United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office National Security and International Affairs Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2000-08-24 monographic deposited born digital 44 p. GA 1.13:NSIAD-00-193 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193 P0b002ee1803796a5 f:ns00193 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-23 GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193 NSIAD-00-193 Privatization Defense procurement Future budget projections Reporting requirements Maintenance services contracts Equipment maintenance Letter Report NSIAD

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) congressional reports on depot maintenances workloads, focusing on: (1) DOD's compliance with the 50-50 requirement in 10 U.S.C. 2466 for fiscal years 1998 and 1999; (2) GAO's views on DOD's progress in improving the quality of the workload data for the previous fiscal years; and (3) the reasonableness of DOD's estimates of expenditures for fiscal years 2000 through 2004.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) DOD's report covering fiscal year (FY) 1998 and 1999 workloads shows that the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy were in compliance with the 50-percent ceiling set by section 2466, because of continuing errors and weaknesses in the Department's data, GAO could not determine whether the military services were in compliance with the 50-percent ceiling for the percentage of depot maintenance performed by the private sector in FY 1999; (2) the quality of the data reported for FY 1999 was substantially improved from prior years; (3) improvements made in the data and reporting process reduced the amount of errors found or led to corrections of errors before data were reported to Congress; (4) GAO attributes these improvements largely to better guidance provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the reporting of more comprehensive data, improved audit coverage by the military services, and the correction of errors by the services before the data were reported to Congress; (5) however, GAO continues to find errors and inconsistencies in the reporting of depot-level workload and limitations in how well the services documented their analyses supporting their workload reports; (6) GAO does not believe that DOD's projections of depot maintenance workloads for fiscal years 2000 through 2004 are a reasonably accurate projection of future depot maintenance expenditures; (7) future year expenditure projections, at best, provide a rough estimate of future workload funding split between the public and private sectors since the projections are constructed using budgetary estimates that by their nature, will change over time; (8) DOD's future year projections do not show the reporting services exceeding the 50-percent ceiling on contract work in FY 2000 and beyond; (9) however, the reasonableness of the estimates is doubtful because of uncertainties that exist regarding the extent to which the services have fully identified private sector depot maintenance workloads; (10) further, GAO's analysis of available data indicates that the Air Force: (a) may exceed the ceiling by about $200 million this fiscal year; and (b) faces significant management challenges to remain under the ceiling in future years; and (11) while the Army does not face as severe a problem as the Air Force, available data suggest it too could be confronted with management challenges if it is to stay within the 50-percent ceiling in future years. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193/html/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193/pdf/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193.pdf GAO/NSIAD-00-193 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-00-193 Letter Report GAO/NSIAD-00-193; Depot Maintenance: Action Needed to Avoid Exceeding; Privatization Defense procurement Future budget projections Reporting requirements Maintenance services contracts Equipment maintenance Title 10 Section 2460 Title 10 Section 2466 10 U.S.C. 2460 10 U.S.C. 2466 Public Law 105-85 Public Law 106-65