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4. Can an agency that rents from GSA be a purchasing agency?

Yes, section 4(i) of the proposed legislation defines “purchasing agency” broadly to mean any agency that is approved by an appropriations Act to receive a purchase transfer from the Fund to pay for a project. Normally agencies that rent from GSA would expect GSA to get the funding for such projects. GSA is funded in the annual FSGG appropriations bill, and if the FSGG bill were to approve a GSA project, then FSGG would be responsible for funding the annual repayments. The legislation anticipates that there may be times when an Appropriations Subcommittee other than FSGG is willing to sign up for the annual repayments. If so, that Subcommittee can approve the project. In such cases, section 9 of the proposed legislation requires the asset to go into GSA’s inventory. The legislation does not create new landholding authority for agencies that currently do not have it. Section 9 provides that the purchase transfer would go from the revolving fund to the approved purchase agency, that agency in turn would transfer the money to GSA, and GSA would then pay for the construction, own the property, and rent it back to the purchasing agency. Since the purchasing agency would be repaying the revolving fund and paying rent to GSA at the same time, section 9(a) of the proposed legislation requires GSA to give the purchasing agency a rent credit to prevent the agency from paying twice for the asset.

Category: Questions about agencies' participation.