1994 Defense Budget

Most items in the military services' $1.1 billion fiscal year 1994 request for ammunition and the Army's $207 million request for production base support are justified. In GAO's view, however, nearly $198 million of this request is not justified and should not be funded. Further, nearly $64 million from the services' fiscal year 1993 appropriations and about $55 million from the services' fiscal year 1992 appropriations are no longer needed for the ammunition for which the funds were appropriated. These amounts could be rescinded or used to cut the fiscal year 1994 budget. In addition, the Air Force might not need the $26.5 million that it requested for fiscal year 1994 for 30-mm training cartridges.

GAO found that: (1) the services have justified most of their $1.129-billion FY 1994 requests for ammunition; (2) the Army has justified its $207.2-million request for production base support; (3) $197.9 million of the FY 1994 request has not been justified and should not be funded; (4) the Army's $527.2-million FY 1994 request for ammunition and $207.2-million FY 1994 request for production base support could be reduced by $118.2 million; (5) the Navy's $277.1-million FY 1994 request for ammunition could be reduced by $57.9 million for 11 items; (6) the Air Force's $293.3-million request for ammunition could be reduced by $21.5 million for 3 items; (7) the Marine Corps' $85.1-million request for ammunition could be reduced by $0.3 million; and (8) $63.9 million from the services' FY 1993 appropriations and $55.2 million from the services' FY 1992 appropriations could be rescinded or used to reduce the FY 1994 budget.

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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