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Knowing What You Own: Best Practices in Real Property Inventories & Asset Management. November 8, 2011 Oklahoma House Government Modernization Committee Oklahoma City, OK Leonard Gilroy Director of Government Reform Reason Foundation | reason.org. What is a Real Property Inventory?.
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Knowing What You Own:Best Practices in Real Property Inventories & Asset Management November 8, 2011 Oklahoma House Government Modernization Committee Oklahoma City, OK Leonard Gilroy Director of Government Reform Reason Foundation | reason.org
What is a Real Property Inventory? • A central record of government-owned land and assets. • RPI should answer 5 basic questions: • What do we own? • Where is what we own located? • What is the condition of what we own? • What is the value of what we own? • What is the best use of what we own? • Three key components: • Land: The best RPIs map all land down to the parcel level. • Assets: Improvements to the land (e.g., buildings, bridges, heavy equipment, etc.), plus maintenance costs and requirements. • GIS Mapping: Map parcels and integrate asset info, deed records and historical info into digital GIS databases to create an RPI.
The Value of Real Property Inventories • Tool to assess potential value of divesting an asset or property. • Generate revenues for government; leveraging existing assets. • Divesting underutilized or unnecessary land or assets will lower maintenance and operations costs. • Selling/leasing assets to private sector can increase proper management, encourage economic growth. • Tool to potentially lower lease and maintenance costs through space consolidation. • Inventory information helps state and local budgets to plan with more precision, efficiency and cost effectiveness. • Increases officials’ ability to monitor the use of taxpayer $$.
Challenges in Real Property Management • Growing awareness of need for better asset management: • 16 states have well-functioning inventory systems. • 17 states are developing an RPI. • 17 states (plus Washington D.C.) lack an RPI. • Managing real property can often be considered a mundane chore. • Lack of standardized reporting methods at agencies and departments • Agencies often have their own monitoring and tracking methods; many are not compatible or interoperable. • Inventory development alone is insufficient; active management and analysis of that data is key to gaining full benefits from RPIs. • Key economic value is the ability to lower operational costs or generate revenues from divesting unused and underused assets.
12 Recommendations Based onState Best Practices • #1: Take the Initiative to Build an Inventory • Governors, legislatures & state agencies must support project. • #2: Conduct an “Inventory of Inventories” • Coordinating existing state agency asset inventories; creating common metrics to provide a benchmark for RPI. • #3: Use GIS Technology to Map and Catalogue Data • Ubiquitous use in government; most accurate baseline to locate, label and catalogue property and future changes to the property. • #4: Centralize the Management of Real Property Data • Decentralized accounting methods offer little to no accountability for keeping good records.
12 Recommendations Based onState Best Practices • #5: Standardize Reporting Methods for All Agencies • Require compatibility among agency data, reporting and metrics to make processing more efficient and make management easier. • #6: Put the Inventory Online for Public Access • An RPI is fundamentally a transparency and accountability tool. • Allows citizens to suggest ways of more efficient management, or allows developers to suggest divestiture opportunities. • #7: Manage the Inventory Beyond Mapping • Success depends on active management; RPI alone is insufficient. • #8: Make the Inventory Continual and Dynamic • Assets must be constantly monitored/updated to ensure efficiency.
12 Recommendations Based onState Best Practices • #9: Divest Land and Assets Sooner Than Later • Seek early opportunities to build momentum, success. • #10: Utilize the Wide Range of Private Sector Expertise • Explore commercial solutions; vendor-developed tools for inventory and space management administration. • #11: Build the Inventory to Fit Prescribed Policy Goals • Identify policy goals upfront; develop the RPI to achieve them. • #12: Look Beyond Financial Benefits • Inventories also provide non-financial benefits (e.g., emergency management, legal compliance).
Transforming Asset Management: Georgia • Former Gov. Sonny Purdue's “Commission for a New Georgia”: state should centralize management of capital assets to improve efficiency, reduce lease costs, generate $$ through divestiture, lower costs of capital construction. • Most agencies handled their own space management—little or no opportunity for comprehensive management. • State’s $10.5B inventory of >11,000 facilities was losing value due to poor maintenance, emerging safety issues, and underutilization. • 2005: Executive order created state's first State Property Officer (SPO) & restructured State Property Commission. • Established to bring overlapping, multi-agency management of real estate into one portfolio, with central manager. • Ordered first comprehensive, enterprise-wide asset inventory. • Codified into statute by legislature later that year.
Transforming Asset Management: Georgia (cont’d) • Results through FY2010: • Developed comprehensive, GIS-based inventory of government land and facilities (www.realpropertiesgeorgia.org). • Building, Land and Lease Inventory of Property (BLLIP). • Web-based GIS; citizens can create maps, download info to Excel, Access databases. • $43.2 million in revenues from surplus properties sold, returned to county tax rolls. • $8.5 million saved through renegotiation & consolidation of leases. • Uniform construction guidelines adopted. • Gov. Perdue: "Five years ago, nobody in government could say with certainty how many buildings the state owned. Today, anyone can go to a public website to look up detailed records on every single government building, piece of land, or lease.”
Moving the Ball Forward: Virginia • House Bill 2003 signed into law in spring 2011 • Requires Dept. of General Services to develop criteria for and conduct a comprehensive real property inventory by 1/1/2012. • Requires annual updates to inventory—active, dynamic management. • Requires DGS to post web listing of surplus real property. • Focus on accelerating the regular divestiture of unused/underused property. • 50% of net proceeds from the lease/divestiture directed to the State Park Acquisition and Development Fund. • Challenge: less centralized than Georgia; dependent on department heads to properly classify property.
Questions? Leonard Gilroy, AICP Director of Government Reform Reason Foundation leonard.gilroy@reason.org (713) 927-8777 www.reason.org