Occupancy costs of school buildings
The financially weak budgets of the federal, state and local governments are forcing those responsible to comprehensively control all cost-influencing factors that have a negative impact on the total amount of their investments. In this context, the operating and maintenance costs of public buildings correspond to a large part of the property-related expenses and thus represent significant cost blocks for the realisation of savings potentials.
In order to achieve the economic efficiency in building planning and management demanded by the institutional side, it is first necessary to develop cost-benefit analyses for various alternative courses of action. As the building life cycle progresses, cost-of-use planning and benchmarking also become crucial for the continuous monitoring and control of property-related expenditure. For municipal real estate management, reliable occupancy cost forecasts and assessments are a challenge in practice.
The research paper "Occupancy Cost Planning and Benchmarking - A Survey for Public Real Estate Management" - Oldenbourg Verlag examines the relevant cause-effect relationships between occupancy costs and their underlying influencing variables using the example of around 130 school facilities in Germany. The empirical work identifies and quantifies the relevant causes for occurring differences in operating and maintenance costs and provides differentiated cost parameters. Numerous examples also illustrate the application of the research results in the context of utilisation cost planning and benchmarking.