From the minutes of a meeting of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB):
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The board met with representatives of SSA [Social Security Administration] and the General Services Administration (GSA) [which handles a number of federal government tasks such as leasing office space] to learn how and why SSA makes changes to its field office spaces, what so-called “trust fund” buildings are and why GSA is paid for those by SSA.You got me. What's a "trust fund" building? No, the Social Security trust funds are not invested even a little bit in real estate. They're required by law to be 100% invested in U.S. government bonds. The Social Security Administration owns some office buildings but they're just what's needed for the agency's office space. I suppose there may be some extra office space that the agency leases out or which it no longer needs and is in the process of selling but that's not investments. Why would SSA be paying GSA rent on office space that SSA owns?
4 comments:
There are buildings SSA bought and owns but they still pay GSA to maintain and manage them.
A quick google search led to this - https://oig.ssa.gov/sites/default/files/audit/full/pdf/A-15-13-23043_0.pdf
See Appendix F
On page F-1 of
https://oig.ssa.gov/sites/default/files/audit/full/pdf/A-15-13-23043_0.pdf
"Trust Fund Buildings (TFB) are purchased with the Social Security Trust Funds during the program’s early days. SSA constructed 95 TFBs nationwide (including the Headquarters buildings and some field offices). SSA depreciated these building over a 50-year useful life. As of April 25, 2012, SSA had disposed of 50 TFBs and replaced them with non-TFBs. For a list of disposed TFBs, refer to Appendix I. Therefore, there are 45 TFBs remaining in use as Social Security offices. For a list of current TFBs, refer to Appendix H."
I wonder if that's the name/nickname of the GSA fund agencies pay fees into for management, etc. (and that will allow GSA to run sans budget for a few weeks here into the shutdown)
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