General Services Administration
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The General Services Administration is a federal agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of the ever-growing tangle of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and housing to federal employees, and develops governmentwide cost-minimizing policies, among other management tasks. Its stated mission is to "help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services and management policies."
The GSA employs around 13,000 federal workers, and has an annual operating budget around $16 billion, of which approximately 1% is appropriated from tax-payer dollars. The GSA oversees $66 billion of procurement annually and contributes to the management of about $500 billion in US Federal property, mostly divided among 8,000 owned and leased buildings and a 130,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets the GSA manages is the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, the largest US Federal building after The Pentagon.
Embraced under the GSA are the Federal Supply Service, the Federal Technology Service, the Public Buildings Service, the Office of Governmentwide Policy, and various Staff Offices, including the Office of Small Business Utilization, the Office of Citizen Services and Communications, and the Office of Civil Rights.
The National Archives was also part of the GSA, until it was made an independent agency in 1985.
The GSA is periodically accused of bureaucratic inefficiency, and is in the midst of yet another reorganization.
External link
- GSA Official Site (http://www.gsa.gov)