Developing Affordable Plans and Budgets to Accomplish Missions
In light of the nation's fiscal imbalance, DOD will face competing demands for resources as it continues to support ongoing operations and prepare for future threats. Because of limitations in its approach to planning and budgeting, DOD faces a number of challenges in prioritizing needs and developing realistic plans and budgets:
- DOD's current approach to planning and budgeting is based on overly optimistic planning assumptions and lacks a strategic, risk-based framework for determining priorities and making investment decisions. As a result, it continues to experience a mismatch between programs and budgets and does not fully consider long-term resource implications and the opportunity cost of selecting one alternative over another.
Full Report of GAO-05-325SP (PDF, 94 pages), Highlights of GAO-06-13 (PDF), and Highlights of GAO-08-619 (PDF)
- DOD continues to rely heavily on emergency funding requests to cover the costs of contingency operations that have been ongoing for several years, even though some of these costs are the same ones that it incurs for base needs. Specifically, changes in DOD’s funding guidance have resulted in billions of dollars being added to the global war on terrorism funding requests for what DOD calls the “longer war against terror,” making it difficult to distinguish between incremental costs to support specific contingency operations and longer-term costs typically associated with DOD’s baseline budget.
Highlights of GAO-08-68 (PDF)
- DOD often does not commit to full funding of its major weapon systems, despite the department's policy to do so. To compensate for shortfalls in its investment strategy, DOD makes unplanned and inefficient funding adjustments, like moving money from one program to another, deferring costs into the future, or reducing procurement quantities.
Highlights of GAO-08-619 (PDF)
^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done
DOD needs to take certain actions to improve its approach to planning and budgeting:
- DOD needs to transform its investment decisionmaking from a traditional stove-piped approach to a more joint and strategic, risk-based approach. This reform would fully link strategic goals to plans and budgets; assess the values and risks of various courses of actions as a tool for re-examining defense programs, setting priorities, and allocating resources; and use performance measures to assess outcomes.
Highlights of GAO-06-13 (PDF), Highlights of GAO-08-619 (PDF)
- DOD needs to develop and implement a strategy to bring the department's current portfolio into balance by aligning the number of programs and the cost and schedule of those programs with available resources.
Highlights of GAO-08-619 (PDF)
- DOD needs to identify what costs are related to the war or terror and build these costs into the base defense budget instead of continuing to fund these costs with emergency funding requests.
Highlights of GAO-08-68 (PDF)
- DOD should work, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, to limit the use of emergency funding requests to truly unforeseen or sudden events and emerging needs.
Highlights of GAO-08-68 (PDF)
^ Back to topKey Reports
- Defense Acquisitions: A Knowledge-Based Funding Approach Could Improve Major Weapon System Program Outcomes
- GAO-08-619, July 2, 2008
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 47 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
- Global War on Terrorism: DOD Needs to Take Action to Encourage Fiscal Discipline and Optimize the Use of Tools Intended to Improve GWOT Cost Reporting
- GAO-08-68, November 6, 2007
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 64 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
- Defense Management: Additional Actions Needed to Enhance DOD's Risk-Based Approach for Making Resource Decisions
- GAO-06-13, November 15, 2005
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 39 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
