US Government Efficiency Solution - Accountable Built Infrastructure Decision Making
Miniseries on the US Government's Failure to Efficiently Manage its Built Infrastructure Portfolio
This Asset Management Partnership (AMP) Newsletter continues a miniseries that covers how the US Government is failing to manage its built infrastructure and how this problem can be solved.
Asset Management is All About Outcomes. However, current U.S. government-owned built infrastructure fails to demonstrate the realization of desired outcomes. Even worse, it lacks clear definitions of these outcomes in terms of organizational performance and mission success. This represents a fiduciary failure, as detailed in the National Academies’ report, Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities.
The U.S. maintains an extensive span of policies and regulations governing the acquisition, construction, operation, and management of facilities and infrastructure. These include design codes, environmental standards, and energy efficiency targets, among other categories. Yet, a critical gap exists: federal agencies are not required to prove they are effectively managing their built infrastructure portfolios to support organizational objectives efficiently – that is, there is no mechanism for executive decision making accountability.
Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities identifies this as a systemic failure in asset management, one that demands an asset management solution. A dedicated workforce of professionals—within both the federal government and supporting industries—possess the capability to manage built infrastructure effectively. However, without robust governance, no federal agency currently manages its built infrastructure portfolio efficiently. This highlights a key distinction, elaborated in the ISO article Managing Assets in the Context of Asset Management, between “managing assets” (tactical lifecycle decisions) and “asset management” (strategic portfolio oversight).
Specifically, while federal agencies can make sound asset lifecycle management decisions, they struggle to optimize investment decisions. The AMP Newsletter and AMF Journal explore this issue in depth, offering solutions and practical guides to address it. This article underscores that current governance fails to enable strategic, accountable decision-making.
OMB Circular A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget, and OMB Circular A-123, Management’s Responsibility for Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Control, mandate that federal agencies:
Establish and justify budgets required to fulfill authorized missions.
Use limited resources efficiently, including built infrastructure.
Conduct rigorous risk and economic analyses to ensure the efficient use of limited resources.
Perform systematic planning to optimize the use of built infrastructure.
Justify agency budgets through an “Agency Capital Plan,” which includes a Real Property Capital Plan, as required by OMB M-20-03, Implementation of Agency-wide Real Property Capital Planning.
The policy’s intent and logic are sound, but a critical flaw undermines it: no mechanism holds individuals personally accountable for compliance. Several points of failure contribute to this gap:
The U.S. government employs a cash-based budgeting system that combines capital investments with operating costs. This approach obscures the ability to balance short-term and long-term risks in annual budgets (a topic to be explored in a future article).
OMB M-20-03 mandates an the effective demonstration of real property capital planning. Agencies interpret this as submitting a “Real Property Capital Plan,” but these plans often amount to aspirational statements lacking enforceability.
Budget enforceability relies on OMB Circular A-11, which includes the Capital Programming Guide. This guide defines the “Agency Capital Plan” used to justify budget submissions. However, actual budget submissions occur through separate plans and programs, with no reconciliation required between the Agency Capital Plan and the submitted budget. Nor is there a mechanism mandating agencies to report discrepancies if they exist.
OMB Circular A-123 provides excellent guidance on enterprise risk management and internal controls, applicable to the above requirements. However, it offers little to no specific guidance on applying these principles to built infrastructure management. As a result, the guidance is largely ignored—often because agency decision-makers are unaware of it resulting it not being integrated into agency-specific policies.
The National Academies’ report, Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities, examines these issues in depth and outlines actionable remedies. The solution consists of two key steps:
Develop an ISO 55000-Compliant Real Property Capital Plan
Federal agencies must create a Real Property Capital Plan aligned with ISO 55000 principles and asset management system requirements. This plan, also known as a Strategic Asset Management Plan (SAMP), must integrate statutory authorities, authorized objectives, and appropriated budgets with agency programs. The figure below illustrates this process:
Legislate Accountability via OMB Circular A-136
Congress should enact laws, signed by the President, requiring agency Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), Budget Officers, and Senior Real Property Officers (SRPOs) to approve an ISO 55000-compliant SAMP/Real Property Capital Plan. This can be achieved by incorporating the plan into agency financial reporting, as defined by OMB Circular A-136, Financial Reporting Requirements.
These steps address the core problem by establishing clear accountability and requiring robust enterprise risk management. Under ISO 55000, agencies must comprehensively list governing objectives, explain their application, and demonstrate efficient coordination. Today, agencies rely on vague statements like “all applicable requirements” or “governing regulations,” implying best efforts without due diligence to ensure all objectives are addressed in budget development.
The ISO 55000 Asset Management (AM) Framework, detailed in the AMP Newsletter and AMF Journal, mandates that Organizational Objectives and Asset Management Objectives be explicitly stated in the SAMP/Real Property Capital Plan. Agencies must then justify budgets and define programs to achieve these objectives. A critical ISO 55000 requirement is identifying gaps (or overages) in the plan, which must be resolved, mitigated, or accepted. This is enforced through objective / budget / program reconciliation that is approved by executive decision makers.
Integrating this into OMB Circular A-136 financial statements ensures review and sign-off by the CFO, Budget Officer, and SRPO, establishing three levels of accountability for the plan’s completeness and responsiveness. No such requirement exists in current federal policy, leaving no one accountable for ensuring efficient and effective built infrastructure management supports agency missions.
Without these measures, federal agencies lack ultimate accountability for managing built infrastructure effectively. While agencies must report how funds are spent addressing laws, regulations, and statutes, there’s no requirement to reconcile whether objectives are achieved—or, if not, how gaps are addressed. This allows agencies to claim insufficient funding or authority as an excuse, but more critically, it means executives aren’t required to even recognize these gaps as problems to solve. This absence of executive decision-making accountability represents a systemic failure.
When this failure is known yet unaddressed—as documented in Strategies to Renew Federal Facilities—it becomes a fiduciary failure. Beyond that, it reflects a leadership failure: a lack of capacity or resolve to tackle both the problem and its root causes, as outlined in the National Academies’ report.
Written by Jack Dempsey | March 11, 2025
AMP Newsletter #113
Copyright © 2025, Asset Management Partnership LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Preceding articles at:
US Government Efficiency Failure – Built Infrastructure Accounting
US Government Efficiency Failure – Real Property Inventory Management
US Government Efficiency Failure – Program Management Blind Spot
US Government Efficiency Failure – Understanding Enterprise Risk
US Government Efficiency Failure – Transparency and Accountability
US Government Efficiency Solution – Disciplined Asset Management
US Government Efficiency Solution – Deployment of an Asset Management Framework
US Government Efficiency Solution – Clarify Enterprise Risk Management and Management Controls
US Government Efficiency Solution – DOGE Response Plan & Asset Management
US Government Efficiency Solution – Clarify Senior Real Property Officer Fiduciary Responsibilities
US Government Efficiency Solution – Promote Whole Benefit Analysis for Investment Decision Making
US Government Efficiency Solution – Requirements-Based Budgeting