Defense Budget

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the military services' fiscal year (FY) 1988 budget requests for ammunition items and the Army's request for ammunition production base support.

GAO noted that the budget request totalled $3.6 billion for ammunition items and $168.5 million for ammunition production facilities. GAO believes that the Army adequately justified its request for the ammunition production base; however, GAO estimated that the services inadequately justified $577.6 million of the $3.6 billion request for ammunition items. GAO found that the Army overstated its request by $320.9 million because: (1) eight developmental items will not be ready for procurement; (2) two items have overly optimistic production schedules; (3) four items have unresolved component problems; (4) two items have excessively long procurement lead times; (5) it will not need the total program quantity for two items in FY 1988; and (6) four items have larger quantities than needed. GAO found that the Navy overstated its $566.3 million for ammunition by $63.1 million due to: (1) production problems for three items; (2) prematurely programmed procurements; (3) overstated unit costs; (4) a possible replacement with lower cost, alternative components; and (5) items that exceed inventory requirements. GAO found that the Air Force overstated its $643.4 million request for ammunition by $189.1 million because: (1) it will not require certain item quantities to meet 1988 delivery schedules; and (2) lead times are excessive. GAO also found that the Marine Corps overstated its $410.9 million request for ammunition by $4.5 million because a new fuze will not be ready in time for procurement in FY 1988.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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