U.S. Department of State Fiscal Year 2020 Agency Financial Report

T he Department of State maintains a real estate portfolio domestically to support its global mission. This mission is multi-facetted and includes such responsibilities as: the issuance of passports to American citizens, the protection of embassies and American personnel, the development of technological solutions to convey and protect information domestically and overseas, and the management of logistical services to provide supplies and goods to overseas posts. As this mission evolves, the domestic real estate portfolio must evolve with it. In 2019, the last year for which data is available, Performance.gov reports that the Department’s real estate portfolio had grown by 3.15 percent. The link to view that information can be found at: https://www.performance.gov/ real-property-metrics/ . The factors described below have influenced the reported growth. The Department and the GSA omitted inclusion of a roughly 300,000 square foot D.C. campus in the 2015 baseline but reported it every subsequent year in the Department’s portfolio. This artificially inflates the Department’s growth by approximately 2.5 percent. GSA has committed to correcting this inaccuracy in the 2020 Reduce the Footprint publication, by increasing the Department’s 2015 baseline to include this campus. However, this disparity remained in effect for 2019 reporting. The Department’s footprint has grown due to the evolving nature of its mission. The increasing percentage of Americans traveling abroad from 2009 to 2019 required additional mission space to support passport issuance. Similarly, as security and protection of information and people faces greater challenges at home and overseas, additional laboratory, office, and storage space has been acquired. For example, supplementary passport agency space was added in Houston, Atlanta, and Boston, in response to municipal government requests to reduce crowding outside of agencies. Additionally, the childcare center at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center was expanded to increase the maximum number of employees served by the facility. Also, a Bureau of Medical Services outpost was added in Rosslyn, Virginia to provide front line services to employees, which was a critical asset in light of COVID-19. In all three examples, these locations previously did not have space that could be utilized for each project’s specific needs. Overall, these examples and the other additions represent about one percent portfolio growth. The Department continuously looks for methods of improving the utilization of its real estate portfolio while meeting mission needs. In the COVID-19 environment, the Department is further re-evaluating its requirement for space to support a more mobile, agile workforce while also maintaining social distancing protocols for public- facing spaces. In October 2020, the Department launched a real property capital planning initiative, parallel to the implementation of an integrated workplace management system which will work together to track the overall usage of the Department’s portfolio and plan for the optimization of the portfolio over the next ten years. Real Property Secretary Pompeo departs Warsaw, Poland, August 15, 2020. Department of State 2020 A gency F inanci al R eport U ni ted S tates D epartment of S tate | 155 REAL PROPERTY | OTHER INFORMATION