Cyber campus, St. E's funded in 2015

The General Services Administration has money in 2015 to build a civilian cyber campus and to continue development of the Department of Homeland Security's campus headquarters project in Washington, according to its administrator.

The funding was included in the fiscal 2015 omnibus spending bill enacted just before Congress adjourned for the year in December, GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini said in a Jan. 6 statement.

The law, he said, includes $144 million in funding for the next phase of the $4.5 billion DHS headquarters consolidation project at St. Elizabeths campus in southeast Washington, D.C. The campus plan has a rocky history. At a House hearing last September, the project came under fire from lawmakers for what they said were extravagant details and "cushy" features such as Brazilian hardwood paneling in some buildings. A Government Accountability Office study released at the hearing said DHS hadn't overseen the project adequately and that funding should be limited.

The $35 million allocated for the GSA's civilian cyber campus is part of a larger pool of $509.7 million earmarked for construction and acquisition, sites and expenses, and associated design services. Tangherlini had requested money in 2014 to combine some public-facing cyber incident response operations under a single multi-agency roof.

GSA's overall appropriation is about 1 percent below fiscal 2014 levels. The reductions, Tangherlini said, largely affect the major repairs and alterations account.