GSA FY 1997 Annual Report--Table of Contents/Introduction

U.S. General Services
Administration

1997 Annual Report

Table of Contents

I. Overview

We Provide Expertly Managed

Space

Products

Services

And Solutions

At the Best Value

And Policy Leadership

To Enable Federal Employees To Accomplish Their Missions

GSA's Organization and Performance

Public Buildings Service

Federal Supply Service

Federal Technology Service

Office of Governmentwide Policy

GSA Staff Offices

GSA Regions

II. Consolidating Financial Statements

Letter of Transmittal from the Inspector General

Report of Independent Public Accountants

Inspector General's Report on Selected Performance Measures

Consolidating Financial Statements

Notes to Consolidating Financial Statements

Supplemental Schedules

III. Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act Report

IV. Supplemental Information

Inspector General's Semiannual Reports to the Congress-Executive Summaries

Administrator's Semiannual Management Reports to the Congress-Executive Summary

The 1997 GSA Annual Report is an Accountability Report produced under the guidelines of the Government Management Reform Act of 1994. This report provides a 360-degree view of the General Services Administration by augmenting the traditional audited consolidated financial information, as required under the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, with performance information and reviews of management controls. Reports consolidated within this document include: the financial statements and associated auditors' reports; the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act Assurance Letter; Prompt Payment Report; Cash Management and Electronic Payments, Receivables Management and Civil Monetary Penalties; and Executive Summaries of the Inspector General's Semiannual Reports and the Administrator's Semiannual Management Reports to the Congress.

GSA's Mission

We provide expertly managed space, products, services and solutions, at the best value and policy leadership, to enable Federal employees to accomplish their missions

To the President, the Congress and the American People:

In 1997, GSA finds itself in a vortex of change. Society, Government, our culture and our customers are changing. Like every successful institution around us, GSA is driving change. The workplace of the future has its roots in the GSA planning process today. We are streamlining Government policies, bringing cutting-edge ideas and state-of-the-art technology into the Federal work environment.

While this is not your father's GSA, we continue to be firmly grounded in our mission. GSA was created to save Federal agencies the cost and effort of obtaining the space, products, services, and policies they need to accomplish their missions. In today's world, this means we must be experts in providing tomorrow's great workplace environments.

GSA is moving on all fronts to identify the best practices, negotiate the contracts and write the policies that will make these emerging workplaces effective. Our challenge is to acquire the skills to cope and win in this new environment. Our challenge is to open ourselves to competition and become self-supporting. Our challenge is to learn to manage our business with a workforce that is almost 29% below our 1993 levels.

Throughout GSA, we are taking major steps to successfully meet these challenges. Management introduced the concept of strategic improvisation so we can learn to think on our feet. We focused on the four domains that will spell success in a changing world-marketing, skills, culture and measurement. We committed to meet our challenges by building a road-map in the strategic plan we delivered to Congress under the Government Performance and Results Act.

We reorganized several services to adapt for the future while maximizing our institutional expertise. Our Federal Technology Service consolidated five services to two to concentrate on the new opportunities offered by the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act. The Public Buildings Service and Federal Supply Service reorganized to improve their accountability and to increase responsiveness to customers. Our National Capital Region became a customer service reinvention laboratory.

We believe that these steps and others described in this Annual Report will prepare our organization for the challenges of a changing workplace. Through our powerful combination of innovation, planning and action, we will achieve our goal of providing, at best value, the workplace of the future for a Federal workforce which, in turn, will deliver America's promise to the world.

David J. Barram
Administrator
September 30, 1997

U.S. General Services Administration 1997 Annual Report

U.S. General Services
Administration

1997 Annual Report