11 



that provide the opportunities for commercial development in the private sec- 

 tor. 



Proper maintenance and repair of these facilities, as well as the revitaliza- 

 tion of the older facilities, certainly are fundamental to ensuring that NASA's 

 installations are optimally available for the agency and others to accomplish 

 their missions. 



As a brief overview of the NASA facilities base, Mr. Chairman, we have 

 nine major centers and nine component installations that comprise 2,700 

 buildings and 3,200 other test and development structures. 



Of this total facility base, there are about 1,025 of these that represent the 

 research laboratories that are being addressed in this audit and survey. Our 

 current replacement value for the total inventory is approximately $14.7 bil- 

 lion. Of this total, $6.7 billion is the replacement value for the labs that we 

 have under discussion. 



Leading up to this present audit, NASA conducted a number of in-house 

 assessments and surveys of our own in 1989 and 1990, and we had a similar 

 GAO evaluation that was accomplished in 1990 after the in-house assess- 

 ments. 



Based on these, the actions that we have taken on these previous assess- 

 ments and audits are that we have revised our maintenance policy for the 

 agency. We have published a comprehensive and detailed handbook, which 

 all of our folks at the centers use as the maintenance bible and maintenance 

 guide. We have instituted formal wall-to-wall condition surveys of all of our 

 facilities. 



We have instituted a revision to our cost-accounting systems in the comp- 

 troller's office to better account for the total expenditures that are actually be- 

 ing expended for maintenance activities. 



We have instituted a continuous tracking of these expenditures. And we do 

 conduct an annual workshop agency-wide for all of our maintenance folks 

 who are involved in the day-to-day maintenance. The latest innovation that 

 we have underway is a benchmarking exercise with both industry and other 

 federal agencies that have similar activities. 



We recently completed benchmarking visits with the 3-M Company in St. 

 Paul, Minnesota, and with the duPont people in Wilmington, Delaware. 

 These have turned out to be very productive and enlightening to both us and 

 industry, to find that, in many cases, we are dealing with the same sorts of 

 problems of trying to maintain a responsive infrastructure. 



In the pure maintenance and repair area, we have, in my view, made con- 

 siderable progress since the 1990 timeframe. 



In 1989, we were investing approximately 1.7 percent of the current re- 

 placement value for our facilities in maintenance and repair. This has in- 

 creased in 1992. The actual expenditures were 2.2 percent. Our 1994 

 projections, which are in the current FY 1994 budget before the Congress, 

 will increase to 2.5 to 2.6 percent in 1994. 



In the current budget in FY 1993, we have $313 million invested for main- 

 tenance and repair. This will rise to about $340 million in 1994. 



We suffer the same problems that the other agencies and organizations do. 

 We have a backlog of maintenance and repair that is needed. Agency- wide, 



