Audit Underway To Evaluate Use Of KC City Buildings And Facilities

From the City of Kansas City:

August 26, 2020

On August 20, 2020, the City Council passed Resolution 200679 directing the city auditor to conduct an audit of the city’s management of city real estate related to the use of facilities by city departments and staff and issue the report by December 2, 2020. The City Auditor’s Office has started work on this audit.

Kansas City government owns about 670 buildings and facilities and nearly 1,900 parcels throughout the city. Evaluating how city buildings and facilities are used could identify ways to improve how these properties are used resulting in potential long-term savings, additional revenues, or other efficiencies. Additionally, the nature of where city employees work is changing and telecommuting could also have an impact on the city’s current and future office space needs and associated costs.

As outlined in the Resolution, the objectives of this audit are to:

• Identify the occupancy, space utilization, and vacancies of all city buildings and city hall.
• Identify the occupancy of all city leased space including the term of the lease, yearly cost of the lease, and termination costs.
• Evaluate the impact and cost of combining the occupants of the city leased buildings into the vacant floors of city hall.
• Evaluate space needs if the city permanently adopts a telecommuting policy.
• Evaluate whether city-owned buildings could be leased or sold.

The Scope Statement for this audit is scheduled to be presented to the Finance, Governance, and Public Safety Committee that meets at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, August 26, 2020. The Scope Statement will be available on our Recent Reports page.

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This press release was produced by the City of Kansas City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.