Financial Management

Air Force Budget Request Could Be Enhanced With More Complete Aircraft Data Gao ID: AIMD-97-137R August 21, 1997

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO compared aircraft quantity data contained in the logistical/financial system used by the Air Force for financial statement presentation with the number of aircraft displayed in the historical data in supporting documents accompanying the Air Force's budget submission.

GAO noted that: (1) there are significant differences between aircraft quantities disclosed in budget support documents and those used to produce financial statements; (2) the Air Force uses its Reliability and Maintainability Information System (REMIS), a mixed system, to develop the financial information on aircraft reported in the financial statements; (3) in reviewing these data, GAO found that the number of active aircraft in REMIS was substantially more than the aircraft disclosed in the budget submission; (4) REMIS showed that the Air Force had a total active inventory of about 6,000 aircraft as of May 1997; (5) in its budget submission for fiscal year (FY) 1997, the Air Force requested funds to operate and maintain about 5,000 aircraft; (6) accounting standards require that financial statements include information on all active aircraft; (7) the budget submission discloses what the Department of Defense terms primary aircraft; (8) historical and future years' data shown in the FY 1998 budget support documents also used primary aircraft as the principal basis for the Air Force's flying hour program; (9) Air Force officials stated that budget documents have historically disclosed only quantities for primary aircraft, because those quantities more directly relate to other important information, such as personnel levels and readiness, which affect the Air Force's flying hour program; (10) at the same time, as GAO has previously reported, there are costs associated with operating and maintaining backup and attrition aircraft; (11) complete aircraft information is important to the Congress as it determines the level of funding to provide through budget deliberations; (12) in its report on the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1997, the Senate Committee on Armed Services directed that additional quantity data on aircraft categories be included in budget submissions; and (13) the Air Force could better link budget and financial information, an objective of the Chief Financial Officers Act, and improve the completeness and utility of Congressional budget justification documents, as called for by the Senate Committee on Armed Services, if actual active aircraft numbers for past years and projected active aircraft for future years were also disclosed in the budget documents.

Recommendations

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