This time, the board was primarily tasked to study the impact on state and local governments of the loss of tax revenue due to the exemption from taxation of the vast federal real estate holdings.
In its first year, the board effected the location of federal agencies into government-owned buildings in some large cities and planned to meet future growth by using surplus property before making new acquisitions.
The board was focused on addressing a problem caused by the lack of coordination of real estate needs across different departments and agencies.
It recommended that the board undertake a forecast of all real estate needs for a ten-year period, and specify standardized space requirements for administrative functions.
It also announced even tighter procedures to be followed to request additional space, with the aim of further savings in rent paid by the Federal Government.
[4] On December 17, 1935, during a meeting of the National Emergency Council, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered a study on the effect of the ownership of real estate by the United States on the real estate tax revenue of state and local government.
The study was to be performed by a committee comprising the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget.
[5] The committee considered the loss of tax revenue to state and local governments to be a serious problem due to the large amount of federally-owned property exempt from taxation.
[6] On July 5, 1949, President Harry Truman vetoed Senate Bill 41, which would have paid the city of Reno, Nevada, $1,620 for street improvements made near a property owned by the United States Forest Service.
Truman went on to say that special consideration for Reno would encourage further such requests; a general program addressing all federally-owned property, as recommended by the board in 1943, should be pursued by Congress instead.