Army National Guard

For eight Army National Guard units, GAO analyzed equipment with high maintenance costs, including tanks, howitzers, and armored personnel carriers, and found that it is feasible for units that train each year at the same location to share equipment. Items not needed for the pool could be stored in a facility with controlled humidity. GAO found that the Guard could save more than $10 million annually in maintenance costs if it kept 25 percent of this equipment in a controlled humidity environment. Moreover, the Guard could save as much as $20 million each year in maintenance costs if three units at one training site and two units at another training site pooled and shared their equipment and preserved their unused equipment. However, by maximizing equipment sharing further, the Guard units could place as much as 49 percent of their equipment in storage, thereby saving about $38 million in maintenance costs the first year and $39 million in each subsequent year.

GAO found that: (1) according to GAO's analysis of nine equipment items with high annual scheduled maintenance costs and eight Guard units, it is feasible for units that annually train at the same site to pool and share equipment; (2) for the eight units GAO reviewed, more than enough equipment is already located at Mobilization and Training Equipment Sites to create a pool of equipment for unit training needs; (3) the equipment not needed for the pool could be preserved in a controlled humidity environment; (4) more equipment than the Guard's 25-percent goal can be preserved; (5) other than during the 2-week annual training period, the unit equipment located at some training sites is used little; (6) because units train at different times during the summer, this equipment could be made available to other units for use during their 2-week training period or put in preserved storage; (7) GAO's analysis showed that the Guard could avoid up to $10.3 million annually in maintenance costs if it preserved 25 percent of these items in a controlled humidity environment; (8) the Guard could avoid up to $20 million annually in maintenance costs if three units at one training site and two units at another training site pooled and shared their equipment and preserved their unused equipment; (9) the cost avoidance GAO identified is the minimum that the Guard can achieve because many equipment items other than the ones used in the GAO analysis could be pooled and shared; (10) additional maintenance costs could be avoided if other state and territorial Guard military commands pooled and shared training equipment; (11) changing the annual training site of as few as three units will maximize equipment sharing, cause more equipment to be available for preservation, and allow the Guard to more efficiently use scarce maintenance resources; (12) under this scenario, Guard units could place as much as 49 percent of their equipment in preserved storage and reduce maintenance costs by $38.1 million in the first year and $39.2 million each year thereafter, which is $18 million more than the $21.2 million cost avoidance using the Guard's 25-percent goal; and (13) although the Guard would incur additional facility costs to preserve more than 25 percent of its equipment, the benefits of avoiding annual maintenance costs for this equipment would more than offset the facility costs.

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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