Transportation) were discarded. Two large projects, paid for by Germany and Japan, involved duplicating records captured by the United States during World War II.
Although Center microfilming had the highest volume yet in 1980, even greater output is expected in 1981.
Meanwhile, almost 1.4 million cubic feet of documents were transferred from other file rooms to the Federal Records Centers for federal storage. Only half as much was eliminated. Many documents that would normally have been discarded were kept as possible evidence in federal legal disputes so that Center holdings swelled to a record 14.3 million cubic feet.
1976	1977	1978	1979	1980
Since many of the records stored are active ones, staff were kept busy responding to 18 million Internal Revenue Service requests for reference service compared to the previous year’s total of 16 million. General reference requests (for old census records, property plats, and military rolls, for example) fell slightly to 4.7 million.
Taming governmentese for print
The federal regulations, determinations, and procedures published in the Federal Register each day and the yearly Code of Federal Regulations may affect large or small businesses, consumer groups, or the general public. Often, though, the wording and terminology make regulations hard for citizens—and even government executives— to find and understand.
To help Register users find regulations affecting them, the Register staff wrote the Federal Register Thesaurus of Terms, and all regulation-writing groups must now identify major topics and categories using the standard vocabulary defined in the Terms. Not only will readers find Register and Code indexes easier to use, but computer-assisted editing, publishing, and text-retrieval systems will be easier to apply to Register operations.
To improve the quality of the more than half million pages of directives that federal officials send each other annually, the NARS Office of Records and Information Management published a Directives Management SelfInspection Guide. A. planned companion volume, Forms Analysis and Design, should aid efficient data collection.
Automating the federal information flow
Another project of the Office of Records and Information Management is automating the use of data gathered by forms, once workable standard terms and units are chosen. The project is a joint one with the U.S. Department of Labor and, if it is successful, may lighten the burden of data solicitation from the public by eliminating duplication.
In a pioneering study, NARS surveyed 45 already existing government automation systems to determine the impact of records and information technology on productivity. The systems included word processing (electronic typewriting), data processing and transmission, electronic mail, and information storage and retrieval. Next, NARS set up a “clearinghouse” to share study results with other federal agencies. Then it selected several of the systems for an in-depth study. Rationale, cost, and performance will be identified and such elements as design, installation, and productivity will be assessed. At the end of the two-year project, guidelines on the cost-effectiveness of automation will be issued and widely disseminated.
Records center researcher examines log and account books to separate valuable from disposable items.
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Annual energy use in GSA-operated buildings as percent of 1973 requirements (61.2 billion Btu’s)
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The Regions and their Operations
The policies and priorities established at headquarters become realities in the agency’s 11 regions. In 1980 programs were carried out with more autonomy than ever before during the first full calendar year of regional responsibility and accountability for all operational matters.
Authority to implement programs now flows directly from the GSA administrator to the regional administrators, freeing the national staff for long-range planning and program development. Regional administrators prepare their own budgets and operating plans and, consequently, are accountable for expenditures and for the quality of service to GSA customers.
As purveyors of services, the 11 regions have many common denominators. They all construct, maintain, and protect public buildings; they supervise the re-use of excess and surplus federal property by transfer, donation, and sale; they operate sharing exchanges to match agencies’ data processing needs with available computers; and they provide for federal travel and transporation.
Certain regions have special functions. Region 2 processes all procurements of paper products and office supplies and bought 183 million envelopes for the Census Bureau this year. Region 7 did the preliminary planning and specifications by which 45,000 items of office furniture and supplies were packed into 409 Census office kits by GSA distribution points around the country. Region 10 packages and ships all the plywood purchased by GSA, while Region 5 does the same for packaging materials. Region 6 stores all civilian personnel records and military personnel and medical files.
Part of each region’s mission is shaped by its unique geography and climate. For example, northeastern and midwestern Regions 1 and 5 continued to monitor the energy efficiency of their solar and environmental demonstration buildings, while regions on the Gulf Coast once again responded to hurricane emergencies.
One priority knew no regional boundaries in 1980: across-the-board energy conservation. New buildings, like the terraset, or partly earth-covered, addition to the Anchorage, Alaska, federal building, were designed and built for fuel efficiency; old ones—123 around the country—were examined for fitting with solar collectors under a $4 million Department of Energy grant. At one building in a mountainous area, the cooling system was shut off and all the windows opened for a 25-percent reduction from the previous year’s electricity consumption.
Conservation extended to vehicles as well as buildings. Motor pools obtained additional fuel-efficient vehicles and many cut down on the number of miles driven. (One region reported 4.6 million fewer miles driven.) Some began fueling with gasohol, and all will follow suit in 1981. Drivers started training for efficient driving habits, and car- and van-pooling was encouraged nationwide through the federal facilities ridesharing program.
These and many more special achievements of the GSA regions during 1980 are outlined on the following pages.
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National Capital Region
District of Columbia and nearby Maryland and Virginia
Located at the hub of federal activity, the National Capital Region (NCR) supervises more space than any other GSA region—151 federally owned buildings and 29.3 million square feet of leased space costing $13.5 million per month. It also has the biggest single interagency motor pool at nearly 2,600 vehicles.
One of its highest priorities in 1980 was energy conservation in buildings operation and vehicle use.
Energy improvements and savings
Two multifuel boilers were installed in Washington’s central heating plant, serving more than a hundred federal buildings. They primarily burn pulverized coal, which is readily available in this country, instead of scarce and expensive heating oil. A mix of coal and pelletized refuse also is being investigated as fuel.
To emphasize the role of employees in trimming federal fuel bills, the region dispatched energy “police” to tour federal buildings after hours, turn off lights and machines, and draw drapes and blinds. They also “ticketed” offenders. Repeated carelessness was reported to high-level supervisors.
To save gasoline, the Washington motor pool increased the efficiency of its fleet almost 50 percent in the past three years. By acquiring fuel efficient vehicles and training for energy-saving driving, miles per gallon climbed from about 8!6 to 1216 for autos, trucks, and vans. Some 1,200 pool drivers went to energy conservation awareness courses.
To encourage employees to conserve gasoline off the job, regional staff are developing a computerized vanpool directory, or matching service, as part of the federal facilities ridesharing program. An individual Washington commuter could save up to $800 a year by joining a car- or vanpool.
Avoiding unneeded expenses
NCR sought dollar savings in 1980 as well as energy savings. More efficient use of personal property and data processing avoided much needless expenditure.
GSA buildings maintenance crew conducts routine check of the 32-panel solar collector atop the West Wing of the
White House.
The regional staff of FPRS spent $10 million to rehabilitate personal property items, largely furniture and office machines, that would have cost $160 million to replace. Another $61.2 million worth of property no longer needed by some federal agencies was transferred to others, and some $50.4 million in surplus property was donated to state and local nonprofit public health, safety, and educational institutions. Surplus property offered for public sale returned $5.2 million to the U.S. Treasury.
Regional ADTS projects implemented in 1980 are expected to avoid costs of almost $4 million over the next five years. Minicomputers, installed for the U.S. Customs Service, could shave $900,000 from Customs communications network costs. A more secure facsimile transmission facility will save the Department of Energy more than $200,000 in its worklife by transmitting more images in less time while requiring fewer operators.
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At NCRs giant West Heating Plant (left to right): technicians check control panel and adjust a valve controlling steam flow; pipes carry steam to federal buildings; and in a tunnel leading steam pipes from plant, foreman inspects progress in insulating pipes for energy conservation.
NCR Business Service Center staff counsels small and minority firms on federal contract opportunities.
Completing the Federal Triangle
The biggest federal architectural project in the country is in the heart of Washington, D.C., on a 70-acre site known as the Federal Triangle. It would complete the Triangle, originally designed in the late twenties. Development was halted in the late thirties by the Depression and the prospect of war in Europe. The original Triangle was designed to pull together scattered elements of the federal government into a harmonious complex of new buildings in the then-popular classical revival style.
GSA is now considering six proposed master plans for completing the Triangle. In all, a restored Old Post Office will be an integral part. Ironically, it was slated for demolition by the Tri-angle’s original planners, who considered its Richardson romanesque styling and stately clocktower out of character with their classical theme.
Restoration began in 1978. Under a repaired skylight and a new slate roof, this year the interior partitioning was rehabilitated or removed, modern heating and cooling systems installed, and elegant moldings and other interior furbishings restored. When fully rehabilitated, the Old Post Office will house federal tenants, and space on lower floors will be leased to restaurants and shops to enliven the federal enclave at nights and on weekends as well as during the workday.
Concern for health, safety
With mounting concern over the possible health and environmental hazards posed by the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) used as transformer coolants, NCR developed a program to safeguard GSA employees who maintain transformers. The program includes physical examinations, additional protective clothing, and extensive training in work procedures and in the hazards of handling dangerous chemicals.
To upgrade security in federal buildings, the regional Federal Protective Service of PBS initiated a corps of detectives. During the year they made 48 arrests and recovered $60,000 worth of stolen federal government property.
A slant toward small business
The region’s Business Service Center monitored over 1,400 bid openings and counseled over 30,000 small, minority, and women-owned businesses in 1980 on federal contracting opportunities.
Through the GSA procurement preference program, the NCR awarded nearly $150 million worth of business to small, disadvantaged, and women-owned firms during 1980.
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Region One
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire Rhode Island Vermont
Located in the energy-deficient Northeast, Region 1 this year cut energy consumption in its 24 largest buildings by 6.5 percent and by 39 percent compared to the base year 1973.
Building and testing for energy savings
The Norris Cotton Federal Building in Manchester, N.H., is a major contributor to this record. Completed in 1976, it was the first federal energy demonstration project—a specially designed and constructed building incorporating special insulation, passive and active solar heating, and other sophisticated energy-saving approaches. A computerized network of 900 sensors tested the new approaches and measured that energy-efficient design is feasible and cost-effective. In 1980, the sensor net showed that the building exceeded by only 3 percent its design energy-consumption goal of 55,000 British thermal units (Btu’s) per square foot per year in a climate where the low-average consumption for office buildings is 200,000 Btu’s.
Though most federal buildings hold offices, industrial structures also are candidates for energy savings. Region 1 PBS architect/engineers began to plan a hybrid solar system for an Internal Revenue Service records center—a warehouse with limited office space. The project is funded by the Department of Energy and will add a translucent passive solar wall adjacent to an existing masonry wall, which will act as a heat collector. Fans will move
warm air from the masonry wall to the office space and help cut the use of electric heaters.
A small building already under construction, the U.S. Border Station at Kent, Me., includes a solar collector that will provide much of the hot water needed for washrooms and cleaning. Completion is expected early in 1981.
In October, ground was broken for the Springfield, Mass., federal building, which will house offices for congressional staff, the Social Security Administration, the Veterans Administration, the Justice and Defense departments, the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. District Court. Completion of the building, designed for energy efficiency, is expected in 1982.
Energy conservation also means adapting existing structures, such as the Hartford, Conn., post office, to modern efficiency and uses. Constructed in 1933, the building had an open postal workroom (nearly 37,000 square feet) no longer needed for manual mail sorting. During renovation completed this year, the workroom was converted to office space for the Internal Revenue Service, and the original windows were replaced with more energy-efficient ones or with insulated panels. The lobby’s original art deco marble and aluminum ornamentation was carefully restored.
Saving fuel and freight
A new training program was begun by Region 1 TPUS to increase the fuelefficiency awareness of local government drivers, who utilize a fleet of 3,100 vehicles. Since the program began, 450 federal drivers have attended 20 courses; and twice as many are expected to be trained next year. Region 1 estimates that the program now saves 33,738 gallons of gasoline a year.
Region 1 took advantage of the deregulation of the trucking industry by instituting widely advertised and bid contracts for the annual transport of 1,250 tons of freight. Shipments range from truckloads of office furniture to combined small packages of wiping rags and power tools. Three of the winning bids were submitted by small businesses and one by a minority firm. Contracts are expected to save $70,000 in fiscal 1980 alone.
Recycling real property
To get the most from valuable real estate no longer federally needed, Region 1 FPRS supervised transfers, sales, and donations. The transfers
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Local, state, and federal officials (left), plus the bishop of Springfield, Mass., break ground for that city’s new, energy-efficient federal building.
Naval Auxiliary Landing Field, Charlestown, R.l. (right) will become wildlife sanctuary; Quonset Point Naval Air Station (below), same state, sold for $13.4 million.
saved U.S. taxpayers the cost of new properties for federal use, and the sales returned millions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury. The donations saved local tax monies by giving to local groups land or buildings they would otherwise have had to pay for.
Some examples were:
•	The transfer of a portion of the Naval Auxiliary Landing Field in Charlestown, R.L, to the Department of the Interior for wildlife and migratory birds.
•	The sale of 1,033 acres of the Quonset Point Naval Air Station, North Kingston, R.L, to private interests. This netted the U.S. Treasury $13.4 million.
•	The donation of 292 acres of the same Quonset Point to the State of Rhode Island for recreational, educational, highway, and public health uses.
•	The donation of 600 acres from the Newport, R.L, Naval Station to the state. This included Prudence Island, which will be developed for public use as a camp and picnic ground with biking and hiking trails and will become part of the Narraganset Bay Island Park System.
Recycling personal property
By transferring used items from one federal agency to another instead of buying new ones, Region 1 saved $5.6 million. Cost-avoidance transfers in 1980 included cafeteria and kitchen equipment from a Veterans Administration hospital to a Naval Air Station and 46 salon chairs and hair dryers from a Navy Exchange to Job Corps training centers in Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
Other used items were rehabilitated such as 13,232 pieces of office furniture. The cost to customers was $325,927, or an average of $24 per piece—a considerable savings compared to the replacement cost
GSA also donated surplus personal property worth $22.5 million for use by city, county, and state agencies and nonprofit organizations. For example, Mechanic Falls, Me., received a road grader; the New Hampshire State Mental Hospital acquired a dumpster and refuse truck; and the Washington Academy in Maine received a 28-foot boat to be refitted by vocational students and later used in other courses.
Serving customer agencies
Region 1 NARS conducted two paperwork projects which will affect antipoverty programs nationwide. The first was development and field testing of a grantee program management system for use by the Community Services Administration. The system defines the responsibilities which state and local community action agencies have for supervising federal grants: multiyear planning, program development, grant application, and performance monitoring. The other was the preparation of technical manuals for paperwork, records-keeping, and client tracking for the Department of Labor in administering the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).
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Region Two
New Jersey
New York
Puerto Rico
Virgin Islands
Careful management of present federal resources plus expert analysis of proposed purchases had priority for Region 2 during the year.
An outstanding illustration of the latter was provided by the Region 2 FSS. When the Bureau of the Census requested 183 million envelopes for its local mailings, FSS procurement ex-
perts found they would cost about $5 million. They suggested changes in envelope and packaging specifications to better tune them to industry capabilities and, as a result, bought the envelopes for $3.5 million.
Waste-watching pays off
While procurement review saved millions of dollars, tens of millions were conserved by resource management.
For example, during fiscal 1980, more than 9,000 tires were retreaded, avoiding the consumption of 150,000 gallons of oil needed to manufacture new
ones.
At GSA supply distribution depot in Belle Meade, N.J., workmen strap pipe into bundles for shipment to customer.
PBS construction engineer (right) and construction supervisors look over renovation plans for federal property on New York City’s Varick Street. The warehouse will be converted to office space at a cost of $25 million.
Two Job Corps Centers caught by the freeze on furniture purchases were provided with over 225 pieces discarded from other groups, some of which were rehabilitated under a GSA contract. A total of 444 Operation Clean Sweep surveys yielded 5,949 furniture items, of which 4,439 were transferred to agencies for further use.
Another $7 million that would have otherwise been wasted was returned to the government through sales of scrap medical X-ray film from the Veterans Administration for recovery of its silver content. Almost $5.8 million more came from the sale of gold and silver melting and refining sweeps from the Bureau of the Mint.
Transfers of excess federal property in the region ranged from the exotic to the everyday and saved more money. For example, a weather satellite with an original cost of nearly $8.5 million and reported excess by the International Communications Agency was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution for exhibit. Thirty tons of coal and 18,861 gallons of contaminated fuel oil were transferred to the Department of Energy for use in its research programs. And nearly $400,000 in clothing and shoes were channeled to prisons, Job Corps Centers, and state surplus property agencies.
Donations to state and local nonprofit organizations included: automated data processing equipment with an original value of $358,000 to a Puerto Rican university for use in developing a comprehensive English/Spanish management information system; specialized vehicles for road paving, mobile laboratories, prison patrol, and a state university traveling theater; coal for a steam locomotive in a state park; and a boat for lake patrol and rescue work.
Tightening up on space
Further economies were realized by cutting GSA operations space. The supply depot in Bayonne, N.J., was
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closed and its functions transferred to Belle Meade in the same state with savings estimated at $875,500 the first year and over $1 million annually afterward. An old quality assurance laboratory was traded for a more modern one half the size for $60,000 in annual savings.
Surplus federal real estate worth $9 million was transferred by donation or sale. This included donation of 643 acres of Ramey Air Force Base to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for park and recreational use; negotiated sale of 7.7 improved acres of the St George Coast Guard Base in Staten Island to New York City for a ferry repair facility; negotiated exchange with Nassau County, N.Y., of 1.73 improved acres of the former Mitchell Air Force Base for six acres of unimproved land for use by the U.S. Navy; and public sale of 20 improved acres of the GSA depot in Hillsboro, N.J.
Disposal procedures are underway for the Army Pictorial Center (Astoria Studios) in Queens, N.Y. Its 5.14 acres include the largest film production studio in the East The property will be transferred to New York City, and— through lease and sublease—will be developed for commercial film and television production. This arrangement is expected to yield millions in revenue for the city.
Main stage of the Army Pictorial Center (Astoria Studios) in Queens, N.Y., is largest outside Hollywood.
Artist Alex Katz’ oil-on-canvas mural depicting the varied ethnic makeup of American society was hung in June at New York’s Foley Square Courthouse Annex.
Currency and checks from Region 2 customers went into an account in a minority-owned bank—the first to be utilized by any GSA region. Deposits in the Banco de Ponce in New York City for fiscal 1980 totaled nearly $33.5 million. This included the region’s receipts from biweekly sales of surplus industrial diamonds, nearly $6.3 million for fiscal 1980 and another $4 million in just the first nine days of fiscal 1981.
Landlord for 64,000 workers
GSA operates 130 government-owned buildings that house 27,663 Region 2 federal employees. Another 36,000 are accommodated in space provided under 440 leases. Future construction and renovation should transfer some of these to federal space.
The Center has 15 buildings on four parcels of land comprising more than five acres.
Planning for a $93 million office building in Jamaica, N.Y., for the Social Security Administration began in 1980 with the goal of awarding an architect/ engineer contract in 1981. A $13-million contract began the $25 million, warehouse-to-office conversion on Varick Street in New York City, and a $1.1 million contract was awarded under the small business (8a) program for the first stage of modernizing the Veterans Administration Building in Newark, N.J. An architect/engineer was selected to design the restoration of the Old Custom House on Manhattan’s Bowling Green.
Other short cuts to savings
Region 2 ADTS conducted a marketing campaign to encourage federal employees to shorten long-distance calls on the
Federal Telecommunications System so more calls could be handled without further capital investment After extensive advance warning, the length of calls on the largest exchange in the region were surveyed over a five-month period. The result: all 15 agencies involved reduced the average length of long-distance calls. In hopesof making this accomplishment permanent, the length of phone calls will be a factor in billing agencies in fiscal 1982.
Region 2 NARS, by its word-processing improvement study for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, showed that
agency how to save more than $600,000 annually. Another NARS record management study at New York City’s Department of Sanitation Medical Clinic could save $300,000 a year while reducing the administrative burden.
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Region Three
Delaware
Pennsylvania
Maryland and Virginia (except near the District of Columbia)
West Virginia
Region 3 completed its first full year since its headquarters was moved to Philadelphia following the designation of the Washington, D.C., area as the National Capital Region (NCR). Region 3 serves the industrialized and populous mid-Atlantic states plus West Virginia and has a business volume second only to that of NCR.
Innovative organization
The new region was organized to test a pattern of three major components, plus a centralized administrative office instead of the traditional six GSA services.
A real property office maintains the comfort and safety of federal buildings, leases space, and manages new construction and repairs. The personal property office supplies federal agencies with office supplies and equipment, transportation services, telecommunications devices and services, and data processing services and equipment. It oversees property management operations and federal archives and records centers. The third group, a contracting office, executes the planning of the first two and applies uniform contracting policies and procedures and intensified contract administration.
An office of administration centralizes budget, management, and other support responsibilities for all three of the above, eliminating duplication, improving control and use of resources, and reducing costs.
Surplus federal vehicle is spruced up by federal motor pool mechanics before public auction. An investment in cleaning, polishing, and minor repairs swells sales earnings for the selling agency of the government by more than $ 100 a car or truck.
Procedures for operation were disseminated to field offices by administrative review and assistance teams. Team members explained new policies, methods, and controls, helped purge files and update records, and identified areas where training was needed. A separate team of managerial accountants trained and assisted program managers in financial decisionmaking, including lifecycle costing analysis of potential procurements.
No break in service or savings
Necessary administrative and personnel shifts were coordinated by a task force to ensure GSA services in the five-state area continued without a pause.
Supply distribution facilities at Middle River, Md., and Norfolk, Va., shipped over 160,000 line items worth nearly $46 million to federal customers. Service and leasing contracts totaled $28.1 million and were largely with small business firms. The region had no commodity purchasing assignments during the year.
About 90 Operation Clean Sweep visits to federal agencies revealed 4,953 pieces of stored, excess furniture in usable condition; its transfer to other offices will save $500,000 over comparable new furniture. Property management seminars for federal employees aimed at reducing office furniture and equipment expenditures by 50 percent annually.
Another cleanup campaign that yielded dividends was the pre-sale sprucing up of surplus federal vehicles. Cars and trucks were groomed by washing, removing decals, vacuuming, steam cleaning engines, removing dents and scratches, and replacing tires, batteries, and badly worn parts. Cleanings cost an average of $35 per vehicle but enhanced the sale price by an estimated $150.
Regional transportation specialists negotiated rock-bottom moving charges for seven federal groups during the year. Additionally, they saved GSA’s National Archives and Records Service $350,000 by obtaining special freight rates for moving 325,380 cubic feet of records from the Federal Records Center in Mechanicsburg, Pa., to centers in Dayton, Ohio, and Seattle, Wash.
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In a special savings campaign, federal employees in Philadelphia who tried to make commercial long-distance telephone calls in 1980 were greeted with a recorded message telling them to use the Federal Telecommunications System (FTS), which can cut cost by as much as half. Toll restriction in Philadelphia saved $25,000 a month and will be extended to other regional cities in 1981.
Philadelphia’s Business Service Center counseled over 3,300 businesses interested in selling goods and services to the government. The Center participated in 15 procurement opportunity conferences where additional group and individual counseling was provided. The Center conducted 77 bid openings and safeguarded nearly 400 bids.
The GSA ‘Living Buildings’ program, encouraged free or low-cost off-hour use of federal space by communities. The Baltimore George H. Fallon build-
ing accommodated several annual ethnic festivals; Philadelphia’s William J. Green building housed shows by area artists;
Special missions
All segments of Region 3 channeled and the"federal building in Elkins, W.Va., support services to the Cuban and Hai-was the setting for pet shows, special Olympic awards, crime prevention exhibits, and Memorial Day ceremonies.
Federal Protective Service officers arrive at scene of a dispute among Cuban refugees at Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa.
More sun, less gas
Energy conservation efforts were applied to both buildings and vehicles. For buildings, 14 solar projects for domestic hot water were identified for design in 1981 and construction by the end of fiscal 1982. An energy conservation study neared completion for the U.S. Custom House in Philadelphia, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Employees at the Elkins, W. Va., federal building used mountain breezes instead of air conditioning to keep cool last summer; they opened their windows and trimmed the electric bill by 25 percent.
The region’s seven motor pools (nearly 8,000 vehicles) drove 4 percent more miles but used 10 percent less fuel than in 1979 owing to greater use of compact and subcompact vehicles. The result was 454,165 gallons of gas saved, or enough to drive a car around the world 24 times.
tian refugee processing center at Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa. Regional personnel installed telephone lines and equipment, designed a toll-free telephone network for use in relocating refugees,
and prepared a telephone directory for federal workers detailed to the center; provided excess furniture and other goods; provided 82 cars and trucks for
federal use at the Gap; organized internal security; and arranged for the purchase of $9 million worth of needed supplies.
In another special project, a building at Curtis Bay, Md., where polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are held, was improved to exceed Environmental Protection Agency standards for storage of this toxic substance—used as a coolant in electrical transformers—until it can be safely destroyed. Modifications included four extra inches of concrete on the floor and a 12-inch earth berm, sealed with impervious epoxy, around the outside walls.
Days drag on (above) for two of the 20,000 refugees at Ft. Indiantown Gap; Red Cross volunteer (below) leads an English class.
Red Cross photo.
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Region Four
Alabama
Florida Georgia Kentucky Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee
While continuing its normal management and support functions, Region 4 expedited key systems and resources to Florida to cope with the 1980 flood of Cuban and Haitian refugees. Over $8.2 million was authorized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for use by GSA.
Refugee supplies and services provided at Key West and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., included:
•	Commercial property leases and in-terfederal agreements for space for offices and immediate, short-term refugee accommodations. Later, mobile homes were rented or bought for refugee housing.
•	Janitorial, utilities, trash pickup, guard, and construction and repair services for space in use.
•	Food and food services, medical supplies, linen and linen services, and refrigeration.
•	Telephones, transportation of operating personnel and refugees, and other administrative support.
In Miami, GSA acquired the City Center Building with 26,400 square feet of space for the Immigration and Naturalization Service for processing refugees. Its facilities enabled data to be gathered from about 500 newly arrived Cubans a day.
For automated data and telecommunications support, the GSA Tennessee area manager was assigned to Miami from May through October. The manager quickly arranged for over 300 emergency telephones, extensive data communications service, and specialized communications and data circuits for FEMA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Department of State.
FEMA photo GSA with pillows, medicines, and other necessities. Next stop: processing centers and new homes.
First stop for many Cuban refugees in Florida: an airplane hangar at Key
West Naval Air Station furnished by
Other GSA personnel obtained 12,160 packages of food rations for FEMA, 1,800 hospital beds with mattresses and adapters, large quantities of clothing and furniture, and two serum refrigerators.
Over 500 bus and air charters procured by the region moved more than 70,000 refugees. Buses shuttled Cubans and Haitians in the Key West and Miami areas; planes and/or buses carried them from Key West and Miami to processing centers at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Ft. Chaffee, Ark., and Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa.
During the year GSA also supported FEMA programs for victims of Hurricane Frederick in Alabama and Mississippi, floods in central Mississippi and the Gulf Coast, and floods in Kentucky by supplying more than 3,000 kits of household necessities, such as dishes and utensils, and a lesser quantity of furniture.
Short-lining travel costs
The first special discount hotel and motel rates for federal travelers within the United States were negotiated by Region 4 TPUS staff and went into effect in midyear. By the year’s end the new Region 4 rates, 15 to 20 percent below commercial ones, had avoided about $1 million in travel expenses.
In another innovation, the same group instituted centralized airline ticket buying for federal travelers out of Atlanta, Ga. While eight days of advance reservation time was required for administration, the savings was nearly $1.6 million for the year.
Data centers, old and new
While GSA’s Interagency Data Systems Facility in Huntsville, Ala., continued providing thrifty automated data processing technical support to other federal activities, a new data complex and services became available at Macon, Ga.
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The new Federal Data Processing Center, operated by the Office of Personnel Management and funded by GSA, has state-of-the-art equipment and programs for modern speed and reliability. GSA’s Remote Access Multi-User System (RAMUS) subscribers will be transferred to it.
Revenue to the GSA-supervised Automated Data Processing Fund for 1980 from Huntsville was over $9 million.
The working environment
An illustration of GSA concern for the community affected by a new federal building was the contract awarded, because of local interest in history and preservation, for archeological research on the site selected for a $21 million structure in one of the oldest sections of downtown Savannah, Ga. Working under the contract, archeologists and helpers discovered foundation parts of small shops and removed them for study and preservation.
Meanwhile, a competition was held for the award of a design contract for the structure. An Atlanta firm was selected, and a design is underway. Demolition of old buildings on the site began in late 1980 with construction expected to begin in 1981.
Preservation of still-standing history— Union Station in Nashville, Tenn.—for public and federal office use was halted early in the year by infectious pigeon droppings. At the year’s end and three-quarters of a million dollars later, the droppings were decontaminated. A design contract is expected to be awarded early in 1981. The completed design will govern approximately $7 million worth of rehabilitation, renovation, and partial restoration.
The Richard B. Russell Federal Building and Courthouse was completed and dedicated in 1980. Federal executive and judicial groups, previously scattered across Atlanta, were provided convenient, central offices.
Existing buildings were altered for expanded workspace or energy conservation. To accommodate new courts and judges and their staffs, GSA skilled
Exterior arches and wrought iron railings of Nashville’s Union Station, slated for renovation.
workers closely supervised temporary labor to reshape buildings in Miami, Fla., Montgomery, Ala., and Atlanta, Ga. GSA professionals defined criteria for contracts for the purchase and installation of 19 solar collectors for supplying domestic hot water. Contracts will be awarded in 1981 and funded by the Department of Energy.
New and older structures served the public, as well as federal workers, under the ‘Living Buildings’ program. Lobbies, auditoriums, or other suitable spaces were used for little or no charge by local educational, recreational, and cultural groups. In 1980, Region 4 buildings accommodated 272 ‘Living Buildings’ events, of which the following are a sampling.
A benefit ball with concert, dinner, and dancing was staged in the Charleston, S.C.,\Custom House, built in\ 1876. Over 400 guests attended, and profits went to the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.
An exhibit on the life and accomplishments of black educator Mary McLeod Bethune, a native South Carolinian, was viewed by about 6,500 people in the lobby of another Charleston federal building.
Two plays were given in the Russell Building auditorium in Atlanta by a local group, Kraal el-Shair.
Five noontime big band jazz concerts were presented by the Neighborhood Arts Ensemble on the plaza of the same building.
The recent works of four local artists were displayed for a week in a conference room in the Miami, Fla., federal building.
Spreading the benefit from federal property
In 1980 the Ft. Valley, Ga., Utilities Commission received a 3,000 kilowatt electrical generator, valued at $200,000, as a donation of surplus federal personal property through the Region 4 FPRS. The generator is expected to save Ft. Valley about $100,000 a year.
About $8.8 million worth of real property no longer needed by federal agencies was redistributed by FPRS. Of this, $2 million went to other federal agencies for continued federal use; over $5.7 million was donated to state and local governments for recreational and educational purposes or for public highways or airports. The remainder was sold to the public.
An outstanding example of a combination of sales, donations to local groups, and transfers to federal users for the economic benefit of the community was the disposal of the former Naval Air Station in Albany, Ga., completed in 1980. The city of Albany received electrical, water, and sewer facilities plus over 300 acres of parkland; the Dougherty County Board of Education was assigned garages, warehouses, and transport facilities; and 65 acres were transferred to the Job Corps, U.S. Department of Labor. The bulk of the land, however, was sold to private developers and converted to industrial facilities such as a mammoth brewery (one of the largest in the world) and a peanut butter processing plant. The brewery alone will employ over 1,400 people when in full operation.
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Region Five
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Ohio
Wisconsin
In a year of national GSA emphasis on improved contract management, Region 5 FSS developed a pilot certification program for quality assurance specialists. It requires five years of direct-application experience plus 300 hours of coursework and is being adapted for nationwide GSA application.
The program planners utilized years of Region 5 FSS experience in inspecting approximately $325 million worth of commodity purchases annually and in testing products in the Region 5 Testing and Analysis Laboratory. The laboratory performs about 4,500 individual tests a year on samples of paper and paper products, plastic bags, and packaging materials such as fiberboard boxes. The region spends $30 million annually to meet its nationwide paper procurement responsibility.
A contrasting FSS emphasis was encouraging its federal clients to use older office furniture. First, under the national Operation Clean Sweep, it located 5,500 pieces of furniture, identified them, and readied items for reissue. Potential savings are estimated at $681,000. Second, FSS property managers began seminars explaining the advantages of reusing furniture and supplemented the explanations with a van displaying rehabilitated items.
Region 5 Operation Clean Sweep coordinator and local officials inspect some of the 136 surplus filing cabinets found in a single facility. Other items retrieved from the same location were:
Recycling assets and tax dollars
GSA recycles real estate and many other types of personal property as well as furniture. During the year, 35 pieces of real property valued at $8.1 million changed hands. Among these were the last portion of Kincheloe Air Force Base in Michigan’s upper peninsula, 1,200 housing units on 400 acres, bought by a California developer who is renovating and selling them.
The business acumen of the personal property sales staff earned an extra $239,440 for the government. When 12,000 pounds of surplus titanium were put up for sale, an official noticed that the market was rising rapidly and immediately withdrew the metal from sale until the market stabilized at a much higher price. The sales price was $363,440—three times the original offering.
Housing federal employees
Region 5 PBS continued its operation of the experimental Saginaw federal
128 chairs, 124 desks, 62 drafting tables, 33 other tables, 10 supply cabinets, nine lockers, one safe, and one bookcase.
building, largely operated on solar power and specially insulated for energy conservation. PBS began evaluating the new solar-powered building in Carbondale, III. At the latter, 8,500 square feet of solar collector is expected to supply 75 percent of building energy needs.
For future office space, a contract was awarded for lease-construction of a building in downtown Milwaukee, Wis., to be completed in early 1983. A site was purchased for a planned building in Madison, Wis.
Six older federal buildings were slated for energy alterations by installing solar-heated domestic hot-water systems funded by the Department of Energy. The buildings are in East St. Louis, III., Gary and Jeffersonville, Ind.; Grand Rapids, Mich., and Dayton and Toledo, Ohio.
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Solar collector on the new federal building in Carbondale, III., covers 3,500 square feet and will supply three quarters of the building’s energy.
Members of the National Dance Theater of Denver, Colo., help GSA celebrate Hispanic Heritage Week on the plaza of the Federal Center in Chicago.
An early 1900s federal courthouse in Indianapolis received a free alteration and repair courtesy of a local firm. When a limestone statue at the southeast courthouse entrance lost a hand and forearm to over 70 years of weather and wear, the Indiana firm that had supplied the original stone carved a new arm and hand and sent skilled workers to attach it.
Housing history—and old tax returns
The Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the Ford Museum in Grand Rapids (Ford’s home town) neared completion. A staff of NARS experts moved into the library building in June and began readying, for research and display, 13 million manuscript pages and 700,000 feet of film. In August, a similar staff began classification of the memorabilia of the Ford presidency plus gifts received by the American people during the Bicentennial. The Library and Museum are expected to be dedicated and opened to the public in 1981.
NARS managed less prestigious records at the Chicago Federal Archives and Records Center and at the Dayton Records Center. Dayton stores chiefly administrative records; Chicago houses records and has an archival branch. Both had a heavy traffic of requests.
The Chicago archives supplied historical materials to nearly 3,000 researchers of such subjects as the growth of midwestern railroads, tribal histories of Wisconsin and Michigan Indians, and social reform in Chicago in the early 1900s. The majority of persons, however, consulted microfilmed census, immigration, and naturalization records for genealogical information.
The Chicago records staff interfiled nearly 4 million Social Security Administration cases and answered 350,000 general reference requests.
The Dayton center answered about 60,000 general requests and retrieved from or returned to storage a million Internal Revenue Service case files.
Boarding and lodging, refugee scale
When Ft. McCoy, Wis., was reactivated in May as a processing center for Cuban and Haitian refugees under the supervision of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Region 5 specialists aided its smooth start-up and operation.
Telecommunications experts provided federal voice and data links and equipment plus news wire service lines.
FSS procured and distributed supplies to Ft. McCoy and to Ft. Chaffee, Ark., and Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa., as well. Among items dispensed were bed sheets, pillow cases, mattresses, garbage cans, shaving cream, toothpaste, and paper cups and plates.
PBS Federal Protective Service officers helped maintain safety within the camp and guarded federal employees and property.
When the center, which housed 22,000 refugees in midsummer, closed in September, other PBS and FSS experts surveyed the wear and tear and arranged for returning the facility to its previous condition. Their expertise saved FEMA and U.S. taxpayers $825,000 by rehabilitating furnishings and equipment in 350 buildings, removing fencing and interior partitions, collecting and storing portable guard shacks, removing recreation equipment from parade grounds to storage, removing security lighting, and rehabilitating 10,000 mattresses rather than destroying them.
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Region Six
Iowa Kansas Missouri Nebraska
In addition to meeting regional federal needs, Region 6 performs several national functions for GSA.
The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo., administered by Region 6 NARS since April 1980, housesail inactive Federal civilian personnel records, military personnel and medical files, and many records of the Internal Revenue Service.
The Electronics Training Center in Kansas City, Mo., develops courses offered nationwide on the operation and maintenance of the ADTS-man-aged Federal Secure Telephone System. It trains employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the White House Telecommunications Agency, and the Departments of Defense and State.
Another center in Kansas City, Mo., operated by FSS, procures and manages stocks of sealants, adhesives, and certain tools.
All GSA employees and the staffs of 34 federal commissions are sent checks by the National Payroll Center, Kansas City, Mo.
Providing telecommunications and computer services
During two emergency situations in 1980, Region 6 ADTS personnel were quick to react. After tornadoes swept through Grand Island, Neb., ADTS provided emergency local telecommunications services. (FSS provided supplies and household goods for emergency shelters.) When an outbreak of Newcastle disease threatened the vast Midwest poultry industry, ADTS set up extra communications links with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa.
Support system for solar collector is Center. Solar energy will save 30,000 constructed at the St. Louis Federal gallons of oil annually.
In its normal services to client federal agencies, ADTS devised—for the Department of Health and Human Services—a computer program for use by state and local governments in keeping track of federally funded child support enforcement systems.
To allow U.S. Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard units to engage in computerized war games, special computer services were procured and the necessary worldwide telephone linkups provided.
When the Bureau of Indian Affairs expanded its computerized management information system, a program was developed to train field managers in its use. By using GSA services instead of hiring a consultant, the Bureau saved $100,000.
By pooling maintenance contracts for government-owned computer systems in the St. Louis area, ADTS saved $350,000 in fiscal year 1980 compared to the cost of individual contracts—and service was faster.
Housing federal workers
While two major new federal buildings for Omaha, Neb., and Kansas City, Mo., are in the planning stages, older buildings were prepared by PBS for maximum use.
Factory-type space in six buildings in the St. Louis Federal Center was converted to offices, computer rooms, laboratories, cafeterias, and warehouses at a cost of $22 million. The space is now occupied by the Departments of Agriculture, Army, and Health and Human Services.
Renovation continued in the 1884 St. Louis, Mo., post office to preserve its French Second Empire style and to provide space for the Office of Personnel Management, the Small Business Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and a local congressional staff.
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A renovation design contract for this national historic landmark was awarded in 1978 and a $ 12.8-mil I ion construction contract was awarded in December 1979. When the building reopens in 1982, space on the first floor and in the basement and sub-basement will be leased for commercial development, in accordance with the Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act of 1976.
Saving energy resources
The first solar collector in Region 6 was installed, under PBS supervision, on the Federal Building in Kansas City, Mo. Of the flat-plate variety, the collector is upright on the south wall rather than on the rooftop because of cheaper installation and less possibility of building damage from leaks. The collector and storage system is expected to supply 45 percent of the building’s hot water and to save approximately 105,000 cubic feet of natural gas per year.
A 20,000-square-foot solar collector was completed at the St. Louis Federal Center. It is expected to provide 20 percent of the building’s annual heating and cooling and save 30,000 gallons of fuel oil a year.
The Region 6 interagency motor pools, operated by TPUS, began fueling up on gasohol in January 1980 at Des Moines,
Staff at the Federal Information Center in Des
Moines can be telephoned toll-free from anywhere in Iowa.
Iowa. By the close of the year, eight of nine bulk fuel facilities had gasohol in their storage tanks. Motor pool and other GSA drivers conserved fuel by driving 250,000 miles less than the year before.
Saving money through recycling
Region 6 FPRS handled transfers, donations, and sales in 1980 of property and equipment no longer needed by the original federal purchaser. For example, two sound suites were transferred from the Veterans Administration to the Agency for International Development for use by a Costa Rican scientist studying genetic hearing loss. The Kansas Air National Guard Base, consisting of 20 buildings on 314.2 acres and valued at almost $2 million, was donated to the Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority. Air Force Plant 13 in Wichita, Kans., was sold for $44 million. The sale—which included 573 acres, 69 buildings, and 66,000 pieces of equipment and machinery—was the largest property transaction in the history of GSA.
Rockne Krebs’ “The White Tornado,” created for the atrium of the Federal Building and Courthouse in Topeka, Kans., was dedicated in 1980.
Even what once was thrown away was saved and reused. When 1,932 tons of wastepaper were collected and sold for $62,500 in 1980, the energy savings over manufacturing new paper was about 47.7 billion Btu’s, or British thermal units.
Serving the public
A new wing of the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Mo., opened in 1980. Like the Hoover and Eisenhower presidential libraries, also in Region 6, it is operated by NARS.
Other NARS accomplishments for the year were preserving on microfilm the records of the territorial court of the Dakotas and its attorneys and marshals and arranging the loan of the Emancipation Proclamation from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., for exhibit in Kansas City by the Black Archives of Mid-America.
Another public service arm of GSA, the Federal Information Centers, opened new offices in Des Moines, Iowa, and Topeka, Kans. Region 6 became the first in GSA in which all residents have toll-free telephone access to federal information.
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I
Region Seven
Arkansas
Louisiana
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Texas
An influx of Cuban refugees, the 1980 Census of Population, and six Presidentially declared natural disasters in six months tested the ability of Region 7 to deal with unusual situations while serving its customer agencies.
Softening the blows of disaster and
dislocation
When Ft. Chaffee, Ark., became a relocation center for Cuban refugees in May 1980, Region 7 GSA contributed quick installation of telephones and data communications, day-to-day transportation for relocation workers, and specialists to help organize a supply system. The latter funneled necessities and comforts to 19,000 refugees, the civilian personnel serving them, and the federal reservists and GSA Federal Protective Service officers responsible for camp security and safety.
Soon, $2.4 million worth of items were on the way for use in dining halls, offices, health and welfare programs, janitorial services, and vehicle maintenance. Locally bought goods and services included hauling and moving, charter busing, musical instruments, refrigerators, radios, and parts and equipment for a refugee-run radio station.
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Fires and other disturbances were among the problems facing GSA Federal Protective Officers at the Cuban refugee center, Ft.
Chaffee, Ark.
FEMA and GSA personnel direct installation of telephones and other communications in disaster assistance headquarters in a former Corpus
Hurricane Allen, which hit southern Texas in August, and flooding near Roscoe in northwest Texas in September, brought GSA Region 7 into emergency action again. To cope with the devastation from Hurricane Allen, GSA helped set up headquarters in Corpus Christi, Texas, for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and 11 assistance centers in affected Texas counties. It leased office space and made priority arrangements for office furniture and machines, supplies, janitorial services, telephones, and transportation. By the end of the year, GSA had spent close to $2 million on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Allen with more required in 1981.
Christi department store after Hurricane Allen. A few hours before, GSA had moved in the desks, typewriters, duplicator, and a stock of supplies.
Another $10 million plus went to purchase 1,000 mobile homes for families displaced by natural disasters in the southeastern United States. More than half were dispatched to victims of Hurricane Frederick that pounded the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi in the fall of 1979.
Accommodating federal employees
The almost 60,000 federal workers serving in Region 7 have offices and workspace in buildings that range from the ultramodern—such as the Marfa, Texas, border patrol sector headquarters with solar-powered heating, cooling, and domestic hot water-to the historically significant.
An example of the latter is the U.S. Custom House in New Orleans, for which a $5 million restoration and renovation was completed in the fall. Lobbies, ground floor hallways, stairs, and two large public interior halls were returned to their 19th century appearance by demolishing and removing walls, false ceilings, plumbing, and wiring added since the neo-Egyptian revival building, designed in 1848, was completed in 1883.
Spot bid sale of surplus federal property, including 36 cars, attracted 515 prospective bidders to this Ft. Worth auction.
Original surfaces and architectural and decorative features were then restored. Modernized office space on upper floors is occupied by federal judicial employees and the U.S. Customs Service.
In new construction, a $13.5-million contract was awarded in July for a border station in Laredo, Texas. It should be completed in 1982. Grants totaling $601,000 were awarded by the Department of Energy for the design, construction, and installation of solar domestic hot-water systems in 14 existing buildings.
Stocking the stocktakers
In cooperation with the Bureau of the Census, Region 7 FSS developed a list of office furniture and supplies to stock each of three sizes of temporary offices staffed during the 1980 census. Completed lists were sent to the other GSA regions, along with packing and shipping instructions, including the sizes and types of cartons for each office assembly. In all, 45,000 items of furniture and office supplies were packed into 409 temporary office kits by GSA distribution points across the country.
Recycling federal property
To dispose of real property no longer needed by the original purchaser, GSA oversees transfer, donation, or public sale. In 1980, Region 7 transferred nine properties valued at $11.7 million between government agencies, donated 38 properties worth $3 million to state and local governments or to nonprofit organizations, and sold 39 properties to private interests and returned $914,000 to the U.S. Treasury.
Excess personal property moves in the same pattern. In fiscal year 1980, personal property from typewriters through airplane parts, originally costing $79 million, was transferred. For example, two jumping horses no longer needed by the Army Pentathlon Team, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, will now help patrol the U.S.-Mexican border for the U.S. Customs Service.
Donations of personal property over the same period were worth $48 million. Items included a light airplane from the Department of Agriculture to Cameron Parish, La., for malaria control, 2,800 vehicle tires divided among the region’s five states, and 100 truck engines.
Region 7 sold more than $5 million worth of goods ranging from automobiles to false teeth. Contributing to the record total were 274 leased vehicles at prices above the "blue book” minimum required by the lessor, two helium tank railway cars sold for nearly double their cost, and some 70 cows and 200 hogs auctioned at the federal correctional institute in La Tuna, Texas. The false teeth were sold in a box of unclaimed lost-and-found items, which netted the U.S. Treasury $16.60.
Streamlining information service
Distribution of NARS microfilm publications through the interlibrary loan program was centralized this year in Region 7. Loan waiting time fell sharply and duplicate microfilm rolls were made available to other regional archives for on-the-spot consultation. Region 7 also completed microfilming two major groups of old and fragile, but frequently consulted, records—a hundred volumes of Indian tribal census and annuity rolls, and records for the New Orleans U.S. District Court pertaining to 17th and 18th century Spanish and French land grants. The copies can be used freely by researchers while the originals are preserved from wear.
The NARS Federal Archives and Records Center microfilmed shelf after shelf of Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Coast Guard records, stored the copies, and disposed of the originals to save shelf space. Unlike the tribal and land records, these had little value because of age or origin and only the data on them were worth retaining.
The control and reduction of paperwork while still in federal offices was studied in 16 local federal groups by the NARS Records and Information Division. Its recommendations, if adopted, could save $1 million in a few years. The same group conducted eight workshops in 1980 and trained 150 federal employees in modern paperwork management.
Interior hall of the New Orleans Custom House on Canal Street, renovated by GSA. It once housed U.S. Customs import-export offices.
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Region Eight
Colorado Montana North Dakota South Dakota Utah
Wyoming
The 141,000 federal employees of Region 8—for whom GSA provides supplies, workspace, communications, transportation, and other support—are scattered across the nation’s northern plains and mountains to serve farms, forests, and mines. Distances, climate, and rugged terrain challenge GSA’s provision of that support in an energy-and cost-efficient manner.
Energy-thrifty buildings by design and retrofit
In an area where daytime temperatures may range from 30 below in the winter to over 100 in the summer, building design or retrofit for energy and cost conservation makes good sense.
For example, the Metallurgical Research Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, just completed by Region 8 PBS, incorporates a solar-assisted heat pump system expected to reduce heating and cooling costs by 60 percent. An experimental flat-plate solar collector, being installed by PBS on a Denver Federal Center building for connection to a heat pump, is expected to furnish half the building heat.
Another 14 solar collectors being designed for existing buildings will provide domestic hot water, and one will supply heat and hot water. They are funded by the Department of Energy.
Two buildings in the Denver Federal Center and one in Missoula, Mont., were retrofitted to save energy. Modifications included storm windows, added insulation, reduced window area, heat
Employees at Region 8’s Denver Federal Center gather (above) to kick off Earth Day at a tree-planting event sponsored by GSA and the U.S. Forest Service on April 22. In the left foreground is one of the Center’s three electric vans.
recovery systems, more efficient heating and cooling devices, and more efficient lighting fixtures. Retrofit studies were completed for three buildings in the Denver Federal Center, one in Fargo, N.D., and one in Casper, Wyo.
Buildings management for public use
To improve access for the handicapped, Region 8 awarded $913,000 in contracts for renovation of 13 federal buildings. Modifications include parking facilities, ramps, lowered drinking fountains and public telephones, installation of elevators, wider restroom doors, and raised room numbers and hazard indicators for the visually impaired.
To grace the gates and perimeter of the Denver Federal Center, GSA organized an Earth Day planting of 1,000 seedlings. In addition, it constructed a 1.3-mile outdoor exercise fitness course. Punctuated by 18 activity stations with signs explaining the exercises to be performed at each, the course ends with indoor showers. It will serve federal employees plus the general public through the ‘Living Buildings’ program.
Region 8 administrator (above right) plants the first of 1,000 seedlings on Center grounds. Given by the U.S. Forest Service and the Colorado State Forest Service, they included eastern red cedar, ponderosa pine, Austrian pine, Russian olive, and hackberry.
Energy savings in transportation
Region 8 reduced the miles driven by GSA motor pool vehicles by 11.6 percent and increased the miles per gallon by 18 percent by adopting the following transportation strategies and services.
TPUS counseled federal drivers on fuel conservation and choosing the most direct route.
An electric shuttle bus around the 670-acre Denver Federal Center and to nearby buildings resulted in 18 government-owned vehicles being declared surplus.
An hourly shuttle service linking the Denver Federal Center and the international airport, which serves more than 40,000 federal employees a year, has eliminated many single-passenger airport trips by taxis and government vehicles. The service is operated by a small business.
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Electric vans have replaced three gasoline-powered vehicles in a GSA operational efficiency test for the Department of Energy. Two of the vans are used for routine patrols by the Federal Protective Service around the Denver Federal Center grounds, the third ferries visiting officials and groups on Center tours.
Stretching federal resources
When a federal agency has more buildings or equipment than needed, Region 8 FPRS tries to find another user. In 1980, it transferred goods originally worth $14.9 million between federal agencies. Items included motor vehicles, office furniture and equipment, and electronic testing equipment and components. The local offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs received school supplies comprised of desks, chairs, and pencils and paper; medical supplies for clinics; and dormitory furniture such as beds and chairs.
If no federal recipient is found, an item may be donated to a state or local government or a nonprofit organization. For example, a surplus light plane from David Monson Air Force Base in Arizona was donated to Iron County, Utah, for use in search and rescue operations. The plan’s original cost was $115,000.
Real or personal property neither transferred nor donated is sold. In 1980, sales of goods that originally cost $14.2 million netted $4 million for the U.S. Treasury. This was nearly a third more than in 1979 and was chiefly owing to the largest sale of motor vehicles (some 3,600) in 22 years. Scrap sales at the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations in South Dakota returned an additional $713,000.
Finally, reorganization of GSA facilities in Clearfield, Utah, resulted in eight empty warehouses (973,000 square feet) on 41.8 acres. The parcel was sold for $2.4 million.
Serving the public and customer agencies
The Denver Records Center passed the milestone of its 10 millionth request since it opened in April 1951. Many requests are from the public (especially historians), but the chief Center users are those whose records are in Center storage: the Internal Revenue Service, the Air Force Accounting and Financial Center, the
As national headquarters for GSA wildfire suppression efforts, Region 8, Denver, keeps an inventory of $14 million in firefighting supplies for rapid shipment to fire areas. Here, wildfire
Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Water Resources Service Board, the National Park Service, and the U.S. District Court.
Under the National Wildfire Suppression Program, GSA stockpiled supplies for the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other federal, state, and local firefighting agencies. In fiscal 1980, GSA shipped items worth $2.85 million to active fires. As a backup, a new Wildfire Suppression Equipment and Supplies Catalog was issued. Listed items range from shirts, trousers, and gloves to “weeping” linen hose that doesn’t char when dragged through embers. Further, GSA awarded contracts worth $4 million for chemical fire retardants that also stimulate new vegetation in burn areas.
fighter crews sort through stacks of canteens, blankets, chain saws, and other items to prepare for another day of saving trees, homes, and lives.
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Region Nine
American Samoa Arizona California
Guam Hawaii Nevada
Application of high technology and cost avoidance characterized Region 9 operations during the year.
Advanced data handling
For interagency sharing, Region 9 ADTS staff operated exchanges in San Fran-
cisco, San Diego, Hawaii, and Las Vegas. At one, an agency with a data task beyond its capabilities often could locate a sister group with the equipment, experts, and time to do the job. For example, Agriculture’s Kansas City Computer Center provided the computations for a Social Security Administration project to automate California’s disability insurance claims. In fiscal 1980, Region 9 sharing programs avoided costs of $35 million.
ADTS contracts, awarded on bidding results, provided $5.2 million worth of data services in fiscal 1980. A current contract user is the MX missile construction project. Since the first competitive contracts were awarded in 1977, over 339 tasks have been completed for 56 customers.
ADTS experts helped the Bureau of Indian Affairs develop a management information system. They also negotiated basic agreements with 19 small business firms for data entry services.
Region 9 employee (above) sorts through some of the more than 500,000 orders for Carson City silver dollars received when the Government offered nearly a million of the uncir-
offices would have incurred by finding and contracting with vendors themselves.
Big bucks for Uncle Sam
When the last of the Carson City Silver Dollars was offered for public sale by GSA, on behalf of the U.S. Treasury, the Region 9 FPRS staff was assigned the task of processing orders, acknowledging them and returning flawed or unsuccessful ones, collecting money, mailing coins and receipts to buyers, and accounting for sales returns. Between February, when the sale opened, and September and the final accounting, the staff sold 978,107 coins for more than $62 million and handled over a million pieces of mail.
culated coins for sale to the public. Orders for 1878 through 1893 coins are processed (below) and filled. The sale brought over $62 million to the U.S. Treasury.
Another $2.8 million flowed to the U.S. Treasury through the FPRS-managed sale of 19.4 acres of the former Lexington Defense Housing Project to Long Beach, Calif. The city will convey the land to a competitively selected private developer for commercial/indus-trial use to bring new jobs and economic stimulus to the community. Any windfall profits from the re-conveyance, owing to development plans, would go to the U.S. Treasury.
A specialty of Region 9—matching aircraft and aircraft parts no longer needed in their original federal functions with new governmental uses—saved a minimum of $22.8 million as counted by purchase cost.
By the close of 1980, the basic agreements had yielded $700,000 worth of services at a fraction of the overhead
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Shares in FSS contract dollars
Another federal savings of $1.5 million resulted when FPRS transferred 26 boxcars from the Naval Weapons Station in Concord, Calif., to the Alaska Railroad, where they now haul building materials, general supplies, and groceries.
Second ownership benefits communities, research
A former San Francisco federal building, through the management of FPRS, has a second career—housing 300 students of the Hastings Law College, University of California. A $7.3 million federal loan provided capital for purchase and renovation.
A cluster of second uses was planned for the former Hamilton Air Force Base in Marin County. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was to receive major acreage for conservation studies. The California Department of Education was scheduled for 15 acres for an elementary school. Another 66 acres was designated for a city park. The city of Novato was to have bought 435 acres for eventual resale for private development, and enough land and runway were to be held for 5 years to accommodate a civil airport if one were approved. However, in December a federal judge halted any action pending trial of a state agency’s suit challenging federal ownership of the land.
Women-owned businesses — $3 million
Other $24.7 million
Blind and handicapped workshops $12.2 million
areas
$40 million
Small
businesses
$42 million
Labor surplus
Meanwhile, 73 secondhand aircraft, of which 33 were flightworthy, were donated to state and other groups when they no longer suited federal requirements. Of those approved for flight, 25 went to law enforcement and civil defense networks and eight for mosquito control. Of the nonflight craft, 23 were donated for vocational training and 17 were shipped to museums.
Other noteworthy donations were: • A collection of northern California grasses and shrubs from the U.S. Forest Service to the California Academy of Sciences.
•	300 worn railroad rails, in 20-foot lengths, from the Naval Weapons Station, Concord, Calif., to Safford, Ariz., for structural use in flood control.
•	Four electrical generators from the Department of Defense to an irrigation district in Arizona for experimental use in a local power grid. The generators will be fueled by methane gas from manure.
•	A marine radar training simulator from the Maritime Administration to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. • A fish counter from the Bureau of Reclamation to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Supplies and services
When brush fires went out of control in southern California in the fall and firefighters flew in from across the nation, Region 9 FSS rushed them tools, chemicals, and other equipment. When the fires were out, FSS counted 411 types of items supplied at an inventory value of more than $1 million.
The total value of supplies obtained by FSS in 1980 was $122.5 million, of which $40.6 million represented contracts to firms in labor surplus areas, $42 million to small businesses, $3 million to women-owned firms, and $12.2 million to workshops for the handicapped and blind. Goods that weren’t shipped directly to clients were held in facilities in Stockton, Calif., and Hawaii.
Ideas and analyses were supplied as well as materials. For example, Region 9 NARS staff completed nine studies and offered 86 recommendations on office automation and information management. Clients ranged from the Nevada Gaming Control Board to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The latter saved so much money following NARS recommendations they extended the study to their offices in the rest of the country.
As a public service, the San Francisco Federal Information Center installed a special teletypewriter on a dialed telephone line. The deaf and hearing-impaired with suitable home equipment can now “talk” directly to the Center about federal problems.
Employee at San Francisco’s Federal Information Center uses new teletypewriter to answer an inquiry from a hearing-impaired caller with compatible home equipment.
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io
Region Ten
Alaska Idaho Oregon Washington
When Mt. Saint Helens erupted disastrously in May, Region 10’s supply and service personnel gave priority to the support of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) efforts in Washington and Idaho. Within 48 hours, space for a disaster control center had been rented in Vancouver, Wash., furnished, and made operational with telephones and other equipment for a staff of 80 to 100. Other FEMA centers were organized in Longview and Spokane, Wash., and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. GSA provided aid to state and local centers in Moses Lake, Ritzville, and Yakima, Wash.
Altogether, goods and services worth more than $1 million were procured for FEMA. Specific items included 700,000 face masks for $400,000 to prevent inhaling volcanic ash; for evacuees, furniture and household kits (blankets, pots, dishes, and tableware) worth $115,000; telephones, computer terminals, and associated equipment for $75,000; office space, furniture, equipment, and supplies for $120,000; charters of aircraft for $15,000; security services for $18,000; and printing, mailing, and photographic services for $300,000.
At the Moses Lake Federal Center in Washington, right, far right, and below: the ash ejected by Mt. Saint Helens darkens sky; footprints mark entrance to emergency shelter for stranded motorists; ash piles shoveled, swept, and hauled in wheelbarrows to corners of Center parking lot await removal by truck.
agencies included backhoe loaders, mobile homes, office furniture and machines, fire hoses, C-rations, surgical masks, a variety of heavy equipment, and anchors and wire rope for dredgers working on the Columbia River.
Total donations for the year were worth $18 million originally and included the lightship Columbia to the Columbia River Maritime Museum and the 86-foot Bennett to Whatcom County, Wash., for search, rescue, and seamanship training.
Other worn or outdated surplus was sold for nearly $6.8 million.
Items worn or broken but worth keeping were rehabilitated under some 200 repair and rehabilitation contracts worth $5 million. Nearly 90 percent of the contracts were with small businesses.
Two large pieces of real estate also changed hands in 1980. Part of the Tongue Point Job Corps Center in Astoria was sold to the State of Oregon for $2 million and will be developed into a port for containerized cargo. The property includes 43 acres of uplands and filled lands, 105.7 acres of submerged land, a dock, five piers, two hangars, and several small structures. A 640-acre parcel of the Department of Energy Hanford Reservation was sold to the State of Washington for $237,000 for development of a nonnuclear hazardous waste disposal facility.
Creatively housing federal workers
To give permanent quarters to several local federal groups and save approxi-
In direct services, GSA motor pools in Washington and Idaho supplied vehicles for emergency work, and the Federal Center at Moses Lake housed over 250 Washington National Guardsmen assigned to that community for volcanic ash removal.
By the year’s end, GSA personnel began supervising the dismantling of the emergency centers and the return of household furniture and kits to storage or for transfer as requested by FEMA.
Old property to new service
Federal surplus personal property was put to good use in areas of Region 10 hurt by the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Items donated through state and local
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* U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1981 0 - 346-905
mately $500,000 a year in rent, a contract was let to convert 50,000 square feet of an unoccupied warehouse in Seattle’s Federal Center South to modern offices. The space was once a missile and aircraft factory.
In Anchorage, Alaska, an addition to the recently completed federal building and courthouse is being constructed in a terraset, or partly earth-covered, design with some office space below ground but a plaza and atrium at street level. Building and landscape completion are targeted for February 1981, interior partitioning for April, and tenant occupation for May.
The adjacent, completed federal building has already become an important community facility. In February the two-day annual “Basically Bach” festival was held in the atrium under the ‘Living Buildings’ program and was broadcast live by a local radio station.
In other ‘Living Buildings’activities, the Seattle federal building was one of the sites of the city’s summertime “Out to Lunch” concerts; a local flying club taught free ground school classes at the Richland, Wash., federal building; and a local Jewish congregation sponsored an exhibit at the same building of articles, photographs, and paintings depicting the Nazi era in Germany.
Under the GSA Art-in-Architecture program, Region 10 installed 10 artworks in 1980 bought for $398,500. Seven were in Alaska and were dedicated in September with an “Artsnight” at the Anchorage federal building with 1,600 people attending.
A varied supply mission
The FSS supply distribution depot in Auburn, Wash., shipped $42.8 million in general supplies to federal agencies in the four-state region in 1980. As the packaging and shipping point for all plywood purchased by GSA, the depot also handled $8.3 million worth of that commodity. A further $467,000 worth of supplies were assembled for shipment to remote areas of Alaska under the Annual Arctic Resupply Mission in cooperation with the Air Force. During the forest fire season, the depot provided round-the-clock support to the U.S. Forest Service with $1.86 million worth of protective clothing, firefighting equipment, and rations.
Motor pools continued to supply transport, but drivers saved 300,000 gallons of fuel by traveling nearly 4.6 million fewer miles than in 1979.
To conserve heating oil, over 100 mechanics at 11 locations were trained in efficient boiler operation and maintenance. Annual savings of $78,000 are expected.
Information management and accessibility
The Alaska Federal Data Processing Center also saves federal dollars. Begun two years ago to support the Alaska Railroad and the Bureau of Land Management, the Center now serves 12 federal groups in Alaska and saves them about $300,000 a year by consolidated, efficient data processing operations. Owing to the Alaska Lands Bill of 1980, greater workload is anticipated by Center management, and they are expanding its capabilities.
The first in-depth publication on genealogical resources in all Archives locations was prepared and issued by the Seattle branch of the National Archives and Records Service. The branch also researched and assembled a photographic survey of the history and culture of the Yakima Indians for donation to the Yakima Cultural Center.
Gaylen Hansen, Washington state artist of this untitled mural, describes it as a “nature fantasy.” It was installed at the Moscow, Idaho, Federal Building in 1980 by GSA’s Art-in-Architecture program.
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U. S. General Services Administration
Washington, D. C. 20405
SAN DIEGO PUBLIC UBRARY
3 1336 05725 9146