Rapid Fire March 29, 2013: GAO Scoops DoD on State of Major Programs

• The US GAO’s most recent batch of defense reports is focused on acquisition, starting with their latest assessment of Selected Weapon Programs (the infamous SAR report itself has not been publicly released by the Pentagon yet), while a 2nd report finds some IT programs (known as MAIS) have high management turnover, and a 3rd report notes that the number of contracts competed by DoD has been decreasing, with just 37% of USAF contracts competed in FY12.

• According to the GAO the Pentagon’s portfolio has shrunk to an XXXXL size of $1.6 trillion across 86 programs, a decrease of 10 programs and $109B. R&D costs grew by 0.4% from the previous year, while procurement decreased by 3.8%, mostly because of program cancellations and restructurings. They lament the lack of a proper acquisition baseline for $130B+ of spending on BMDS, because of the way the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was exempted from the usual constraints set by DFARS legislation. More granular SAR highlights will be featured in our program coverage in the days to come, and the reports are in our Google Drive.