CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

U.S. Congress

Washington, DC 20515

www.cbo.gov

April 14, 2006

Honorable Duncan Hunter

Chairman

Committee on Armed Services

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515-6035

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Section 322 of the conference report accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for

Fiscal Year 2006 required that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) review the Navy’s Report

on Proposed Congressional Budget Exhibits for Navy Mission-Funded Shipyards. CBO’s

review, which assesses whether the Navy’s report comprehensively addresses the matters

specified in the conference report as being of concern to the Congress, is attached.

If you would like further details about this analysis, we would be pleased to provide them. The

review was prepared by Daniel Frisk, who can be reached at (202) 226-2761, and by R. Derek

Trunkey, who can be reached at (202) 226-2916.

Sincerely,

Donald B. Marron

Acting Director

Attachment

cc: Honorable Ike Skelton, Ranking Member

House Committee on Armed Services

Honorable John Warner, Chairman

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Honorable Carl Levin, Ranking Member

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Honorable Joel Hefley, Chairman

House Subcommittee on Readiness

Honorable Solomon P. Ortiz, Ranking Member

House Subcommittee on Readiness
CBO
The Congress of the United States O Congressional Budget Office

Review of Proposed Congressional

Budget Exhibits for the Navy’s

Mission-Funded Shipyards

April 14, 2006
CBO
1

Introduction and Summary

The Navy currently owns and manages four shipyards, which operate under two distinct financial systems. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, and the 

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, are financed through the Navy Working Capital Fund (NWCF). Under that revolving-fund mechanism, Navy units pay 

for maintenance and repair services at those shipyards from the units’ appropriated 

funds, at prices that are intended to cover the shipyards’ full operating costs.1 The 

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, and the Pearl Harbor Naval 

Shipyard in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, had been under the NWCF as well; now they are 

funded through direct appropriations to the shipyards, an approach known as “mission funding.” As part of its ongoing Regional Maintenance Plan, the Navy intends to 

move the Norfolk and Portsmouth shipyards to mission funding starting on October 

1, 2006.2

One important difference between working-capital-funded (WCF) shipyards and 

mission-funded shipyards is the information that they report to the Congress. Currently, the Congress receives a separate budget exhibit on WCF activities for each of 

the military services. The Navy’s exhibit includes a section on WCF shipyards that 

contains information about their orders and revenues, expenses, workload, staffing, 

billing rates, and performance.3 Because the Pearl Harbor and Puget Sound shipyards 

are mission funded, they are no longer included in the WCF exhibit. Although the 

Congress receives separate budget exhibits on appropriations for mission-funded shipyards and their Navy customers, the WCF budget exhibit is the Congress’s only source 

of information about shipyards’ costs and performance. Consequently, the Congress 

now lacks such information for half of the Navy’s shipyards.

To improve shipyard reporting and address concerns about the decreased visibility of 

the operations and costs of mission-funded shipyards, the Congress asked the Navy to 

submit a report with proposed budget exhibits that address a number of specific topics.4

 The Navy released its Report on Direct Funding for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard 

and Report on Proposed Congressional Budget Exhibits for Navy Mission-Funded Ship1. The Navy supports its ships using three levels of maintenance: organizational, intermediate, and 

depot. Organizational-level maintenance, which involves routine tasks such as inspection, lubrication, and assembly of minor parts, is typically conducted by a ship’s crew without external assistance. Intermediate-level maintenance, which is performed by Navy and civilian personnel at 

designated facilities (including on tender ships), requires more-specialized work on ships’ systems 

and equipment. Depot-level maintenance, which is usually carried out by civilians at shipyards, 

involves the most exhaustive work, such as ship overhauls, alterations, refits, restorations, and 

major repairs.

2. For details of that plan, see Department of the Navy, Report to Congress: Pearl Harbor Regional 

Maintenance Pilot (May 2001).

3. For an example, see Department of the Navy, Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Estimates Submission: Justification of Estimates—Navy Working Capital Fund (February 2006).

4. U.S. House of Representatives, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, conference 

report to accompany H.R. 1815, Report 109-360 (December 18, 2005), p. 59.
2

yards in March 2006. The exhibits in that report contain information about shipyards’ 

funding, performance, workload, workforce, and infrastructure. (A description of the 

exhibits begins on page 11 of the attached Navy report; the exhibits themselves appear 

in Appendix C.)5

The Congress also requested that the Director of the Congressional Budget Office 

(CBO) submit a review of the Navy’s proposed budget exhibits.6

 Concurrently, at the 

request of the House Committee on Armed Services, CBO is studying the advantages 

and disadvantages of working-capital funding and mission funding in general and as 

they apply to naval shipyards. CBO previously submitted a potential template for 

shipyards’ reporting to the Congress in its document Comparing Working-Capital 

Funding and Mission Funding for Naval Shipyards: An Interim Report (December 1, 

2005). A copy of that template appears after page 5 of this document.7

Generally speaking, the Navy’s proposed budget exhibits for mission-funded shipyards 

address the matters specified in the Congressional request and are consistent with 

CBO’s template for reporting. The exhibits improve on current reporting to the Congress by including:

B Information about all mission-funded shipyards;

B Separate information for each mission-funded shipyard; and

B Clearly defined sections and data covering all of the major aspects of operations at 

mission-funded shipyards.

The Navy’s proposed budget exhibits also provide information for each shipyard that 

is not included in CBO’s template, such as:

B A narrative description of shipyards’ mission and capabilities;

B The number of home-ported ships supported;

B Additional metrics of shipyard performance;

B Days of labor expended, categorized by type of work;

5. The budget exhibits in the Navy’s report contain preliminary data. Later in March, the Navy provided actual exhibits to the Congress and CBO to support the President’s 2007 budget request.

6. U.S. House of Representatives, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, p. 60.

7. Unlike the Navy’s budget exhibits, CBO’s template does not combine data from intermediate-level 

maintenance facilities and depot-level facilities (shipyards). Consequently, the numbers in CBO’s 

template will not match those in the Navy’s exhibits.
3

B The number of apprentices participating in the shipyard apprentice program and 

the program’s costs;8

B A summary of capital purchases and military construction projects; and

B Schedules and labor expenditures for each maintenance availability.9

The Navy’s proposed exhibits lack some useful information, however. For example, 

they show only one year of historical data. Including additional years would more 

clearly reveal any long-term patterns in shipyards’ operations and performance as well 

as any effects of the transition to mission funding. (CBO’s template provided for five 

years of historical data.)

The Navy’s proposed exhibits also combine data for intermediate-level maintenance 

facilities and shipyards that were merged as a result of the Navy’s Regional Maintenance Plan.10 Separating out data for the two types of facilities would make the performance of shipyards easier to identify, although it would add to the length and complexity of the report. A compromise might be to make that information available in 

backup material or as part of a separate report.11

The elements in the Navy’s report—as requested by the Congress—are specific to 

mission funding, whereas CBO’s template would allow for comparable NWCF elements, when appropriate. If the Norfolk and Portsmouth shipyards remain under the 

NWCF, or if historical data from working-capital-funded shipyards are displayed, the 

Navy will have to adjust its exhibits to also include data unique to working-capital 

funding, such as net operating results and billing rates.

Comments on Specific Sections of the Navy’s Report

Other possible additions to the proposed exhibits are specific to individual sections 

and are addressed below. (The exhibits have a beginning narrative section, five numbered sections, an unnumbered section on hulls completed, and a glossary.)

8. The shipyard apprentice program (part of the shipyard workforce revitalization program) teaches 

employees production-trade skills through on-the-job experience and classroom training.

9. The Navy classifies ship maintenance work by “availabilities,” based on when a ship is available for 

maintenance.

10. The Pearl Harbor Shipyard was integrated with the Pearl Harbor Intermediate Maintenance Facility, and the Puget Sound Shipyard was integrated with intermediate-level facilities in Bangor and 

Everett, Washington.

11. In addition to the budget exhibits submitted to the Congress, a more detailed and frequent report 

might be appropriate for internal Navy management of mission-funded shipyards. The Navy currently produces quarterly Financial and Operating Statements—each of which contains more than 

30 pages of detailed data on revenues, costs, hulls in progress, hulls completed, unit costs, and 

labor—for individual NWCF shipyards. No such comprehensive reports exist for mission-funded 

shipyards (although informal, nonstandardized briefings do occur).
4

Narrative Section

Above the budget displays, the Navy provides a brief narrative describing the functions of naval shipyards and their funding mechanisms. It would also be useful to describe any major events—such as emergency ship repairs or unexpected ship deployments—that affect the workload, workforce, costs, or performance at each shipyard.

Section 1: Funding Summary

The Navy’s proposed funding summary exhibit is consistent with CBO’s template. 

For clarity, the “Department of Defense” (DoD) row in the data table could be 

retitled to indicate that it includes only DoD customers outside the Department of 

the Navy. 

Section 2: Performance Metrics

The proposed exhibit on performance metrics is roughly consistent with CBO’s template. However, additional measures of quality could be useful to the Congress. The 

Navy’s proposed quality metric is the guarantee deficiency rate, which measures the 

number of work defects (per 1,000 labor days) that occur within 90 days of a ship’s 

leaving a shipyard. The guarantee deficiency rate does not measure the magnitude of 

the required repairs, however, so by itself it may not accurately indicate a shipyard’s 

quality. For example, a minor deficiency in a ship’s galley and a major deficiency in a 

propulsion system would each count as a single deficiency, although the propulsion 

deficiency would presumably be much more laborious to repair. To address that issue, 

the Navy could also calculate and display the total annual cost to repair guarantee 

deficiencies for each shipyard.

Another potentially useful measure of quality—proposed to CBO by shipyard representatives—is the percentage of sea trials successfully completed on the first attempt. 

Although that metric may be relatively static (often 100 percent) on an annual basis, 

failed sea trials directly affect the readiness of the fleet. The Navy has struggled to find 

a quantifiable and objective link between shipyard performance and fleet readiness. 

That metric, combined with schedule adherence (discussed below), could serve as an 

interim indicator of shipyards’ effects on readiness until better metrics are developed 

and incorporated into the Navy’s exhibits. If no relationship between maintenance 

and readiness is found, either the Navy may need to revisit its readiness measures or 

maintenance may not be providing improvements in readiness. To make good management decisions, the Navy needs to be able to determine which of those statements 

is true.

Section 3: Performance Information

The proposed exhibit on performance information is consistent with CBO’s template, 

assuming that the Navy defines and accounts for overhead consistently among shipyards. The title of that section could be changed to “Cost and Workload” to better 

reflect its content. Some cost categories are similar but not identical to the current 

NWCF cost categories. Noting and highlighting any such differences, as well as any 

metrics that are new because of the integration of depot- and intermediate-level facilities, would be beneficial.
5

Section 4: Workforce

The Navy’s proposed workforce categories are consistent with CBO’s template. The 

information about the apprentice program is a useful addition. 

Section 5: Infrastructure and Capital 

Although the inclusion of the “Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization” cost category is an addition to CBO’s proposed template, the Navy’s exhibit 

lacks data on the value of facilities and capital equipment. Comparing annual upkeep 

expenses with the total value of facilities and capital equipment would allow the Congress to roughly gauge the reasonableness of those expenses. For example, if capital 

equipment has an average life of 20 years, annual capital expenses should average 

about 5 percent of the total value of capital equipment. Data on the size of a shipyard, 

such as the total square feet of industrial and office space, would also be useful to 

include, as would summary metrics of the material condition of capital and facilities.

Untitled, Unnumbered Section on Hulls Completed and in Progress 

The Navy’s proposed exhibit on hulls completed and in progress is another addition 

to CBO’s template. However, the schedule adherence metric (displayed in the exhibit 

as “Percent Late”) could be improved. The proposed measure of schedule adherence 

assesses how closely the actual duration of a ship’s maintenance availability matches 

the planned length, with duration running from the maintenance start date (induction) to the maintenance end date (delivery). As that metric is currently calculated, 

some shorter-than-expected maintenance availabilities could offset other, protracted 

ones. 

Fleet and shipyard representatives told CBO that a comparison of expected and actual 

end dates was more important than a comparison of expected and actual durations. 

Consequently, the following two metrics might be more appropriate measures of 

schedule adherence: 

B The percentage of hulls completed during a fiscal year that were late (delivered 

after the planned end date), and 

B The maximum and average percentage lateness of all deliveries, with lateness measured as the actual end date minus the planned end date, divided by the duration of 

the maintenance. Counting early deliveries as zero percent late may be warranted 

if, for example, two on-time availabilities are preferable to one early delivery and 

one late delivery—as was indicated in CBO’s meetings with shipyard and fleet 

maintenance representatives. Such counting would avoid the situation in which an 

early delivery offset a late delivery.

Glossary

The Navy could improve and expand the glossary of terms in the budget exhibit. 

Some acronyms and abbreviations—most notably, types of maintenance availabilities—are not defined in that glossary.
CBO’s Template for Shipyard Reports to the Congress 

(Numbers are for the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard)

(In the dollars of each fiscal year)

Continued

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006a 2007 2008

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

Total NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

15.1 16.5 21.7 28.8 31.1

110.7 125.0 145.2 157.0 176.8

32.5 24.2 29.4 29.6 39.6

31.1 36.0 23.6 23.3 39.5

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

121.3 146.9 172.2 155.9 169.6

____ ____ ____ ____ ____

Total 306.5 337.8 371.2 374.3 439.3

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

19.9 23.2 24.2 16.1 9.0

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

0 20.0 18.5 7.0 5.1

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA 1,373

607 641 684 758 757

3,742 3,985 4,072 4,330 4,302

17,312 18,391 22,273 22,586 24,782

48,384 46,254 52,275 70,253 71,150

365,798 381,842 401,032 441,782 476,373

279,544 270,016 244,578 292,011 303,400

Direct Civilian Labor-Days

Indirect Civilian Labor-Days

Military End Strength

Civilian End Strength

Direct Military Labor-Days

Indirect Military Labor-Days

Military Construction

Base Operating Support

Facilities Replacement Value

Labor

Capital Expenditure

Capital Depreciation

Capital Replacement Value

Facilities (Millions of dollars)

Net Operating Result

Accumulated Operating Result

End of Fiscal Year Carryover

Capital (Millions of dollars)

Overheade

Revenue (Millions of dollars)

Costs (Millions of dollars)c

WCF Operating Results (Millions of dollars)

Operation and Maintenance

Atlantic Fleet 

Pacific Fleet

NAVSEA

Direct Civilian Labor

Direct Materials

Other Department of Defense

Direct Contract

Other Direct Costsd

Foreign Military Sales

Other Federal Government

Otherb

Direct Military Labor

Actual Projected

Conversion

Navy Procurement

Navy Shipbuilding and 

Other Department of Navy
Continued 

Source: Congressional Budget Office.

Notes: This table is intended to serve as a template that shipyards could use in reporting to the 

Congress. As such, it includes space for data from the current fiscal year, five years of past 

data, and two years of projected data to provide historical context and show potential trends. 

Additional detail and backup information should be available, in a standard format, for all 

categories. Similar reports for intermediate-level maintenance facilities may be useful.

NYA = not yet available; NAVSEA = Naval Sea Systems Command; WCF = working-capital 

funding; n.a. = not applicable.

a. The current fiscal year.

b. The categories included in other revenue should be defined.

c. The totals in this section do not match the sums of the categories (all of which were provided 

separately by the Navy) because they include some costs not in the individual categories.

d. Other direct costs include travel and transportation related to a specific repair.

e. Overhead should include costs for base operating support; indirect labor, materials, contracts, 

and travel; training; support services (such as the Defense Finance and Accounting Service); and 

headquarters support (NAVSEA). Mission-funded yards do not now include all those categories.

f. Equals total costs divided by direct labor-days. Capital depreciation is included in WCF rates, but 

capital expenditure is not included in the current burdened rate. Direct material expense is 

included in the current burdened rate but not in WCF rates. The table should also provide a definition or reference for other rates.

g. Early completions count as zero percent late.

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006a 2007 2008

800 844 877 806 876

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

86323

338,851 309,128 94,289 94,957 529,770

353,600 255,200 100,000 63,100 536,400

1.04 0.83 1.06 0.67 1.01

153 123 43 49 182

152 129 45 49 187

0 6.3 5.0 0.3 4.3

0 23.4 14.9 0.5 12.8

13 13 11 13 68

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

Percentage of Work Remaining NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA

Average Labor Cost per Hull 

(Millions of dollars)

Hulls in Progress at End of Fiscal Year

Number

Remaining

Actual Labor-Days

Ratio of Actual Labor-Days 

to Budgeted Labor-Days 

Budgeted Labor-Days 

Scheduled Weeks

Actual Weeks

Average Percentage Lateg

Maximum Percentage Late

Working Capital Fund Rate

Hulls Completed This Fiscal Year

Number

Budgeted Labor-Days

Rates (Dollars)

Current Burdened Ratef

Navy Reimbursable Rate

Non-Navy Reimbursable Rate

Actual Projected
CBO