Military Housing: Opportunities Exist to Better Explain Family Housing O&M Budget Requests and Increase Visibility Over Reprogramming of Funds
GAO-04-583
Published: May 27, 2004. Publicly Released: May 27, 2004.
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Highlights
The military services have owned and operated much housing on their installations but increasingly are privatizing housing, relying on the private sector to manage the renovation, construction, and maintenance of existing and new homes for military families. Funding to operate and maintain existing government-owned housing is provided through the family housing operation and maintenance (O&M) appropriations. The amount of funding required varies based on a number of factors, including how quickly privatization occurs to reduce requirements for government-owned housing. As requested, this report discusses the (1) services' assumptions and methods used to develop budget requests and how well their budget justifications explain the impact of privatization on family housing O&M funds and (2) the extent to which Congress has visibility over the services' reprogramming of family housing O&M funds.
Recommendations
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| To improve visibility over reprogrammings of family housing O&M funds by all services, Congress may wish to consider requiring the Secretary of Defense to provide it information covering the movement of funds for the family housing O&M appropriations in a report at the end of the fiscal year, similar to what DOD now provides to Congress on other DOD appropriations. This report should provide timely and accurate information on movement of funds, which includes reprogrammings within the nine family housing O&M accounts and subaccounts, along with other information on other fund movements such as transfers and supplementals. |
Closed – Implemented
|
In the Congressional language accompanying the 2005 Military Construction Bill, Congress specifically cited GAO's report as evidence that the shifting of funds is significant and directed each of the military services to report further information on reprogramming of funds within family housing O&M accounts. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To provide Congress with sufficient data in the services' budget justification submissions, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) to work with the services to better explain the impacts of the housing privatization initiative on the budget requests for each of the nine family housing O&M accounts and subaccounts. |
Closed – Implemented
In June 2004, DOD updated its Financial Management Regulation to require the military services to provide an explanation of the effect of the housing privatization on their budget estimates for the military family housing O&M accounts and subaccounts.
|
| Department of Defense | To improve visibility over the Navy and the Marine Corps' reprogrammings of family housing O&M funds, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy to work with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to report obligation data using the same budget structure that congressional conferees use to designate how funds are to be used for the four operations subaccounts, similar to reporting done by the other military services. |
Closed – Implemented
On July 27, 2004, DOD provided written direction to the Secretary of the Navy and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to implement procedures to report obligation data using the same budget structure that congressional conferees use to designate how funds are to be used for the four operations subaccounts, similar to reporting done by the other military services.
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| Department of Defense | To improve visibility over the Navy and the Marine Corps' reprogrammings of family housing O&M funds, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy to work with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to resolve long-standing data inconsistencies to ensure that obligation data reported by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service match obligation data reported by the Navy and the Marine Corps. |
Closed – Implemented
On July 27, 2004, DOD provided written direction to the Secretary of the Navy and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to implement procedures to resolve long-standing data inconsistencies to ensure that obligation data reported by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service match obligation data reported by the Navy and the Marine Corps.
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Topics
Appropriation accountsCongressional oversightDefense economic analysisMilitary appropriationsMilitary housingPlanning programming budgetingPrivatizationReprogramming of appropriated fundsBudget requestsU.S. Navy