Property Disposal

DOD Is Handling Large Amounts of Excess Property in Europe Gao ID: NSIAD-93-195 July 30, 1993

The drawdown of forces in Europe has resulted in more than 1 million short tons (a short ton is 2,000 pounds) of excess property worth billions of dollars, everything from typewriters to wheeled and tracked vehicles. Most of the property is from Army bases. Each service has established a method to deal with the excess equipment and supplies arising from the drawdown. Between October 1989 and February 1993, Defense Reutilization and Marketing Offices in Europe received $4.7 billion of excess equipment and supplies. These offices have revised their procedures to accommodate the additional excess and supplies that the services have turned in to them since the drawdown began. The Pentagon lacks a systematic means of sharing information on some excess property at the installation level. Thus, the property is being returned to the wholesale level or sent to disposal, which is causing problems in the efficient drawdown of equipment and supplies. For example, Army units are turning in items needed by other Army units, and items sold through the disposal process only fetch about two percent of the acquisition cost.

GAO found that: (1) the Army has the largest reduction in forces and the most excess ammunition, equipment, supplies, and other property; (2) the Air Force and the Navy are redistributing excess war reserve materiel valued at about $120 million; (3) the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Offices (DRMO) in Europe are handling increased quantities of excess equipment and supplies due to the reductions in force; (4) DRMO have changed some procedures to enable them to better manage the large volumes of excess property; and (5) the lack of visibility among the various supply levels has affected operational readiness and resulted in the accumulation of excess items at some units.

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.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.