Installation Maintenance: Better Information on Risks and Challenges Needed to Improve Oversight of DOD Facility Conditions
Fast Facts
DOD's real estate portfolio consists of over 700,000 facilities worldwide.
The department faces a $285 billion maintenance backlog because it doesn't request full funding for facility maintenance or improvement projects. This poses a risk to its missions and the quality of life of its personnel. For example, some of its barracks are chronically neglected.
We found that DOD doesn't have enough maintenance staff to address this backlog. It also doesn't consistently track work orders, which could help prioritize maintenance needs. We recommended DOD address these and other issues.
Airman Performing Facility Maintenance at Minot Air Force Base
Airman on a ladder inspects equipment above ceiling tiles.
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Department of Defense (DOD) does not request full funding of identified needs for installation maintenance or major improvement projects for facilities. This shortage has led to an estimated $285 billion of maintenance backlogs in fiscal year 2025. Due to competing budget priorities, DOD set a goal to fund 90 percent of its maintenance needs, but GAO found that the military services continue to fall short of this goal by funding about 80 percent of these needs. DOD has not fully determined the risks to its mission and to the quality of life of its personnel as a result of not meeting its funding goal. Fully determining and communicating these risks would provide better information to DOD and Congress to weigh budget priorities.
Examples of Facility Deterioration at Selected Military Installations due to Deferred Maintenance, Resulting in Damage, Corrosion, and Suspected Mold
DOD also faces challenges in hiring and retaining key maintenance workers, which are critical for maintaining facilities. According to officials, challenges include hiring in remote and isolated locations; employment competition with the private sector; and federal hiring, pay, and work eligibility practices, which have been exacerbated by recent workforce reductions and the subsequent hiring freeze. However, GAO found that the military departments have not fully identified the extent of maintenance workforce shortages or developed strategies to address these challenges. Doing so would better position department and service leadership to ensure that they have the skilled workforce to address maintenance needs.
Reliable information is important for DOD to effectively prioritize needed maintenance and improvement projects in light of insufficient funding and workforce challenges. However, GAO found that standards for maintenance vary across the services, limiting effective department-wide decision-making. Additionally, installations rely on maintenance work order data systems to respond to identified maintenance needs. However, GAO found that tracking is limited and that the data within those systems are generally unreliable for determining the overall effectiveness of maintenance performed across installations and the services. With improved maintenance information, DOD would be better positioned to take steps to strengthen oversight to improve the department’s vast portfolio of infrastructure and ensure that risks to mission and quality of life are reduced.
Why GAO Did This Study
DOD had over 736,000 facilities worldwide, with an estimated value of $2.6 trillion as of fiscal year 2025. Managing real property has been on GAO’s High-Risk List since 2003. GAO has reported that better management of the federal government’s real property portfolio is needed to collect reliable real property information and improve the condition of federal facilities, including DOD facilities, and could save billions of dollars.
Senate Report 118-58 and House Report 118-125 contained provisions for GAO to assess DOD’s installation maintenance practices. Specifically, this report examines the extent to which DOD has (1) fully funded its facility maintenance and improvement needs; (2) determined the sufficiency of its maintenance workforce; and (3) developed the needed standards, reliable information, and oversight to manage installation maintenance.
GAO analyzed DOD policies, budgets, maintenance data, and other documentation; interviewed DOD officials, including installation officials and maintenance customers from a non-generalizable sample of eight installations.
Recommendations
GAO is making 13 recommendations to DOD, including that DOD determine risks associated with funding maintenance below recommended levels; identify and address maintenance workforce shortages; improve the reliability of maintenance data; and strengthen departmental oversight. DOD concurred with 7 recommendations, partially concurred with 5, and non-concurred with 1, in some cases noting ongoing actions that would address them. GAO maintains that DOD should fully implement all of these recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, in coordination with the secretaries of the military departments, fully determine the risks to missions and quality of life associated with funding facility sustainment below recommended levels through a risk assessment and communicates the results of this risk assessment to Congress and DOD leadership to help determine budget priorities. (Recommendation 1) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
|
| Department of Defense | The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, in coordination with the secretaries of the military departments, fully determine the risks to missions and quality of life associated with backlogs in military construction and facility repair projects through a risk assessment and communicates the results of this risk assessment and the extent of these backlogs to Congress and DOD leadership to help determine budget priorities. (Recommendation 2) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army, in consultation with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, should identify critical shortages in the maintenance workforce across Army installations and develop strategies to help installations address these shortages. (Recommendation 3) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
|
| Department of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy, in consultation with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, should identify critical shortages in the maintenance workforce across Navy installations and develop strategies to help installations address these shortages. (Recommendation 4) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy, in consultation with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, should identify critical shortages in the maintenance workforce across Marine Corps installations and develop strategies to help installations address these shortages. (Recommendation 5) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of the Air Force | The Secretary of the Air Force, in consultation with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, should identify critical shortages in the maintenance workforce across Air Force and Space Force installations and develop strategies to help installations address these shortages. (Recommendation 6) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of Defense | The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, in coordination with the secretaries of the military departments, evaluate existing standards and processes on timeliness, quality, and customer satisfaction for effective facility maintenance at installations to determine when greater standardization should be required or other improvements are needed. Once determined, the Secretary should revise department-wide installation maintenance guidance to include improvements identified and require greater standardization if beneficial. (Recommendation 7) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should revise Army policies to comply with revisions to department-wide guidance on effective facility maintenance once determined by the Secretary of Defense. (Recommendation 8) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy, in coordination with the Chief of Naval Operations, should revise Navy policies to comply with revisions to department-wide guidance on effective facility maintenance once determined by the Secretary of Defense. (Recommendation 9) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
|
| Department of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy, in coordination with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, should revise Marine Corps policies to comply with revisions to department-wide guidance on effective facility maintenance once determined by the Secretary of Defense. (Recommendation 10) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of the Air Force | The Secretary of the Air Force should revise policies to comply with revisions to department-wide guidance on effective facility maintenance once determined by the Secretary of Defense. (Recommendation 11) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of Defense | The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment requires the secretaries of the military departments to comprehensively review the maintenance data of each military service to identify any additional data reliability issues and to take steps to address identified issues to improve the accuracy of maintenance timeliness information. (Recommendation 12) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Department of Defense | The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment takes steps to strengthen the oversight of military service installation maintenance programs, such as by requiring the military services to provide annual performance information against revised standards for effective maintenance. (Recommendation 13) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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