Summary

The Future Years Defense Program, the military's overall financial plan, is used as a basis for internal Defense Department (DOD) program review and is relied on by Congress in reviewing budget requests and enacting appropriations. Unlike in earlier years, the document DOD calls its fiscal year 1994 plan contains only target defense budget totals for the outyears, omitting detailed program data. As a result, there are no planning assumptions to evaluate. In the past, GAO has evaluated planning assumptions for such factors as management savings and the adequacy of funding for major weapons programs through analysis of programmatic detail. DOD officials said that they did not include detailed outyear data in the fiscal year 1994 program because the data available at the time were outdated. Preparation of the fiscal year 1995 program, which will be submitted with the President's budget next year, represents the first opportunity to provide Congress with a plan based on a comprehensive review of the defense program since completion of the fiscal year 1992 plan. Each successive year for which there is no plan based on such a comprehensive review further removes defense planning from the annual appropriations process. Therefore, it is critical that DOD's plan for fiscal year 1994 rely on a comprehensive review of the defense program.

GAO found that: (1) the FY 1994 FYDP report contains only target defense budget totals for FY 1995 through FY 1999 and lacks the detailed program data required; (2) prior FYDP reports have contained more detailed information to evaluate DOD program and force level planning; (3) DOD did not include program data in its FY 1994 FYDP because available data were outdated and it did not develop its long-range defense spending plans for the new administration which it will use for its FY 1995 FYDP; (4) DOD is uncertain whether its FY 1995 FYDP development process will provide a thorough review of defense plans, since it has less time for FYDP review and will include only major programs issues in its program plans; and (5) the lack of a detailed service program review could further detach defense planning from the annual appropriations process.