Facility maintenance is a critical aspect of ensuring the longevity, safety, and functionality of any property. For U.S. Government diplomatic and consular real properties overseas, this responsibility falls under the purview of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO). Understanding who is responsible for different aspects of maintenance, from routine upkeep to major repairs and upgrades, is essential for effective facility management. This article delves into the framework of Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization (SRM) as defined by the OBO, clarifying roles and responsibilities to ensure that all necessary maintenance tasks are addressed efficiently.
Defining Sustainment: The Foundation of Facility Care
Sustainment, often referred to as routine maintenance and repair, is the proactive work required to keep a facility in optimal condition for its intended use. This encompasses a range of activities designed to prevent issues before they escalate.
Key Aspects of Sustainment:
- Preventive Maintenance: Regularly scheduled tasks, service calls, and minor repairs are the backbone of sustainment. These actions are anticipated throughout the facility’s lifecycle and are crucial for preventing larger problems.
- Specialized Expertise (PMSCs): Preventive Maintenance Service Contracts (PMSCs) are vital for tasks requiring specialized skills. This includes inspections and repairs of specific equipment or building systems, ensuring that expert attention is given where needed. PMSCs replace the older term “building maintenance expense (BME)”.
- Regular Adjustments and Inspections: Consistent monitoring and fine-tuning of systems are essential to catch potential issues early and maintain efficient operation.
- Bulk Procurement: Efficient sustainment relies on having necessary supplies, tools, and personal protective equipment readily available. Bulk purchases ensure these items are on hand for routine tasks.
- Routine Replacements and Refurbishments: Sustainment includes the regular replacement of consumable components like belts, filters, and lubricants, as well as cosmetic upkeep such as refinishing surfaces, replacing tiles, and painting. Minor component repairs like circuit boards and sensors also fall under this category.
What Sustainment Does Not Cover:
- Major System Replacements (Restoration): When systems or components require significant overhaul due to complexity or impact on other systems, it moves beyond sustainment into the realm of restoration.
- Building Operating Expenses (BOE): General operational costs like utilities, janitorial services, and gardening are not covered under OBO sustainment funding. These are typically managed through other funding streams like the Diplomatic Program (DP), agency budgets, or ICASS.
Restoration: Addressing System Failures and Major Repairs
Restoration focuses on bringing a facility, system, or component back to its designated functional condition after a failure or significant degradation. It’s about repairing or replacing elements to restore original performance.
Components of Restoration:
- Major System Repairs: Restoration addresses significant failures in building systems, fixed equipment, and major components that go beyond routine sustainment.
- Like-Kind Replacements: Replacing failed or failing systems and components with similar items that restore the original function is a core part of restoration. This ensures the facility returns to its intended operational capacity without altering its original purpose.
- Examples of Restoration Work: This includes significant repairs or replacements of pavements, roofs, HVAC systems (over three tons), elevators, safety equipment, facades, windows and doors (excluding forced entry/ballistic resistant types), water and wastewater treatment systems, and major electrical equipment like generators and switchgear.
What Restoration Excludes:
- Minor Repairs (Sustainment): Small-scale repairs and replacements are classified as sustainment, not restoration. Funding guidelines differentiate between minor and major repairs to clarify categorization.
- System Alterations or Upgrades (Modernization): Intentional changes to a system’s design capacity, function, or location are considered modernization, not restoration.
Modernization: Adapting Facilities for the Future
Modernization involves upgrading or replacing facilities and systems to meet new standards, accommodate evolving needs, or replace components with extended lifespans (over 50 years), such as structural elements. These projects often fall under the Minor Construction and Improvement (MCI) Program.
Characteristics of Modernization:
- Intentional Alterations: Modernization projects deliberately change the use, function, or capacity of a space, system, or equipment beyond its original design.
- Examples of Modernization Projects: This includes increasing space, changing the function of a space, increasing utility service demands, significantly enhancing system performance, changing system types (e.g., chiller types), or relocating equipment.
- OBO Approval and Oversight: Modernization projects require design approval from OBO’s Office of Design & Engineering (OBO/PDCS/DE) to ensure safety and technical compliance.
SRM Submittal and Approval Processes
Effective SRM management relies on clear processes for planning, submitting, and approving maintenance activities.
- Facility Management Plans: Facility managers (FMs) are responsible for developing post maintenance plans and documenting sustainment activities in the Global Maintenance Management System (GMMS).
- GMMS for Restoration and Modernization: Restoration and modernization projects require detailed documentation in GMMS for technical review, permits, funding, and OBO approval.
Funding Sustainment and Restoration
OBO provides funding for Sustainment and Restoration based on annual calculations and prioritized needs.
- Dedicated SRM Funds: Sustainment and Restoration funds are specifically for these purposes and cannot be used to supplement other funding sources like the Diplomatic Program (DP) or ICASS, and vice versa.
- Project and Function Codes: OBO uses project codes to categorize SRM activities and function codes based on property ownership and use, ensuring appropriate fund allocation.
- Landlord Responsibilities (Operating Leases): For operating leased properties, SRM is primarily the landlord’s responsibility, a condition ideally negotiated into lease agreements. Exceptions exist when local laws dictate tenant responsibility, security necessitates cleared personnel for maintenance, or the systems are U.S. Government-furnished.
- Significant Property Review: SRM work on culturally significant properties requires review and approval from OBO’s Office of Cultural Heritage (OBO/OPS/CH) before funds can be released.
Sustainment Funding Streams:
- Routine Use Funds: Annual allocations for sustainment of facilities and building systems are calculated based on property size and historical expenditure patterns.
- PMSC Funding: Separate annual funding requests are made through GMMS for Preventive Maintenance Service Contracts for specific building systems. PMSC funding is restricted to preventive maintenance contracts and cannot be used for other operational expenses.
- Bulk Supplies and Tools Funding: Funds are allocated for bulk purchases of common supplies, tools, and PPE used across facilities for sustainment tasks.
Restoration Funding Procedures:
- OBO Approval Required: Each restoration requirement must be submitted to and approved by OBO before funding is considered.
- Facilities Work Plan (FWP): Posts identify and record restoration needs in the GMMS Facilities Work Plan (FWP), updating it annually and assigning execution quarters.
- Quarterly Submissions: Restoration requirements are submitted quarterly for funding allocation based on availability.
- Emergency Funding: Immediate funding requests are possible for system failures that pose safety or security risks.
Additional Funding Considerations:
- Routine Maintenance within Sustainment Budget: Posts are expected to manage routine maintenance within their annual sustainment budgets. Larger projects exceeding the budget can be submitted as quarterly restoration needs.
- Labor Contracts: SRM funding generally cannot be used for basic labor contracts (painting, plumbing, etc.) that can be performed by in-house staff. Such contracts should be funded through ICASS or direct agency charges.
- Specialized Expertise Contracts Allowed: SRM funds can cover contracts for specialized expertise, inspections, and repairs of specific OBO equipment or systems.
- Technical Surveys: Expenses for technical surveys related to routine maintenance and repair are allowable under both Sustainment and Restoration funding.
Facility Stakeholders and Responsibilities
Effective facility management is a collaborative effort involving various stakeholders.
- Facility Stakeholders: This includes OBO, post management, occupants, and landlords, all playing roles in facility upkeep.
- Occupant Responsibilities: Occupants are responsible for good housekeeping and reporting maintenance needs to facility management.
Responsibilities Based on Property Type:
- U.S. Government-Owned/Capital Leased Non-Residential Properties: OBO is responsible for SRM of building systems, interiors, exteriors, structures, grounds, and conservation of heritage features. Occupants must allow access for SRM activities.
- Operating Leased Non-Residential Properties: The post contracting officer coordinates SRM with the landlord. Landlords are generally responsible for SRM, with exceptions as noted earlier. Occupants must allow access for maintenance.
- Residential Properties: Posts develop housing guides outlining residential SRM responsibilities. Occupants are responsible for maintaining presentable conditions and some routine tasks like light bulb replacement, filter cleaning, and reporting maintenance issues.
- U.S. Government-Owned/Capital Leased Residential Properties: The U.S. Government handles SRM except for tasks assigned to occupants.
- Operating Leased Residential Properties: SRPM ensures lessor and U.S. Government compliance with lease terms. Landlords are generally responsible for SRM, with costs potentially deducted from lease payments if landlords fail to perform.
- Designated Representational Residences: The U.S. Government takes on more SRM responsibilities for residences of key officials, covering cleaning, wear-and-tear repairs, and grounds care.
- Marine Security Guard Residence (MSGR) Properties: Similar to representational residences, the U.S. Government, with reimbursement from the Marine Corps, covers most SRM for MSG residences, while the detachment handles daily housekeeping.
Grounds Care and Funding Allocation
Grounds care responsibilities and funding vary based on property type and occupancy.
- Nonresidential and Common-Use Areas: Grounds care for multi-agency occupied buildings is funded by ICASS. Sole Department of State occupancy uses DP funds. Sole foreign affairs agency occupancy is funded by the occupying agency. USAID funds its properties unless other agencies are present.
- Residences: Designated residences and MSG residences grounds care are DP funded. Senior foreign affairs agency residences are funded by parent agencies. For other residences, occupants handle grounds care up to certain size limits, with potential for government funding for larger areas.
Facility Asset Management: Long-Term Planning
Effective facility management extends to long-term asset management strategies.
- Total Cost of Facility Ownership (TCFO): This method assesses the comprehensive cost of a facility over its lifecycle, from acquisition to disposal, including O&M and recapitalization.
- Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA): LCCA evaluates maintainability during planning and design to minimize long-term SRM costs.
- Life Cycle Asset Management (LCAM): LCAM optimizes asset lifecycle management from planning to decommissioning, focusing on long-term cost-effectiveness and sustainability.
- Facility Performance Evaluations (FPE): FPEs strategically identify trends to optimize operational and maintenance requirements, validate life cycle cost milestones, and establish standardized evaluation processes.
In conclusion, maintaining U.S. Government facilities overseas is a multifaceted operation involving clearly defined responsibilities for sustainment, restoration, and modernization. Understanding who “cares for and performs maintenance” across these categories is crucial for ensuring efficient operations, safety, and the long-term viability of these vital assets. By adhering to the SRM framework and utilizing tools like GMMS and asset management strategies like TCFO and LCAM, the OBO and its stakeholders work to preserve and enhance U.S. diplomatic properties worldwide.
