Deferred maintenance of the nation’s government buildings and other publicly owned assets represents an enormous fiscal burden for every level of government. Research estimates the accumulated cost of deferred maintenance in the United States at $1 trillion.
The true costs of deferred maintenance — the accumulated gap between the amount that should have been invested to preserve, maintain and repair public infrastructure and the amount actually spent — are difficult to determine because most states do not consistently define, measure, or report deferred maintenance in their budgets or capital planning documents. Without reliable data, policymakers lack the necessary information to understand the way current policies might fall short, allocate resources effectively and mitigate long-term or unexpected costs.
To aid states in this effort, the Volcker Alliance recently published a resource guide of promising approaches to help policymakers measure deferred maintenance. Volcker published this research in October 2025 as a series called Meeting the Trillion-Dollar Challenge.
Volcker’s analysis found that while many states acknowledge deferred maintenance for some types of infrastructure, only a handful provide comprehensive or consistent data. The studies together highlight three areas in which states can improve and help policymakers make more data-driven, evidence-based decisions: measure the deferred maintenance gap, develop a plan for shrinking the gap and report regularly on progress.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.?
