Be a Better Steward of Our Facilities

Be a Better Steward of Our Facilities I am a voting constituent writing to urge action on the staggering $50 billion maintenance backlog plaguing our federal facilities, a systemic failure recently highlighted by The New York Times. While billions are diverted from the Federal Buildings Fund, government employees are subjected to collapsing infrastructure, including leaking roofs, failing HVAC units, unusable office space, and rats. It is financially irresponsible to squander taxpayer dollars on a president's aesthetic pet projects or superficial redesigns while the very foundation of our administrative state fractures from chronic neglect. When the General Services Administration is forced to spend a mere fraction of recommended property upkeep standards, we destroy the value of our own public real estate and compromise government operations. The administration’s current efforts to shrink or consolidate underutilized properties cannot succeed if we refuse to invest in the basic structural health of the facilities we mean to retain. Please prioritize the immediate injection of repair capital and raise the outdated regulatory thresholds delaying critical maintenance. Stop funding vanity; block the ballroom and decoration projects; fix the infrastructure of our federal buildings before the cost of neglect doubles yet again.