The Treasury Department's public list of procurement contracts for the Troubled Asset Relief Program is missing one document - the lease for private office space being used by some of the people working on the program.
That agreement calls for Treasury to pay $116,408 a month for the first nine months of this year. The agency will pay $252,386 a month for the following 12 months in expanded space in the building, at 1801 L Street NW in Washington D.C.
We can't say whether the latter figure translates to a good deal for 71,000 square feet of high-end office space. But we wonder how many businesses, in the current economy, would be willing to commit to monthly lease payments that large.
Treasury's deal is technically with the General Services Administration, the arm of the federal government responsible for managing the office space and other property it owns and leases.
The agreement was never announced by Treasury but was mentioned in an oversight report.
The location of the office was not specified in the GAO report, and was redacted in related service contracts. But BailoutSleuth found that the initial agreement was for the eighth floor of 1801 L Street, a prime downtown location.
The federal government has leased the current space from a company called Eleven Eighteen LLP since 1988, and various agencies have used it since. The GSA signed a 10-year agreement for an expanded space in the building earlier this year.
Since the TARP program began, critics have pointed to redacted sections of Treasury's contracts with legal and accounting firms as evidence that the department is not being open about how it is spending taxpayer money.
Although Treasury officials blacked out or deleted sections of those agreements, the department still released them as part of a stated effort to be as transparent as possible in its dealings with outside contractors. Because the GSA is a federal agency, it does not fall into the same category, and the property lease is not mentioned on the Treasury webpage dedicated to procurement deals.
A GSA spokesman told BailoutSleuth that leases of this size were handled by electronic bidding. The spokesman said he could not release a copy of the lease without a Freedom of Information Act request.
According to press reports, Treasury initially required about 30,000 square feet of office space to house 90 people. The space at 1801 L Street NW serves as the headquarters for the Office of Financial Stability, which runs TARP. Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general assigned to act as the program's watchdog, said in a report in February that his staff also was taking one floor of the building.
Barofsky himself is working from a space at the Treasury Department building.
Treasury rented nearby parking spaces for nine months with Colonial Parking for $75,850. It also spent $8,750 to paint its new offices and $3,212 for shredding machines. In both contracts, the office location was blacked out.
In addition, Treasury spent $168,308 to terminate an earlier agreement with Regus, a Luxembourg-based company that provides temporary office space around the world.
That agreement calls for Treasury to pay $116,408 a month for the first nine months of this year. The agency will pay $252,386 a month for the following 12 months in expanded space in the building, at 1801 L Street NW in Washington D.C.
We can't say whether the latter figure translates to a good deal for 71,000 square feet of high-end office space. But we wonder how many businesses, in the current economy, would be willing to commit to monthly lease payments that large.
Treasury's deal is technically with the General Services Administration, the arm of the federal government responsible for managing the office space and other property it owns and leases.
The agreement was never announced by Treasury but was mentioned in an oversight report.
The location of the office was not specified in the GAO report, and was redacted in related service contracts. But BailoutSleuth found that the initial agreement was for the eighth floor of 1801 L Street, a prime downtown location.
The federal government has leased the current space from a company called Eleven Eighteen LLP since 1988, and various agencies have used it since. The GSA signed a 10-year agreement for an expanded space in the building earlier this year.
Since the TARP program began, critics have pointed to redacted sections of Treasury's contracts with legal and accounting firms as evidence that the department is not being open about how it is spending taxpayer money.
Although Treasury officials blacked out or deleted sections of those agreements, the department still released them as part of a stated effort to be as transparent as possible in its dealings with outside contractors. Because the GSA is a federal agency, it does not fall into the same category, and the property lease is not mentioned on the Treasury webpage dedicated to procurement deals.
A GSA spokesman told BailoutSleuth that leases of this size were handled by electronic bidding. The spokesman said he could not release a copy of the lease without a Freedom of Information Act request.
According to press reports, Treasury initially required about 30,000 square feet of office space to house 90 people. The space at 1801 L Street NW serves as the headquarters for the Office of Financial Stability, which runs TARP. Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general assigned to act as the program's watchdog, said in a report in February that his staff also was taking one floor of the building.
Barofsky himself is working from a space at the Treasury Department building.
Treasury rented nearby parking spaces for nine months with Colonial Parking for $75,850. It also spent $8,750 to paint its new offices and $3,212 for shredding machines. In both contracts, the office location was blacked out.
In addition, Treasury spent $168,308 to terminate an earlier agreement with Regus, a Luxembourg-based company that provides temporary office space around the world.
published April 2, 2009, 0 Comments
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