The Office of Assistant Secretary — Indian Affairs (AS-IA), Office of Facilities, Property, and Safety Management (OFPSM), Division of Facility Management and Construction (DFMC), will be conducting these two virtual listening sessions to seek Tribal oral and written comments and input to improve the Indian Affairs (IA) methodology used to calculate facilities Operation and Maintenance (O&M) funding allocations to allow for the appropriate allocation of funds across all sites and buildings within the IA inventory.
Per the Department of the Interior Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP), O&M funds the following activities:
- Operations: the costs for services related to the normal performance of functions for which the facility is used (include contracted services when applicable but exclude federal personnel costs). Examples include but are not limited to utilities, cleaning/janitorial, roads/grounds, and actual operations costs. All services include personnel, equipment, and supplies.
- Maintenance: the recurring annualized costs for planned activities needed to maintain an asset's functionality and capacity over its expected life. This includes but is not limited to planned and scheduled activities such as inspections, preventive maintenance, refinishing, painting, weatherproofing, and parts replacement. This also includes costs for contracted maintenance services and other expenses and supplies required to perform recurring activities to maintain the asset. Actual repair expenditures are included in the annual maintenance costs. Included are costs for personnel, supplies, and materials.
The current allocation formula for O&M funding as implemented in 1990 was based on having access to a comprehensive asset inventory with component level costing. This approach relies on having granular, current, and accurate data maintained by each individual site for each building. A system today to manage and maintain this component level of data will be costly to develop and cumbersome to maintain. The DFMC would like to streamline and increase the transparency of the O&M allocation calculation and ensure equity by utilizing data that are readily available in the IA - Facility Management System (IA-FMS), which is currently Maximo.
Indian Affairs is requesting input from Tribes on the factors that impact the costs of Operating and Maintaining a facility which should be considered for a new O&M allocation methodology. Some examples of factors that IA is considering include gross square feet (GSF), location (nearest reference city), type of facility, and age of facility. The factors are being considered to improve allocation of funding and are not related to total need of funding requested in annual budgets.
Invitation
Sessions
Comment Deadline
We look forward to discussing this topic with you and welcome your written input by April 5, 2024. Please send your input to Bill Kehoe, Branch Chief, Branch of Asset Management, OFSPM, DFMC, by email at William.Kehoe@bia.gov.
