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Efforts to Focus on 

 Facility Mauntenance 



NASA has recognized that maintenance of centers' facilities is a growing 

 problem. As a result, nasa created the Facilities Maintenance Manage- 

 ment Branch, which, dunng the past 2 years, has worked with the cen- 

 ters to begin to define their total maintenance needs and assess the 

 condition of their facilities, .nasa has also highlighted its need for better 

 facility maintenance in its fiscal year 1989 Financial Iniegnty Act 

 report and in a September 1989 presentation to the Office of Manage- 

 ment and Budget. 



Recommendations 



In order to ensure .nasa center facilities are properly maintained, gao 

 recommends that the nasa Administrator: 



Elstablish standards to guide centers in the development of comprehen- 

 sive maintenance management systems that include all the information 

 needed to identify maintenance needs and plan, budget, schedule, and 

 report maintenance requirements. 



Direct centers to allocate funds to maintenance in accordance with the 

 annual 2 to 4 percent of facility replacement value recommended by the 

 National Research Council, or at a mmimum to demonstrate that suffi- 

 cient funds are allocated to maintam center facilities at least at a 

 "steady state " condition. 



Direct the centers to conduct annual surveys to determine the centers' 

 respective maintenance cind repair requirements. 

 Emphasize responsibility for protecting centers' facilities by making 

 facility maintenance a critical element in annual objectives established 

 for directors of the centers and heads of headquarters program offices. 



GAO also recommends that the Administrator direct the centers to 

 strengthen their procedures for budgeting and accounting for facility 

 maintenance to ensure that maintenance functions are properly 

 controlled. 



Agency Comments 



In commentmg on a draft of gao's report, .nasa indicated that gao's rec- 

 ommendations were constructive and appropnate. nasa shared gao's 

 concerns and explained it was implementing programs to address them. 

 NASA provided some specific comments and suggestions, which were 

 incorporat-ed into the report where appropnate. 



O 



