State Facilities Management

    FY2012 House 1 Budget Recommendation:
    Issues in Brief
    Deval L. Patrick, Governor
    Timothy P. Murray, Lt. Governor

Governor’s Proposal

The Commonwealth’s Executive Branch owns over 35 million gross square feet of space throughout the Commonwealth, making it one of the largest property owners in the state. State-owned facilities have many important and unique uses, from providing a residential setting for individuals with disabilities or chronic illness to serving as office space for nearly 80,000 state employees.

Many of the facilities in the Commonwealth’s portfolio have a historical significance, such as the Massachusetts State House in Boston, Massachusetts. The State House has significant meaning to the residents of the Commonwealth as our state’s capital, and hosts many public events and meetings. However, the building is also used as traditional office space, and so requires a maintenance and management strategy that reflects this dual purpose.

Adequately managing and maintaining state-owned facilities is critical to ensuring a long useful life of the asset. Recognizing this, the Office of Facility Maintenance and Management (OFM) within the Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) was created to ensure that state buildings last longer, run better, and cost less to operate. OFM provides guidance and support to state agencies and has developed a network of facility managers across Massachusetts who share best practices. Although OFM serves in an advisory capacity, it does not have authority or accountability over facility maintenance because it does not employ the Commonwealth’s facility management and maintenance staff.

Decentralized Approach to Facility Management and Maintenance

The Commonwealth currently employs 1,800 full-time employees (FTEs) across the Executive Branch to provide facility management and maintenance. All of these employees are committed to providing the best maintenance and care in the facilities to which they are assigned; however, they do not operate as a formal, consolidated community of facility management staff with central oversight. This decentralized approach to facilities management and maintenance has several challenges, including:

• There are very few incentives to share resources, best practices, combine needs to make discounted bulk purchases, and work collaboratively to ensure proper long-term sustainability.
• There are few incentives to “lend” resources to agencies on neighboring campuses who do not have full-time trades people on staff, and who have short-term maintenance emergencies.
• In difficult fiscal times, facility management and maintenance budgets are often trimmed to cover critical program expenses. These short-term decisions, while understandable, have long-term, costly implications.

Long Term Strategy for Consolidated Facility Management and Maintenance

The long-term strategy to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Commonwealth’s approach to facility management and maintenance is to fully consolidate management and maintenance functions for as many state facilities as appropriate under a single entity. This long-term vision includes a shared staffing model that leverages volume and expertise, and relies upon service level agreements between the central agency and recipient agencies to ensure that the needs of facility-based programs are being met. This vision also includes:

• Strategic workforce enhancement programs for increased career opportunities
• Formal, mandatory standards for facility maintenance
• Portfolio-wide operating budgets, with benchmarking to ensure a suitable investment is made into maintaining the Commonwealth’s assets
• Centralized platforms for asset management, including expected maintenance schedules

In many cases, facilities will continue to have on-site, full-time maintenance staff. However, to the extent that resources are unevenly allocated, this initiative will allow facilities with inadequate resources to have access to a larger network of maintenance professionals. 

This long-term vision will allow the Commonwealth to maximize the value of dollars spent on facility maintenance, while improving service for all recipient agencies.

Fiscal Year 2012 House 1 Proposal

The fiscal year 2012 budget proposal includes the first phase toward centralization. This phase would combine the existing infrastructure of the OFM with the expertise that the Bureau of State Office Buildings (BSB) has gained by providing facility management and maintenance for buildings in the government center area. Most of BSB’s responsibilities, and the staff and funding resources to fulfill these responsibilities, will be shifted to OFM within DCAM.

Recognizing the unique and important role of the State House as the centerpiece of state government, the House 1 proposal creates the Office of the Superintendent of the State House. This office will focus solely on the maintenance and management needs of the State House, similar to approaches taken by other states to ensure the continued maintenance of their capitol buildings. Residents will continue to visit a well-managed capitol building, while Legislators and other occupants of the State House will be supported by a responsive, experienced staff.

Prepared by Katie Luddy, Executive Office for Administration and Finance ·
www.mass.gov/budget/governor
For more information contact: contactanf@massmail.state.ma.us (617) 727-2040