We initiated this evaluation of GSA’s site selection processes for the relocation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) headquarters in response to requests from members of Congress and concerns raised by the FBI.
During the evaluation, we identified four findings. We found that:
- GSA’s rationale for increasing the weighting of the cost criterion, due to the changing of cost elements, was not justified because certain risks that GSA factored into the change were minimal or non-existent.
- GSA provided some inaccurate information to the Panel and Site Selection Authority related to the site selection cost for the Springfield, Virginia site.
- GSA did not provide specific enough data related to sustainable siting and advancing equity for the Panel and Site Selection Authority to differentiate between the sites.
- GSA officials failed to properly maintain cell phone text messages related to the relocation of the FBI headquarters project.
In addition, we also reviewed a former GSA official’s previous employment as the Vice President of Real Estate and Parking at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and found no evidence that the former GSA official, as the Site Selection Authority, violated federal ethics regulations.
Our report makes three recommendations to ensure that GSA:
- Establishes policies on developing, changing, and approving site selection plans for future projects;
- Establishes policies and processes to ensure data used in site selections is relevant, accurate, complete, and current for future projects; and
- Requires personnel involved with the FBI headquarters project, and future projects, to review and preserve records created via text messages or chats.
In response to our report, the former GSA management agreed with our recommendations but disagreed with some of the conclusions in our findings as outlined in the Response to Management Comments section.
REPORT
