1996 DOD Budget

GAO identified potential reductions of $4.9 billion to the fiscal year 1996 operation and maintenance budget requests from the military services and the Defense Department (DOD), which totaled $70.3 billion. In addition, GAO notes that funding for the Partnership for Peace program, which is designed to encourage joint training and military exercises with NATO forces and to promote greater partner interoperability, is divided between the DOD and State Department budgets. As a result, no one congressional committee has complete oversight to ensure that the program's efforts are effective and not duplicative. The fiscal year 1996 operation and maintenance budget request from DOD earmarks $40 million for program expenses, including an information management system, regional airspace initiative, defense resource management program, and unit exchanges. Meanwhile, the State Department is requesting $60 million for this same program.

GAO found that the services' and DOD's FY 1996 O&M budget requests could be reduced by a total of about $4.9 billion including reductions in funding levels for activities such as: depot maintenance, the Army's operating tempo, civilian personnel requirements, unobligated balances from prior years' O&M appropriations, Air Force real property maintenance, the services' bulk fuel requirements, appropriated fund support for commissaries, travel processing costs, O&M funds to compensate for Defense Business Operating Fund losses, Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Program, Army and Navy spare and repair part inventories, National Guard youth programs, flying hour programs, military-to-military contacts program, facilities at Honduras' Soto Cano Air Force base, U.S. Forces Command class I, II, and III environmental compliance projects, recruiting funds, the Air Force's operational support aircraft inventory, DOD's support of Olympic security activities, DOD's Legacy Resource Management Program, the Army's deactivation of seven ships in its fleet of prepositioned ships after it takes delivery of five Large Medium Speed Roll-in/Roll-off ships, the Civil Air Patrol, and Air Force's pilot training requirements. Also, GAO noted that, because the funding for the Partnership for Peace program is divided between DOD and the Department of State, no one Committee has complete program oversight to ensure that program efforts are effective and not duplicative.