In 2003 the Government Accountability Office found that three agencies—the General Services Administration, the Veterans Affairs Department and the Postal Service—controlled 927 vacant or underutilized properties. In 2001, the Veterans Affairs Department spent more than $300,000 to maintain a building that had been vacant for 14 years. A new Reason Foundation policy brief, written by MAPPS Executive Director John Palatiello, urges Congress to scrutinize the billions of dollars being wasted at unused and underutilized federal properties and recommends the use of computer-based geographic information systems to catalog the government’s property holdings. The policy brief is available online at: http://www.rppi.org/pb33.pdf
