Performance Audits of Built Infrastructure
Miniseries: Government Oversight of Built Infrastructure: Asset Management, Performance Audits, and Value Generation
This miniseries, titled “Government Oversight of Built Infrastructure: Asset Management, Performance Audits, and Value Generation,” explores the role of government oversight, both external and internal, and the value generated through disciplined asset management and performance audits. It includes an introduction, plus three articles: (1) Government Oversight Roles and Value; (2) Performance Audits of Built Infrastructure using a management systems approach; and (3) Internal Performance Audits of Built Infrastructure, a leadership playbook on how to drive performance through a robust internal audit program.
April 1, 2026[1]
Introduction
Performance audits of built infrastructure at federal agencies have commonly found issues with data reliability, policies, guidance, and building maintenance and condition. Among these issues, inadequate building maintenance and condition, which can result in deferred maintenance, is an increasingly prominent challenge and a rapidly growing fiscal liability. At state and local levels, information is not as widely available as it is for federal agencies, but research shows the same findings and concerns about increasing costs for deferred maintenance.
Performance Audits of Deferred Maintenance
Deferred maintenance and repairs are maintenance and repairs that were not performed when they should have been or were scheduled to be and are put off or delayed for a future period.[4] Over time, this can lead to decreases in the quality or reliability of services, worsening condition of infrastructure, and the ability to perform at a level to meet mission needs. In addition, operating and maintaining excess and underused properties uses resources that could be put toward addressing deferred maintenance on other properties. DOD and federal civilian agencies’ combined deferred maintenance and repairs estimates for buildings more than doubled from $171 billion in fiscal year 2017 to $370 billion in fiscal year 2024.[5] Federal, state, and local agencies with large infrastructure portfolios generally report some form of deferred maintenance.
Addressing deferred maintenance involves considering complex interactions of policy, planning, management, leadership, and investment. Applying individual audit criteria, such as establishing formal policies, in deferred maintenance performance audits has resulted in similar findings at a wide range of federal agencies and some state and local agencies. When conditions do not meet the criteria, they lead to identifying causes, such as insufficiencies with asset data, policies, or guidance for managing assets. Based on these identified causes, auditors develop recommendations for agencies to address each cause individually. While agencies might implement individual recommendations to improve conditions, deferred maintenance problems persist. Addressing causal factors can improve condition, but without determining and addressing root cause, the condition can recur or persist. Addressing complex issues such as deferred maintenance can benefit from a more comprehensive, systemic approach that extends beyond individual conditions and causes.
GAO Performance Audits
GAO has reported on the growing liability of deferred maintenance for built infrastructure at civilian and defense agencies for over fifty years. In 2014, GAO identified nine leading practices that agencies could use to manage deferred maintenance and has used these practices as criteria across federal agencies since that time.[6] These practices include:
establish clear maintenance and repair investment objectives and set priorities among outcomes to be achieved,
identify mission-critical and mission-supportive types of facilities or specific buildings,
conduct condition assessments as a basis for establishing funding levels,
establish performance goals, baselines for outcomes, and performance measures,
identify the primary methods to be used for delivering maintenance and repair activities,
employ models for predicting the outcome of investments, analyzing trade-offs, optimizing among competing investments,
identify the types of risks posed by lack of timely investment,
align real property portfolios with mission needs and dispose of unneeded assets, and
structure budgets to specifically identify the funding allotted (1) for maintenance and repair and (2) to address any backlog of deferred deficiencies.
These practices were based on studies on federal facilities by the National Research Council (NRC) at the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) from1998[7] to 2012.[8]
GAO audits of deferred maintenance at agencies with large portfolios and diverse missions have consistently found cases in which selected practices were not in place. Recent examples include audits over the past several years at DOD, the State Department, and the Coast Guard.
DOD has faced challenges in sustaining its facilities on joint bases—those bases that have more than one military service. On joint bases, the lead and supported military services share responsibility for managing facilities and supporting missions. A 2026 GAO report on sustainment of facilities at DOD’s 12 joint bases found most senior leadership said they did not have sufficient resources to keep facilities in good working order.[9] Officials said that degradation of some facilities was due to insufficient funding. However, DOD had not analyzed the risk to missions of not meeting the goal for its funding requests for facility sustainment as specified in DOD policy. DOD also was unable to find data on how funding it received was allocated to different military units on joint bases. Without this information, DOD cannot determine if there is a relationship between funding levels and disparities in facility conditions.
A 2025 report at DOD found that military services had not fully followed DOD guidance intended to ensure consistency of utilization measurement and reporting across the department and were reporting inconsistent and inaccurate data.[10] DOD guidance requires the military services to periodically review their real property to identify and report unneeded and underused facilities and include utilization data in their real property inventories. The report also found that military services faced challenges in determining priorities for real property management and demolition. The services have not assessed and managed risks associated with their inventory or determined the priorities for facility renewal because they have not issued guidance addressing these areas. Such guidance should include determining how to weigh competing priorities relating to sustainment, use, and disposal of property.
As of 2023, DOD reported a backlog of $181.1 billion on its portfolio of over 700,000 facilities. Such an enormous need makes it even more crucial to establish clear maintenance and repair investment objectives and set priorities among outcomes to be achieved. To accomplish this, the Department needs accurate information on space utilization to align real property portfolios with mission needs and dispose of unneeded assets. These findings led GAO to add “DOD Underutilized and Excess Facilities” as a new topic area with fragmentation in its annual report on “Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Cost Savings,” which is described in the first article in this series.[11]
A 2021 report on the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (State) found that State categorized facilities and buildings according to mission criticality ratings but did not use those ratings to prioritize funding or track investments.[12] State set a single acceptable condition standard for all assets and did not consider whether some assets, like chancery office buildings, were more critical to mission. The report also found that completion of required facility condition surveys was not monitored, and data collected through these surveys were incomplete and inconsistent. State estimated its deferred maintenance backlog at $3 billion for its portfolio of more than 8,500 owned and leased facilities, and it estimated it could take 30-40 years to address the backlog. Considering mission criticality in setting priorities and improving the quality of facility condition information should help State better target maintenance and repair investments.
A 2019 report on the Coast Guard’s Shore Infrastructure found that facility condition assessments were not standardized, performance goals, measures, and baselines for outcomes to track effectiveness of maintenance and repair work were not fully in place, and infrastructure assets were not routinely aligned with mission needs.[13] The report also found that clear maintenance and repair investment objectives had not been established and priorities among outcomes set. At the time of the report, the Coast Guard estimated deferred maintenance of its shore infrastructure portfolio at $2.6 billion and 45 percent of this infrastructure was beyond its expected life.
In a 2025 follow-up report, the estimate of deferred maintenance had increased to $7 billion as of 2024 with nearly half of the infrastructure beyond its expected life.[14] This report found that the Coast Guard had taken some steps to improve its management of shore infrastructure. For example, it developed a new standardized facility condition assessment with timeframes for employing it. It also issued new guidance establishing a standard process for conducting and reporting prioritization decision-making. The Coast Guard has not addressed other recommendations, such as routinely aligning its shore infrastructure portfolio with mission needs, including by disposing of unneeded assets. It has updated guidance to formalize a process for accomplishing this, but the guidance has not yet been implemented.
GAO made recommendations to address all these findings at DOD, State, and the Coast Guard, and the agencies have made some progress in implementing them, but most remain open. Implementing the recommendations could lead to improvements in conditions that the criteria are designed to address; however, if root cause has not been identified, the recommendations cannot address larger issues of deferred maintenance, as discussed earlier in this article.
GAO Asset Management Framework
GAO also developed an asset management framework based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 55000 asset management system series of standards, which take a management system approach to asset management as the coordinated activity of an organization to realize value from its assets.[15] These standards are discussed in detail in the third article in this series. This approach includes:
developing an understanding of how each of an organization’s assets contributes to its success;
managing and investing in those assets in such a way as to maximize success; and
fostering a culture of effective decision making through leadership support, policy development, and staff training.
This basic framework illustrates a comprehensive approach beginning with the organization, and incorporating all steps of asset management, asset lifecycle delivery, and review, which are integrated components of the asset management system. This framework and the key characteristics described below can encompass the nine leading practices GAO developed in 2014.
Based on ISO 55000, research, and audit work at federal agencies in 2018, GAO identified six key characteristics of an effective asset management framework:
establishing formal plans and policies;
maximizing an asset portfolio’s value;
maintaining leadership support;
using quality data;
promoting a collaborative organizational culture; and
evaluating and improving asset management practices.[16]
This framework and the key characteristics can be adopted by any agency at any level of government.
GAO found that existing federal guidance on asset management did not fully align with ISO standards and the key characteristics it identified.[17] GAO recommended that OMB improve existing information on federal asset management to reflect leading practices such as ISO 55000 and the key characteristics. This recommendation to OMB is on GAO’s list of priority recommendations—those recommendations that, when implemented, have the potential to save large dollar amounts, help Congress make decisions on major issues, and substantially improve or transform major government programs. A 2023 NASEM report on federal facilities also emphasizes the need for a management system approach to asset management to address longstanding issues of deferred maintenance.[18] This approach is explained further in the third article of this series.
Federal GSA Inspector General Performance Audits
The General Services Administration (GSA), as the largest civilian agency landlord, has a crucial role to play in improving the condition of federal buildings. The GSA IG, in its annual Assessment of GSA’s Management and Performance Challenges for the coming fiscal year, has reported each year for the past eight years on the need to maximize the performance of GSA’s real property inventory of about 8,500 owned and leased properties housing about 80 tenant agencies. This includes meeting the operations and maintenance needs of its aging buildings, the average age of which is about 50 years.
GSA often needs to defer maintenance including preventive maintenance, replacement of parts, systems, or components, and other activities that need to be performed immediately to restore or maintain the building inventory in acceptable condition. GSA has reported increasingly unmanageable costs of deferred maintenance and repairs since fiscal year 2016. In recent years, these estimates have grown exponentially. For example, in 2024, GSA reported approximately $6.1 billion in total estimated costs of deferred maintenance,[19] which was a 32.6 percent increase from the 2023 estimate of $4.60 billion, which was a 46.9 percent increase over the 2022 estimate of $3.13 billion.
GSA IG audits of the Public Buildings Service (PBS) have found weaknesses in data quality, such as inaccuracies and duplication in the data used to estimate deferred maintenance and a lack of training of personnel conducting building surveys. Further, these audits found a national maintenance strategy that was not effective in identifying the most immediate needs to reduce deferred maintenance liabilities, and a centralized project prioritization process for minor repairs and alterations that had no effect on which projects were funded at the regions. GSA audits of individual buildings in its portfolio also have recurrent findings of substantial weaknesses in monitoring building maintenance and repairs.
In two reports, one in 2021 on PBS’s effectiveness in managing deferred maintenance,[20] and another in 2022 on PBS’s management of minor repairs and alterations,[21] the IG made recommendations to improve how PBS addressed maintenance and repair needs. The 2021recommendations included correcting duplicate entries and errors in its deferred maintenance reports, establishing a national training program for personnel on how to conduct building surveys, and updating its pricing module to generate more accurate cost estimates. The 2022 recommendations included assessing whether a centralized approval process used to make funding decisions was the most effective in addressing the most critical needs and improving the use of its Decision Lens software by providing guidance and assessing whether to incorporate additional criteria.
In its 2024 implementation reviews of corrective actions for both audits, the GSA IG reported that GSA had taken appropriate corrective actions to address its recommendations and no further action was necessary.[22] While PBS’s corrective actions are positive steps, GSA’s reported deferred maintenance has continued to increase by higher amounts each year during and since the implementation of the audit recommendations.
State Performance Audits
At the state level, few states report an overall estimate of deferred maintenance, according to a recent Volker Alliance report.[23] The report independently estimates the cost of deferred maintenance for publicly owned infrastructure at $1 trillion for all states. No statewide system exists to assess value and fund deferred maintenance; however, the report identifies nine states that have implemented statewide efforts to assess and address deferred maintenance.[24] It compares varying definitions, policies enabling statewide assessment and reporting, and processes used to assess deferred maintenance needs. A review of the websites for the offices of inspectors general for these nine states did not find reports on deferred maintenance. Assessing these efforts is a potential area for future oversight by state IGs that could provide more insight into how states are managing deferred maintenance.
The IG for Virginia, while not one of the nine states that have implemented efforts to assess deferred maintenance, has recently reported on deferred maintenance at two state agencies. Although Virginia does not have an official estimate of the total cost of addressing deferred maintenance, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, a legislative oversight agency, estimates it at over $1.1 billion. The IG reported in 2025 on facilities maintenance at the Department of General Services (DGS),[25] and, in a separate report, on facilities maintenance of state parks by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).[26]
Virginia owns 73 buildings within and around its Capitol Square. These buildings house approximately 75 state agencies that deliver essential services to citizens. Proper maintenance of these buildings ensures tenant safety, prevents costly repairs, reduces downtime, and extends building longevity. The IG conducted an audit to evaluate whether DGS effectively tracks and addresses preventive maintenance and repair requests and identifies any impacts or causes of failure in this area. The IG selected a sample of work orders and found that none of the work orders in its sample had a reason documented for why they were still open or were deferred, and management was not able to provide an explanation. It also found that work orders for unscheduled repairs were not well tracked and documented in areas such as being closed timely and marked complete. DGS indicated that there were no formal policies and procedures in place for the unscheduled work order process. The IG recommended implementing regular monitoring and reporting on the status of deferred preventive maintenance activities, developing formal policies and procedures for the administration of unscheduled work order maintenance activities, and implementing regular monitoring on the status of unscheduled work orders.
The report on DCR had similar findings on managing deferred maintenance and routine, preventive and repair activities. DCR estimated its total cost of deferred maintenance at $364 million as of January 2024. The IG found DCR and the Division of State Parks (DSP) within DCR needed several management improvements to better manage parks. For example, DSP did not provide consistent guidance on how to quantify or prioritize deferred maintenance needs or a standardized process for monitoring and documenting routine, preventive, and repair activities across state parks. This led to different approaches across parks. The IG also found there was no structured process for completing inspections of state parks, and inspections were not consistently documented. In addition, the tracking system DCR uses for asset inventory and management is not built to capture maintenance information or asset condition resulting in data quality issues such as gaps and inconsistencies. The IG reported DCR was in the early stages of implementing a new asset management and maintenance system which was intended to provide a comprehensive inventory of assets with details on maintenance activities and asset condition.
The IG made several recommendations including establishing a comprehensive process for tracking and reporting deferred maintenance, including a prioritized list of maintenance needs with clearly defined priority categories. The IG further recommended developing and implementing standardized procedures for conducting formal facility inspections to assess park condition. In preparation for the new asset management system, the IG recommended establishing standardized asset management policies and procedures to ensure accurate asset data is captured before transitioning to the new system.
Local Performance Audits
Many large and medium-sized cities report some form of deferred maintenance with varying definitions and varying methods, such as building condition assessments, surveys, and inspections. Some cities use other terms, such as “state of good repair”—the level of repair needed to keep an asset functioning as intended—instead of deferred maintenance. In some cities, agencies with large built infrastructure portfolios, such as public housing, transportation, and school construction authorities, develop separate estimates of deferred maintenance. For example, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Physical Needs Assessment estimates 20-year needs at about $78.6 billion. A review of the websites for the offices of inspectors general for major U.S. cities with some of the oldest and aging infrastructure found that two IGs reported on deferred maintenance--the New Orleans IG and the New York City IG.[27]
The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI), which serves as the IG, has reported on deferred maintenance at city agencies and public benefit corporations. For example, at NYCHA, which operates 335 housing developments, DOI investigated fires that resulted in death or injury to residents at three housing developments in 2021. In 2023, DOI reported finding deficiencies in fire safety protocols, including repair and maintenance of building elements, such as doors for trash chutes.[28] DOI also found deficiencies in fire safety and maintenance records for inspections of fire suppression systems. In two cases, DOI found that smoke spread from the trash chutes into stairwells and hallways, which it reported was likely due in part to failure to properly maintain building components, prioritize prompt repairs or reinstallation, and properly document inspections. DOI made recommendations including that NYCHA improve training so that staff can more readily identify and correct fire safety hazards, enforce procedures for the inspection and repair process for fire suppression systems, and implement procedures to ensure prompt repairs that impact fire safety.
The New Orleans IG reported in 2024 on the lack of preventive maintenance for HVAC in city buildings.[29] During the summer of 2023, which had 21 excessive heat days, numerous HVAC system failures were reported at city buildings, including public libraries, police and fire stations, and courthouses. The IG did not find systemic HVAC failures across the city, but it found the Department of Property Management (DPM) did not have adequate policies and standard operating procedures in place to ensure HVAC systems were properly maintained throughout the year. This could have exacerbated conditions at two sites with HVAC failures and could hinder the ability to prepare for potential HVAC failures. The report also found documentation of maintenance and an inventory with information about the equipment that could help determine remaining useful life, potential failures, and timeframes for replacement, were not routinely completed or available.
To address these issues, the IG recommended adopting and implementing a comprehensive equipment management program designating responsibilities, outlining preventive procedures and schedules for each piece of equipment, and documenting staff training. Such a comprehensive program also establishes audit and recordkeeping protocols, including documentation of maintenance and equipment repair and replacement history. Notably, the IG described the city’s plans to implement a new asset management system across several city departments, including DPM. This system is expected to include details on managing individual assets that the IG found lacking in this audit, such as inspections, inventory, service requests, and maintenance scheduling. The IG recommended that DPM take action to ensure this asset management system and the comprehensive equipment management program are integrated.
Conclusion
The longstanding challenges of managing deferred maintenance are found at all levels of government. Audits using the same criteria at agencies at each level of government duplicated common issues. For example, recent GAO reports continued to find key leading practices that were not in place. While few IG audits of deferred maintenance were found at the state and local levels, those that were found had results consistent with those at federal agencies. For example, at the state level, the VA IG reported similar audit findings to the GSA IG, while on a hugely different scale. They both found weaknesses with data quality, weaknesses in monitoring building repairs, and project prioritization processes that either were not effective, or were unclear. At the local level, two IGs had similar findings of deficiencies in maintenance records for building safety in two cities with some of the oldest and aging infrastructure—New York City and New Orleans.
While the audit criteria used over time are important, taking a management system approach, rather than auditing based on selected criteria, would consider all parts of an asset management framework beginning with the organization and including lifecycle delivery and review. This approach could lead to identifying different causes, or root cause, involving organizational leadership, culture, structure, policy, planning, or investment. Assessing these causes and making recommendations to address them could prevent issues from recurring or persisting.
[1] First published on the AMP Newsletter.
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelia-shachoy-mpa-pmp-4644aa5/
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-dempsey-assetmanagementpartnership/
[4] Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) Statement on Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) 42, “Deferred Maintenance and Repairs,” April 25, 2012.
[5] GAO, Federal Real Property: Disposing of Unneeded Facilities Could Help Reduce Maintenance Backlog, GAO-25-108400 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 9, 2025).
[6] GAO, Federal Real Property: Improved Transparency Could Help Efforts to Manage Agencies’ Maintenance and Repair Backlogs, GAO-14-188 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 23, 2014).
[7] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Stewardship of Federal Facilities (Washington, D.C.: 1998).
[8] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Predicting Outcomes of Investments in Maintenance and Repair of Federal Facilities (Washington, D.C.: 2012).
[9] GAO, DOD Joint Bases: Actions Needed to Improve Sustainment of Facilities, GAO-26-106832 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 26, 2026).
[10] GAO, DOD Real Property: Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Underutilized and Excess Facilities, GAO-25-106132 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 3, 2025).
[11] GAO, 2025 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve an Additional One Hundred Billion Dollars or More in Future Financial Benefits, GAO-25-107604 (Washington, D.C.: May 13, 2025).
[12] GAO, Overseas Real Property: Prioritizing Key Assets and Developing a Plan Could Help State Manage Its Estimated $3 Billion Backlog, GAO-21-497 (Washington, D.C.: Sep. 15, 2021).
[13] GAO, Coast Guard Shore Infrastructure: Applying Leading Practices Could Help Better Manage Project Backlogs of at Least $2.6 Billion, GAO-19-82 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 2019).
[14] GAO, Coast Guard Shore Infrastructure: More Than $7 Billion Reportedly Needed to Address Deteriorating Assets, GAO-25-107851 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 25, 2025).
[15] ISO, ISO 55000 Asset Management—Overview and Principles Terminology (first published: Switzerland: 2014).
[16] GAO, Federal Real Property Asset Management: Agencies Could Benefit from Additional Information on Leading Practices, GAO-19-57 (Washington, DC: November 5, 2018).
[17] GAO-19-57.
[18] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities (Washington, D.C.: 2023).
[19] Office of Inspector General, U.S. General Services Administration, Assessment of GSA’s Management and Performance Challenges for Fiscal Year 2026 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 8, 2025).
[20] Office of Inspector General, U.S. General Services Administration, Audit of the Public Buildings Service’s Effectiveness in Managing Deferred Maintenance, Report Number A190066/P/2/R21009 (Washington, D.C.: Sep. 30, 2021).
[21] Office of Inspector General, U.S. General Services Administration, Audit of PBS’s Approval Process for Minor Repair and Alteration Projects, Report Number A190100/P/5/R22005 (Washington, D.C.: May 9, 2022).
[22] Office of Inspector General U.S. General Services Administration, Implementation Review of Corrective Action Plan: Audit of PBS’s Approval Process for Minor Repair and Alterations Projects Report Number A190100/P/5/R22005 (Washington, D.C.: May 9, 2022). Assignment Number A240042 (Washington, D.C.: April 12, 2024). And, Implementation Review of Corrective Action Plan: Audit of the Public Buildings Service’s Effectiveness in Managing Deferred Maintenance, Report Number A190066/P/2/R21009 (Washington, D.C.: Sep. 30, 2021). Assignment Number A240026 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 21, 2024).
[23] The Volker Alliance, Meeting the Trillion-Dollar Challenge: Deferred Infrastructure Maintenance Practices Across Ten States. (Dec. 2025).
[24] The nine states are: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. Tennessee does not have an estimate but has reported on infrastructure needs and deferred maintenance for decades and was included in the study.
[25]Office of the State Inspector General, Department of General Services Facilities Maintenance, Report No. 2025-PA-003 (Richmond: Feb. 4, 2025).
[26] Office of the State Inspector General, Department of Conservation and Recreation State Park Maintenance, Report No. 2025-PA-006 (Richmond: Mar. 27, 2025).
[27] The ten large cities with some of the oldest and aging infrastructure reviewed for this article are: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. Of these cities, Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco either do not have inspectors general or have inspectors general solely designated for law enforcement or uniformed agencies.
[28] New York City Department of Investigation, Fire Safety and Prevention in Public Housing (New York City: Mar. 2023).
[29] New Orleans Office of Inspector General, HVAC Maintenance and Repair Procedures (New Orleans: July 23, 2024).
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