Excess Property: A Gold Mine of Opportunity?
Abstract
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) manages more than half a million personal property items for which acquisition cost exceeds $1.6 billion. Each fiscal year DHHS generates more than $30 million in excess property. Management of that excess property is governed by the Federal Property Management Regulations, which provide detailed guidelines. The Department must fully adhere to those regulations, which require it to screen excess property for reutilization within DHHS before disposing of it. If the Department does nothing, it will continue to be in violation of the regulations. We have identified three procedures that are practical. As the first alternative, the Department's Acquisition and Logistics Research Staff could consolidate excess property information twice a month in hard-copy format or on disk and forward it to each agency for screening. Our second alternative is to install and operate a central excess property management system. Our third alternative is to install a central property management system with an excess property subsystem. Of the three alternatives, we recommend that the Department implement the second: a central excess property system. The Federal Aviation Administration has such a system and it could readily be adapted for DHHS use. It would bring the Department into compliance with the Federal regulations, improve its reutilization rates, and keep the cost of its excess property system manageable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA243556
Entities
People
- George J. Basil Iii
- Virginia A. Mattern
Organizations
- LMI