DEPARTMENT OF 

DEFENSE 

Financial and Business 

Management 

Transformation 

Hindered by Longstanding Problems

Statement of Gregory D. Kutz 

Director, Financial Management and Assurance 

United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Subcommittee on Financial Management, the 

Budget, and International Security, 

Committee on Governmental Affairs, U. S. 

Senate

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:30 a.m. EDT 

Thursday, July 8, 2004 

GAO-04-941T 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-941T 

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Gregory Kutz, 

(202) 512-9505 (kutzg@gao.gov) 

Highlights of GAO-04-941T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Financial 

Management, the Budget, and 

International Security, Committee on 

Governmental Affairs, United States 

Senate 

July 8, 2004

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Financial and Business Management 

Transformation Hindered by Longstanding Problems 

DOD’s senior civilian and military leaders are committed to transforming the 

department and improving its business operations and have taken positive 

steps to begin this effort. However, overhauling the financial management 

and related business operations of one of the largest and most complex 

organizations in the world represents a daunting challenge. Six DOD 

program areas are on GAO’s “high risk” list, and the department shares 

responsibility for three other governmentwide high-risk areas. DOD’s 

substantial financial and business management weaknesses adversely affect 

not only its ability to produce auditable financial information, but also to 

provide accurate and timely information for management and Congress to 

use in making informed decisions. Further, the lack of adequate 

accountability across all of DOD’s major business areas results in billions of 

dollars in annual wasted resources in a time of increasing fiscal constraint. 

Impact of Weaknesses in Human Capital Management, Internal Control, and Systems 

Business area 

affected Problem identified 

Military pay 

Ninety-four percent of mobilized Army National Guard soldiers GAO 

investigated had pay problems. These problems distracted soldiers from their 

missions, imposed financial hardships on their families, and had a negative 

impact on retention. 

Logistics 

Asset visibility and other logistical support problems hampered mission 

readiness during Operation Iraqi Freedom, resulting in a discrepancy of $1.2 

billion between the materiel shipped and the acknowledgement by the activity 

that the materiel was received. 

Travel 

Seventy-two percent of the over 68,000 premium class airline tickets DOD 

purchased for fiscal years 2001 and 2002 were not properly authorized and 73 

percent were not properly justified. 

Property 

New JSLIST chem-bio suits sold on the Internet for $3 while at the same time 

DOD was buying them for over $200. Further, thousands of defective suits 

declared excess by DOD were improperly issued to local law enforcement 

agencies—which are likely to be first responders in case of a terrorist attack. 

Contract 

payments 

Some DOD contractors were abusing the federal tax system, with little or no 

consequence. As of September 2003, DOD had collected only $687,000 of 

unpaid federal taxes through a mandated levy program. GAO estimated that at 

least $100 million could be collected annually through effective implementation 

of the levy on DOD contract payments. 

Systems

The department invested $179 million on two failed system efforts that were 

intended to resolve its long-standing disbursement problems. 

Source: GAO. 

Four underlying causes impede reform: (1) lack of sustained leadership, 

(2) cultural resistance to change, (3) lack of meaningful metrics and ongoing 

monitoring, and (4) inadequate incentives and accountability mechanisms. 

To address these issues, GAO offers two suggestions for legislative action. 

First, a senior management position should be established to manage and 

oversee DOD’s financial and business management transformation efforts. 

Second, in a recent report GAO proposes that Congress shift the control and 

accountability for business systems investments from the DOD components 

to the recently created functional areas known as domains. DOD disagrees 

and stated that its portfolio management process would provide the needed 

control over business system investments. In GAO’s view, providing the 

funding to the domains would be one way of overcoming DOD’s parochial 

operations and help preclude spending billions on nonintegrated systems. 

GAO has previously reported on 

the Department of Defense’s (DOD)

financial management and business 

related problems and key elements 

necessary for successful reform. 

Although the underlying conditions 

remain fundamentally unchanged, 

DOD continues to be confronted 

with pervasive problems related to 

its systems, processes (including 

internal controls), and people 

(human capital). These problems 

impede DOD’s ability to operate its 

numerous business operations in 

an efficient and effective manner. 

The Subcommittee asked GAO to 

provide its views on (1) the impact 

that long-standing financial 

management and related business 

process weaknesses continue to 

have on DOD, (2) the underlying 

causes of DOD business 

transformation challenges, and 

(3) DOD’s business transformation 

efforts. 

In addition, GAO reiterates the key 

elements to successful reform: 

(1) an integrated business 

management transformation 

strategy, (2) sustained leadership 

and resource control, (3) clear 

lines of responsibility and 

accountability, (4) results-oriented 

performance measures, (5) 

appropriate incentives and 

consequences, (6) an enterprise 

architecture to guide reform 

efforts, and (7) effective 

monitoring and oversight. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 1 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittees: 

It is a pleasure to be here to discuss key aspects of business transformation efforts at the 

Department of Defense (DOD). At the outset, we would like to thank the Subcommittee for 

having this hearing and acknowledge the important role hearings such as this one serve. The 

involvement of this Subcommittee is critical to ultimately assuring public confidence in DOD as 

a steward that is accountable for its finances. DOD continues to confront pervasive decades-old 

financial management and business problems related to its systems, processes (including internal 

controls), and people (human capital). Of the 25 areas on GAO’s governmentwide “high risk” 

list, 6 are DOD program areas, and the department shares responsibility for 3 other high-risk 

areas that are governmentwide in scope.1 These problems preclude the department from 

producing accurate, reliable, and timely information to make sound decisions and to accurately 

report on its trillions of dollars of assets and liabilities. Further, DOD’s financial management 

deficiencies, taken together, continue to represent the single largest obstacle to achieving an 

unqualified opinion on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements. 

Today, we will provide our perspectives on (1) the impact that long-standing financial 

management and related business process weaknesses continue to have on DOD, (2) the 

underlying causes that have impeded the success of prior reform efforts, and (3) DOD’s business 

systems transformation efforts. In addition, we will offer two suggestions for legislative 

consideration, which we believe improve the chances that DOD business systems transformation 

efforts will succeed. Our statement is based on previous GAO reports and testimonies. 

Summary

DOD’s substantial long-standing business management systems and related problems adversely 

affect the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of its operations, and have resulted in a lack of 

adequate accountability across all major business areas. These problems have left the 

department vulnerable to billions of dollars of fraud, waste, and abuse annually, at a time of 

increasing fiscal constraint. Secretary Rumsfeld has estimated that successful improvements to 

DOD’s business operations could save the department 5 percent of its budget a year, which 

equates to over $20 billion a year in savings. The following examples indicate the magnitude and 

severity of the problems. 

• Ninety-four percent of mobilized Army National Guard soldiers from the six units we 

reviewed had pay problems. According to the individuals we interviewed, these problems 

distracted from the soldiers missions, imposed financial hardships on their families, and had 

a negative impact on retention.2

 For example, the commander of an Army National Guard 

Special Forces unit stated in January 28, 2004, testimony that 25 soldiers left his unit as a 

 

1

 U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-03-119 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003). 

The nine interrelated high-risk areas that represent the greatest challenge to DOD’s development of world-class 

business operations to support its forces are: contract management, financial management, human capital 

management, information security, inventory management, real property, systems modernization, support 

infrastructure management, and weapon systems acquisition. 

2

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty 

Experienced Significant Pay Problems, GAO-04-89 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13, 2003). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 2 

direct result of the pay problems they experienced and that another 15 asked for transfers to 

the inactive National Guard.

• DOD sold new Joint Service Logistics Integrated Suit Technology—chem-bio suits—on the 

Internet for $3 while at the same time DOD was buying them for over $200.3 Ineffective 

supply chain management resulted in thousands of defective suits being declared excess by 

DOD and then improperly issued to local law enforcement agencies—which are likely to be 

first responders in case of a terrorist attack.4

• Asset visibility and other logistical support problems hampered mission readiness during 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, including cannibalization of vehicles for parts and duplication of 

requisitions.5

Further evidence of DOD’s problems is the long-standing inability of any military service or 

major defense component to pass the test of an independent financial audit because of pervasive 

weaknesses in financial management systems, operations, and controls. 

Over the years, the department has initiated several broad-based reform efforts intended to 

fundamentally reform its business operations. However, these efforts have not resulted in the 

fundamental reform necessary to resolve the department’s long-standing management challenges 

because the department has not addressed the four underlying causes that have impeded 

meaningful reform: 

• lack of sustained leadership and management accountability; 

• deeply embedded cultural resistance to change, including military service parochialism and 

stovepiped operations; 

• lack of results-oriented goals and performance measures and monitoring; and 

• inadequate incentives and accountability mechanisms for business transformation efforts. 

These four issues, to a large degree, have impeded DOD’s efforts to modernize its business 

systems—a critical factor in its transformation efforts. DOD’s stovepiped, duplicative, and 

nonintegrated systems environment contributes to its operational problems and costs the 

taxpayers billions of dollars each year. For fiscal year 2004, DOD requested approximately $19 

billion to operate, maintain, and modernize its reported 2,274 business systems. The existing 

systems environment evolved over time as DOD components—each receiving their own 

funding—developed narrowly focused parochial solutions to their business problems. 

Unfortunately, however, these system solutions have not been implemented on time, within 

budget, and delivered the promised capability. Two systems discussed in our recent report6

—the 

 

3

 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Management: Examples of Inefficient and Ineffective Business Processes, GAO-02-873T (Washington, D.C.: June 25, 2002). 

4

 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Excess Property: Risk Assessment Needed on Public Sales of Equipment 

That Could Be Used to Make Biological Agents, GAO-04-81TNI (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7, 2003). 

5

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Logistics: Preliminary Observations on the Effectiveness of Logistics 

Activities during Operation Iraqi Freedom, GAO-04-305R (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 18, 2003). 

6

 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Billions Continue to Be Invested with 

Inadequate Management Oversight and Accountability, GAO-04-615 (Washington, D.C.: May 27, 2004). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 3 

Defense Logistics Agency’s Business Systems Modernization (BSM) effort and the Army’s 

Logistics Modernization Program (LMP)—are no exception. 

Successful reform of DOD’s fundamentally flawed financial and business management 

operations must simultaneously focus on its systems, processes, and people. While DOD has 

made some encouraging progress in addressing specific challenges, it is still in the very early 

stages of a departmentwide reform that will take many years to accomplish. Secretary Rumsfeld 

has made business transformation a priority. For example, through its Business Management 

Modernization Program (BMMP), DOD is continuing its efforts to develop and implement a 

business enterprise architecture (BEA) and establish effective management oversight and control 

over its business systems modernization investments. However, after about 3 years of effort and 

over $203 million in reported obligations, we have not seen significant change in the content of 

DOD’s architecture or in its approach to investing billions of dollars annually in existing and 

new systems. We have made numerous recommendations aimed at improving DOD’s plans for 

developing the next version of the architecture and implementing controls for selecting and 

managing business systems investments.7

 To date, DOD has not addressed 22 of our 24 

recommendations. 

The seriousness of DOD’s business management weaknesses underscores the importance of no 

longer condoning “status quo” business operations at DOD. To improve the likelihood that the 

department’s current business transformation efforts will be successful, we have previously 

suggested8

 that a chief management official9 position be created. The individual would be 

responsible for overseeing key areas such as strategic planning, performance and financial 

management, and business systems modernization, while also facilitating the overall business 

transformation effort within the department. 

 

Further, in a recent report10 we also suggest that to improve management oversight, 

accountability, and control of the department’s business system funding, Congress may wish to 

consider providing the funds to operate, maintain, and modernize DOD’s business systems to the 

functional areas, known as domains, rather than the military services and the defense agencies. 

Currently, each military service and defense agency receives its own funding and is largely 

autonomous in deciding how to spend these funds, thereby hindering the development of broadbased, integrated corporate system solutions to common DOD-wide problems. Transforming 

DOD’s business operations and making them more efficient would free up resources that could 

 

7

 See Related Reports. 

8

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Further Actions Needed to Establish and Implement a 

Framework for Successful Financial and Business Management Transformation, GAO-04-551T (Washington, D.C.: 

Mar. 23, 2004) and U.S. General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Further Actions Needed to Establish 

and Implement a Framework for Successful Business Transformation, GAO-04-626T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 

2004). 

9

 On September 9, 2002, GAO convened a roundtable of executive branch leaders and management experts to 

discuss the Chief Operating Officer concept. For more information see U.S. General Accounting Office, Highlights 

of a GAO Roundtable: The Chief Operating Officer Concept: A Potential Strategy to Address Federal Governance 

Challenges, GAO-03-192SP (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 4, 2002). 

10 GAO-04-615. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 4 

be used to support the department’s core mission, enhance readiness, and improve the quality of 

life for our troops and their families. 

Background

Because DOD is one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world, overhauling its 

business operations represents a huge management challenge. In fiscal year 2003, DOD reported 

that its operations involved over $1 trillion in assets, nearly $1.6 trillion in liabilities, 

approximately 3.3 million military and civilian personnel, and disbursements of over $416 

billion. For fiscal year 2004, the department was appropriated more than $425 billion, which 

included approximately $65 billion for contingency operations. Execution of DOD operations 

spans a wide range of defense organizations, including the military services and their respective 

major commands and functional activities, numerous large defense agencies and field activities, 

and various combatant and joint operational commands that are responsible for military 

operations for specific geographic regions or theaters of operation. To execute these military 

operations, the department performs an assortment of interrelated and interdependent business 

processes, including logistics management, procurement, healthcare management, and financial 

management. 

Transformation of DOD’s business systems and operations is critical to the department providing 

Congress and DOD management with accurate and timely information for use in decision 

making. One of the key elements we have reported11 as necessary to successfully execute the 

transformation is establishing and implementing an enterprise architecture. In this regard, the 

department has undertaken a daunting challenge to modernize its existing business systems 

environment through the development and implementation of a business enterprise architecture 

(BEA)—a modernization blueprint. This effort is an essential part of the Secretary of Defense’s 

broad initiative to “transform the way the department works and what it works on.” 

Pervasive Financial and Business Management Problems

Affect DOD’s Efficiency and Effectiveness

For several years, we have reported that DOD faces a range of financial management and related 

business process challenges that are complex, long-standing, pervasive, and deeply rooted in 

virtually all business operations throughout the department. As the Comptroller General testified 

in March 2004 and as discussed in our latest financial audit report,12 DOD’s financial 

management deficiencies, taken together, continue to represent the single largest obstacle to 

achieving an unqualified opinion on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements. To 

date, none of the military services has passed the test of an independent financial audit because 

 

11 U.S. General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Status of Financial Management Weaknesses and 

Progress Toward Reform, GAO-03-931T (Washington, D.C.: June 25, 2003). 

12 U.S. General Accounting Office, Fiscal Year 2003 U.S. Government Financial Statements: Sustained 

Improvement in Federal Financial Management Is Crucial to Addressing Our Nation’s Future Fiscal Challenges, GAO-04-477T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 3, 2004) and our report contained in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, 

Financial Report of the United States Government (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 27, 2004). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 5 

of pervasive weaknesses in internal control and processes and fundamentally flawed business 

systems. 

In identifying improved financial performance as one of its five governmentwide initiatives, the 

President’s Management Agenda recognized that obtaining a clean (unqualified) financial audit 

opinion is a basic prescription for any well-managed organization. At the same time, it 

recognized that without sound internal control and accurate and timely financial and performance 

information, it is not possible to accomplish the President’s agenda and secure the best 

performance and highest measure of accountability for the American people. The Joint Financial 

Management Improvement Program (JFMIP)13 principals have defined certain measures, in 

addition to receiving an unqualified financial statement audit opinion, for achieving financial 

management success. These additional measures include (1) being able to routinely provide 

timely, accurate, and useful financial and performance information; (2) having no material 

internal control weaknesses or material noncompliance with laws and regulations; and 

(3) meeting the requirements of the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 

(FFMIA).14 Unfortunately, DOD does not meet any of these conditions. For example, for fiscal 

year 2003, the DOD Inspector General (DOD IG) issued a disclaimer of opinion on DOD’s 

financial statements, citing 11 material weaknesses in internal control and noncompliance with 

FFMIA requirements. 

Pervasive weaknesses in DOD’s financial management and related business processes and 

systems have (1) resulted in a lack of reliable information needed to make sound decisions and 

report on the status of DOD activities, including accountability of assets, through financial and 

other reports to Congress and DOD decision makers; (2) hindered its operational efficiency; 

(3) adversely affected mission performance; and (4) left the department vulnerable to fraud, 

waste, and abuse, as the following examples illustrate. 

• Of the 481 mobilized Army National Guard soldiers from six GAO case study Special Forces 

and Military Police units,15 450 had at least one pay problem associated with their 

mobilization. According to the individuals we interviewed, DOD’s inability to provide timely 

and accurate payments to these soldiers, many of whom risked their lives in recent Iraq or 

Afghanistan missions, distracted them from their missions, imposed financial hardships on 

 

13 JFMIP is a joint undertaking of the Office of Management and Budget, GAO, the Department of Treasury, and the 

Office of Personnel Management, working in cooperation with each other and with operating agencies to improve 

financial management practices throughout the government. 

14 FFMIA, Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. A., §101(f), title VIII, 110 Stat. 3009, 3009-389 (Sept. 30, 1996), requires the 

23 major departments and agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-576, 104 

Stat. 2838 (Nov. 15, 1990) (as amended), to implement and maintain financial management systems that comply 

substantially with (1) federal financial management systems requirements, (2) applicable federal accounting 

standards, and (3) U.S. Standard General Ledger (SGL) at the transaction level. 

15 The six case study units reviewed include the Colorado B Company Special Forces, Virginia B Company Special 

Forces, West Virginia C Company Special Forces, Mississippi 114th Military Police Company, California 49th

Military Police Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, and the Maryland 200th Military Police Company. In 

addition, our limited review of pay experiences of soldiers in the Colorado Army Guard’s 220th Military Police 

Company, which recently returned from Iraq, indicated that some of the same types of pay problems that we found 

in our case studies had also affected soldiers in this unit. 

 
 GAO-04-941T 

 6 

the soldiers and their families, and has had a negative impact on retention.16 More 

specifically, in January 28, 2004, testimony, the commander of a special forces unit stated 

that 25 soldiers left the unit as a direct result of the pay problems they experienced and that 

another 15 asked for transfers to the inactive National Guard. He also stated that because it 

would take an estimated 2 years and $250,000 to train each replacement, these losses have 

had a significant negative impact on the unit’s mission capability—one of only six such units 

in the nation. 

• DOD incurred substantial logistical support problems as a result of weak distribution and 

accountability processes and controls over supplies and equipment shipments in support of 

Operation Iraqi Freedom activities, similar to those encountered during the prior Gulf War. 

These weaknesses resulted in (1) supply shortages, (2) backlogs of materials delivered in 

theater but not delivered to the requesting activity, (3) a discrepancy of $1.2 billion between 

the amount of materiel shipped and that acknowledged by the activity as received, 

(4) cannibalization of vehicles, and (5) duplicate supply requisitions.17

• Our analysis of data on more than 50,000 maintenance work orders opened during the 

deployments of six battle groups indicated that about 29,000 orders (58 percent) could not be 

completed because the needed repair parts were not available on board ship. This condition 

was a result of inaccurate ship configuration records and incomplete, outdated, or erroneous 

historical parts demand data. Such problems not only have a detrimental impact on mission 

readiness, they may also increase operational costs due to delays in repairing equipment and 

holding unneeded spare parts inventory.18 

• Inadequate asset visibility and accountability resulted in DOD selling new Joint Service 

Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology—the current chemical and biological protective 

garment used by our military forces—on the Internet for $3 each (coat and trousers) while at 

the same time buying them for over $200 each.19 DOD has acknowledged that these 

garments should have been restricted to DOD use only and therefore should not have been 

available to the public. 

• DOD sold excess biological laboratory equipment, including a biological safety cabinet, a 

bacteriological incubator, a centrifuge, and other items that could be used to produce 

biological agents. Using a fictitious company and fictitious individual identities, we were 

able to purchase a large number of new and usable equipment items and protective gear over 

the Internet from DOD. Although the production of biological warfare agents requires a 

high degree of expertise, the ease with which these items were obtained through public sales 

increases the risk that terrorists could obtain and use them to produce biological agents that 

 

16 GAO-04-89. 

17 GAO-04-305R. 

18 U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Inventory: Opportunities Exist to Improve Spare Parts Support Aboard 

Deployed Navy Ships, GAO-03-887 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 29, 2003). 

19 GAO-02-873T. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 7 

could be used against the United States.20

• Some DOD contractors have been abusing the federal tax system with little or no 

consequence, and DOD is not collecting as much in unpaid taxes as it could. Under the Debt 

Collection Improvement Act of 1996, DOD is responsible—working with the Treasury 

Department—for offsetting payments made to contractors to collect funds owed, such as 

unpaid federal taxes. However, we found that DOD had collected only $687,000 of unpaid 

taxes as of September 2003. We estimated that at least $100 million could be collected 

annually from DOD contractors through effective implementation of levy and debt collection 

programs. We also found numerous instances of abusive or potentially criminal activity21 

related to the federal tax system during our audit and investigation of 47 DOD contractor 

case studies. The 34 case studies involving businesses with employees had primarily unpaid 

payroll taxes, some dating to the early 1990s and some for as many as 62 tax periods.22 The 

other 13 case studies involved individuals who had unpaid income taxes dating as far back as 

the 1980s. Several of these contractors provided parts or services supporting weapons and 

other sensitive military programs.23 

• Based on statistical sampling, we estimated that 72 percent of the over 68,000 premium class 

airline tickets DOD purchased for fiscal years 2001 and 2002 were not properly authorized 

and that 73 percent were not properly justified. During fiscal years 2001 and 2002, DOD 

spent almost $124 million on airline tickets that included at least one leg in premium class—

usually business class. Because each premium class ticket costs the government up to 

thousands of dollars more than a coach class ticket, unauthorized premium class travel 

resulted in millions of dollars of unnecessary costs being incurred annually.24

 

• Control breakdowns resulted in DOD paying for airline tickets that were not used and not 

processed for refund—amounting to about 58,000 tickets totaling more $21 million for fiscal 

years 2001 and 2002. DOD was not aware of this problem before our audit and did not 

maintain any data on unused tickets. Based on limited data provided by the airlines, it is 

possible that the unused value of the fully and partially unused tickets DOD purchased from 

 

20 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Excess Property: Risk Assessment Needed on Public Sales of Equipment 

That Could Be Used to Make Biological Agents, GAO-04-81TNI (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7, 2003). 

21 We characterized as “potentially criminal” any activity related to federal tax liability that may be a crime under a 

specific provision of the Internal Revenue Code. Depending on the potential penalty provided by statute, the activity 

could be a felony (punishable by imprisonment of more than 1 year) or a misdemeanor (punishable by imprisonment 

of 1 year or less). Some potential crimes under the Internal Revenue Code constitute fraud because of the presence 

of intent to defraud, intentional misrepresentation or deception, or other required legal elements. 

22 A “tax period” varies by tax type. For example, the tax period for payroll and excise taxes is one quarter of a year. 

The taxpayer is required to file quarterly returns with IRS for these types of taxes, although payment of the taxes 

occurs throughout the quarter. In contrast, for income, corporate, and unemployment taxes, a tax period is 1 year. 

23 U.S. General Accounting Office, Financial Management: Some DOD Contractors Abuse the Federal Tax System 

with Little Consequence, GAO-04-95 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 12, 2004). 

24 U.S. General Accounting Office, Travel Cards: Internal Control Weaknesses at DOD Led to Improper Use of 

First and Business Class Travel, GAO-04-229T (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 2003), and U.S. General Accounting 

Office, Travel Cards: Internal Control Weaknesses at DOD Led to Improper Use of First and Business Class 

Travel, GAO-04-88 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 24, 2003). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 8 

fiscal years 1997 through 2003 with DOD’s centrally billed account could be at least $115 

million.25

• We found that DOD sometimes paid twice for the same airline ticket—first to the Bank of 

America for the monthly credit and bill, and second to the traveler, who was reimbursed for 

the same ticket. Based on our mining of limited data, the potential magnitude of the 

improper payments was 27,000 transactions for over $8 million. For example, DOD paid a 

Navy GS-15 civilian employee $10,000 for 13 airline tickets he had not purchased.26

• We found27 that 38 of 105 travel cardholders we reviewed who had their accounts chargedoff due to nonpayment still had active secret or top-secret clearances as of June 2002. Some 

of the Army personnel holding security clearances who have had difficulty paying their 

travel card bills may present security risks to the Army. Army regulations provide that an 

individual’s finances are one of the key factors to be considered in determining whether an 

individual should continue to be entrusted with a secret or top-secret clearance. However, we 

found that Army security officials were unaware of these financial issues and consequently 

could not consider their potential effect on whether these individuals should continue to have 

security clearances.

• Our review of fiscal year 2002 data revealed that about $1 of every $4 in contract payment 

transactions in DOD’s MOCAS system was for adjustments to previously recorded 

payments—$49 billion of adjustments out of $198 billion in disbursement, collection, and 

adjustment transactions. According to DOD, the cost of researching and making adjustments 

to accounting records was about $34 million in fiscal year 2002, primarily to pay hundreds of 

DOD and contractor staff.28

• Tens of millions of dollars are not being collected each year by military treatment facilities 

from third-party insurers because key information required to effectively bill and collect from 

third-party insurers is often not properly collected, recorded, or used by the military 

treatment facilities.29

• DOD cannot provide reasonable assurance to the Congress that its IT budget request includes 

all funding for the department’s business systems. We have reported30 that DOD’s IT budget 

 

25 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Travel Cards: Control Weaknesses Led to Millions of Dollars of Wasted 

on Unused Airline Tickets, GAO-04-398 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2004). 

26 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Travel Cards: Control Weaknesses Resulted in Millions of Dollars of 

Improper Payments, GAO-04-576 (Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2004). 

27 U.S. General Accounting Office, Travel Cards: Control Weaknesses Leave Army Vulnerable to Potential Fraud 

and Abuse, GAO-03-169 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 11, 2002). 

28 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Contract Payments: Management Action Needed to Reduce Billions in 

Adjustments to Contract Payment Records, GAO-03-727 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 8, 2003). 

29 U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Treatment Facilities: Improvements Needed to Increase DOD ThirdParty Collections, GAO-04-322R (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 20, 2004). 

30 U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: Improvements Needed in the Reliability of Defense 

Budget Submissions, GAO-04-115 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 19, 2003). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 9 

submission to Congress for fiscal year 2004 contained material inconsistencies, inaccuracies, 

or omissions that limited its reliability. We identified discrepancies totaling about $1.6 billion 

between two primary parts of the submission—the IT budget summary report and the 

detailed capital investments reports on each IT initiative. These problems were largely 

attributable to insufficient management attention and limitations in departmental policies and 

procedures, such as guidance in DOD’s Financial Management Regulation, and to 

shortcomings in systems that support budget-related activities.

These examples clearly demonstrate not only the severity of DOD’s current problems, but also 

the importance of business systems modernization as a critical element in the department’s 

transformation efforts to improve the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of its operations, 

and to provide for accountability to Congress and American taxpayers. 

Underlying Causes of Financial and Related Business Process Transformation Challenges

Since May 1997,31 we have highlighted in various reports and testimonies what we believe are 

the underlying causes of the department’s inability to resolve its long-standing financial 

management and related business management weaknesses and fundamentally reform its 

business operations. We found that one or more of these causes were contributing factors to the 

financial management and related business process weaknesses previously discussed. Over the 

years, the department has initiated several broad-based reform efforts intended to fundamentally 

reform its business operations and improve the reliability of information used in the decisionmaking process. Unfortunately, these initiatives have generally proven to be less successful than 

anticipated because DOD has not addressed the following four underlying causes: 

• lack of sustained top-level leadership and management accountability for correcting 

problems; 

• deeply embedded cultural resistance to change, including military service parochialism and 

stovepiped operations; 

• lack of results-oriented goals and performance measures and monitoring; and 

• inadequate incentives and accountability mechanisms relating to business transformation 

efforts. 

If not properly addressed, these root causes, which I will now highlight, will likely result in the 

failure of current DOD transformation efforts and continue to hinder the department’s ability to 

produce accurate, reliable, and timely information to make sound decisions and to accurately 

report on its billions of dollars of assets, such as inventory. 

Lack of Sustained Leadership and Adequate Accountability

Historically, DOD has not routinely assigned accountability for financial management 

performance to specific organizations or individuals who have sufficient authority to accomplish 

desired goals. For example, under the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990,32 it is the 

 

31 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD High-Risk Areas: Eliminating Underlying Causes Will Avoid Billions of 

Dollars in Waste, GAO/T-NSIAD/AIMD-97-143 (Washington, D.C.: May 1, 1997). 

32 Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-576, 104 Stat. 2838, 2843 (Nov. 15, 1990) (codified, as 

amended, in scattered sections of title 31, United States Code). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 10 

responsibility of the agency Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to establish the mission and vision for 

the agency’s future financial management and to direct, manage, and provide oversight of 

financial management operations. However, at DOD, the Comptroller—who is by statute the 

department’s CFO—has direct responsibility for only an estimated 20 percent of the data relied 

on to carry out the department’s financial management operations. The remaining 80 percent 

comes from DOD’s other business areas such as acquisition and personnel, which are not under 

the control and authority of the DOD Comptroller. 

Further, DOD’s past experience has suggested that top management has not had a proactive, 

consistent, and continuing role in integrating daily operations for achieving business 

transformation performance goals. It is imperative that major improvement initiatives have the 

direct, active support and involvement of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense to 

ensure that daily activities throughout the department remain focused on achieving 

shared, agencywide outcomes and success. While DOD leadership has demonstrated its 

commitment to reforming the department’s business operations, the magnitude and nature of 

day-to-day demands placed on these leaders, given the current world events associated with 

fighting the war on terrorism, clearly affect the level of oversight, commitment, and involvement 

they can devote to the transformation efforts. Given the importance of DOD’s business 

transformation efforts, it is imperative that it receives the sustained leadership needed to improve 

the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of DOD’s business operations. Based on our surveys 

of best practices of world-class organizations,33 strong executive CFO and Chief Information 

Officer (CIO) leadership and centralized control over systems investments are essential to 

(1) making financial management an entitywide priority, (2) providing meaningful information 

to decision makers, (3) building a team of people that delivers results, and (4) effectively 

leveraging technology to achieve stated goals and objectives. 

Cultural Resistance and Parochialism

Cultural resistance to change, military service parochialism, and stovepiped operations have all 

contributed significantly to the failure of previous attempts to implement broad-based 

management reforms at DOD. The department has acknowledged that it confronts decades-old 

problems deeply grounded in the bureaucratic history and operating practices of a complex, 

multifaceted organization and that many of these practices were developed piecemeal and 

evolved to accommodate different organizations, each with its own policies and procedures. 

Recent audits reveal that DOD has made only small inroads in addressing these challenges. For 

example, as discussed in our May 2004 report,34 DOD does not have the processes and controls 

in place to provide reasonable assurance that it is in compliance with the fiscal year 2003 defense 

 

33 U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: Creating Value Through World-class Financial Management, 

GAO/AIMD-00-134 (Washington, D.C.: April 2000) and U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: 

Maximizing the Success of Chief Information Officers: Learning From Leading Organizations, GAO-01-376G 

(Washington, D.C.: February 2001). 

34 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Limited Progress in Development of 

Business Enterprise Architecture and Oversight of Information Technology Investments, GAO-04-731R 

(Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2004). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 11 

authorization act,35 which requires the DOD Comptroller to review all system improvements 

with obligations exceeding $1 million. As a result, DOD was not able to satisfy our request for 

information on all obligations in excess of $1 million for system modernizations since passage of 

the act. Based upon a comparison of limited information provided by the military services and 

defense agencies for fiscal years 200336 and 2004, as of December 2003, we identified a total of 

$863 million in obligations that exceeded $1 million for system improvements that were not 

submitted to the DOD Comptroller for required review. 

Additionally, as discussed in our recent report,37 DOD continued to use a stovepiped approach to 

develop and fund its business system investments. As shown in table 1, DOD requested 

approximately $18.8 billion for fiscal year 2004 to operate, maintain, and modernize its reported 

2,274 nonintegrated, duplicative, stovepiped business systems. The table also shows how 

business system funding is spread across various DOD components. 

Table 1: DOD Fiscal Year 2004 Information Technology Budget Request for Business 

Systems by DOD Component 

(Dollars in millions) 

Component Total

Army $3,652 

Navy 3,778 

Air Force 3,737 

DISAa 3,938 

TRICAREb 980 

DLAc 774 

DFASd 502 

Other DOD componentse 1,440 

Total $18,801 

Source: GAO analysis based on DOD’s fiscal year 2004 IT budget request. 

a The Defense Information Systems Agency provides DOD and other organizations with a wide range of information 

services, such as data processing, telecommunications services, and database management. 

b

TRICARE is the health care system for DOD’s active duty personnel, their dependents, and retirees. c

DLA is DOD’s logistics manager for all consumable and some repair items; its primary business function is 

providing supply support to sustain military operations and readiness. 

d

Defense Finance and Accounting Services is the centralized accounting agency for DOD. 

e Other DOD components include entities such as the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Defense Contract 

Management Agency.

 

35 Subsection 1004 (d) of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-

314, 116 Stat. 2629 (Dec. 2, 2002), provides that any amount in excess of $1 million may be obligated for financial 

system improvements before approval of its enterprise architecture and a supporting transition plan only if the DOD 

Comptroller makes a determination that the improvement is necessary for (1) critical national security capability or 

critical safety and security requirements or (2) prevention of significant adverse effect on a project that is needed to 

achieve an essential capability. The act further provides that after the architecture is approved, the DOD 

Comptroller must determine before making obligations that exceed $1 million for system improvements that such 

improvements are consistent with the enterprise architecture and the transition plan. 

 

36 We requested obligational data for fiscal year 2003 for the period December 2, 2002, the date of the enactment of 

the act, through September 30, 2003. 

37 GAO-04-615. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 12 

The existing systems environment evolved over time as DOD components—each receives its 

own system funding and follows decentralized acquisition and investment practices—developed 

narrowly focused parochial solutions to their business problems. DOD’s ability to address its 

current “business-as-usual” approach to business system investments is further hampered by its 

lack of 

• a complete inventory of business systems—a condition we first highlighted in 1998. In fact, 

the DOD Comptroller testified in March 200438 that the size of DOD’s actual systems 

inventory could be twice the size currently reported; 

• a standard definition of what constitutes a business system; 

• a well-defined BEA; and 

• an effective approach for the control and accountability over business system modernization 

investments. 

Until DOD develops and implements an effective strategy for overcoming resistance, 

parochialism, and stovepiped operations, its transformation efforts will not be successful. 

Further, there can be little confidence that it will not continue to spend billions of dollars on 

stovepiped, duplicative, and nonintegrated systems that do not optimize mission performance 

and support the warfighter. 

Lack of Results-Oriented Goals and Performance Measures

At a programmatic level, the lack of clear, linked goals and performance measures handicapped 

DOD’s past reform efforts. As a result, DOD managers lacked straightforward road maps 

showing how their work contributed to attaining the department’s strategic goals, and they risked 

operating autonomously rather than collectively. As of March 2004, DOD formulated 

departmentwide performance goals and measures and continued to refine and align them with the 

outcomes described in its strategic plan—the September 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR). The QDR outlined a new risk management framework, consisting of four dimensions of 

risk—force management, operational, future challenges, and institutional—to use in considering 

trade-offs among defense objectives and resource constraints. According to DOD’s Fiscal Year 

2003 Annual Report to the President and the Congress, these risk areas are to form the basis for 

DOD’s annual performance goals. They will be used to track performance results and will be 

linked to resources. As of March 2004, DOD was still in the process of implementing this 

approach on a departmentwide basis. 

DOD currently has plans to institutionalize performance management by aligning management 

activities with the President’s Management Agenda. As part of this effort, DOD linked its fiscal 

year 2004 budget resources with metrics for broad program areas, e.g., air combat, airlift, and 

basic research in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment Rating 

 

38 U.S. General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Further Actions Needed to Establish and Implement a 

Framework for Successful Business Transformation, GAO-04-626T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2004). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 13 

Tool.39 We have not reviewed DOD’s efforts to link resources to metrics; however, some of our 

recent work notes the lack of clearly defined performance goals and measures in the management 

of such areas as defense inventory and military pay.40 Further, without modern integrated 

systems and streamlined business processes, the accuracy and reliability of DOD’s performance 

data will be questionable. 

One program that has yet to establish measurable, results-oriented goals is the BMMP.41 The 

BMMP is the department’s business transformation initiative encompassing defense policies, 

processes, people, and systems that guide, perform, or support all aspects of business 

management, including development and implementation of the BEA. A key element of any 

major program is its ability to establish clearly defined goals and performance measures to 

monitor and report its progress to management. Since DOD has yet to develop performance 

measures for the BMMP, it is difficult to evaluate and track, on an ongoing basis, specific 

program progress, outcomes, and results, such as explicitly defining performance measures to 

evaluate the architecture’s quality, content, and utility of subsequent major updates. Given that 

DOD has reported obligations of over $203 million since architecture development efforts began 

3 years ago, this is a serious performance management weakness. 

DOD recognizes that it needs to develop detailed plans and establish performance metrics to 

measure and track program progress to determine what it planned to accomplish by a certain 

point in time, what it actually accomplished at that point in time, and what has been spent thus 

far. In its March 15, 2004, progress report on the implementation of the BEA, DOD reported 

that it plans to establish an initial approved program metrics baseline to evaluate the cost, 

schedule, and performance of the BMMP and that, beginning with the fourth quarter of fiscal 

year 2004, it plans to begin formal tracking and reporting of specific program goals, objectives, 

and measures. Without explicitly defined program baselines, detailed plans, and performance 

measures, it is difficult to validate or justify the $122 million requested for fiscal year 2005 and 

the $494 million estimated to be needed for fiscal years 2006 through 2009. 

 

39 OMB developed the Program Assessment Rating Tool to strengthen the process for assessing the effectiveness of 

programs across the federal government. For fiscal year 2004, OMB rated the following 12 defense program areas: 

Air Combat; Airlift; Basic Research; Chemical Demilitarization; Communications Infrastructure; Defense Health; 

Energy Conservation Improvement; Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, Modernization, and Demolition; Housing; 

Missile Defense; Recruiting; and Shipbuilding. DOD linked metrics for these program areas, which represent 20 

percent of the department’s fiscal year 2004 budget; it linked another 20 percent in the 2005 budget and 30 percent 

in the 2006 budget, for a total of 70 percent. 

40 In July 2003 we reported that DOD and the military services do not have an effective approach to prevent and 

mitigate equipment corrosion, and that DOD’s strategic plan should contain clearly defined goals, measurable, 

outcome-oriented objectives, and performance measures. (U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Management: 

Opportunities to Reduce Corrosion Costs and Increase Readiness, GAO-03-753 (Washington, D.C.: July 7, 2003)). 

Similarly, in January 2004 we testified that existing processes and controls used to provide pay and allowances to 

mobilized Army Guard personnel prevented DOD from being able to reasonably assure timely and accurate payroll 

payments. We stated that DOD needs to establish a unified set of policies and procedures, as well as performance 

measures in the pay area. (U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel 

Mobilized to Active Duty Experienced Significant Pay Problems, GAO-04-413T (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 28, 2004)). 

41 GAO-04-731R. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 14 

Lack of Incentives for Change

The final underlying cause of the department’s long-standing inability to carry out needed 

fundamental reform has been the lack of incentives for making more than incremental change to 

existing “business-as-usual” operations, systems, and organizational structures. Traditionally, 

DOD has focused on justifying its need for more funding rather than on the outcomes its 

programs have produced. DOD has historically measured its performance by resource 

components such as the amount of money spent, people employed, or number of tasks 

completed. 

The lack of incentive to change is evident in the business systems modernization area. Despite 

DOD’s acknowledgement that many of its systems are error prone, duplicative, and stovepiped, 

DOD continues to allow its component organizations to make their own investments 

independently of one another and implement different system solutions to solve the same 

business problems. These stovepiped decision-making processes have contributed to the 

department’s current complex, error-prone environment. For example, our March 2003 report42

noted that DOD had not effectively managed and overseen its planned investment of over $1 

billion in four Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) system modernization efforts. 

One project’s estimated cost had increased by as much as $274 million, while the schedule 

slipped by almost 4 years. For each of these projects, DOD oversight entities—DFAS, the DOD 

Comptroller, and the DOD CIO—could not provide documentation that indicated they had 

questioned the impact of the cost increases and schedule delays, and allowed the projects to 

proceed in the absence of the requisite analytical justification. Such analyses provide the 

requisite justification for decision makers to use in determining whether to invest additional 

resources in anticipation of receiving commensurate benefits and mission value. Two of the four 

projects—the Defense Procurement Payment System and the Defense Standard Disbursing 

System—were terminated in December 2002 and December 2003, respectively, after an 

investment of approximately $179 million that did not improve the department’s business 

operations. 

GAO and the DOD IG have identified numerous business system modernization efforts that are 

not economically justified on the basis of cost, benefits, and risk; take years longer than planned; 

and fall short of delivering planned or needed capabilities. Despite this track record, DOD 

continues to invest billions of dollars in business systems modernization, while at the same time 

it lacks the effective management and oversight needed to achieve results. Without appropriate 

incentives to improve their project management, ongoing oversight, and adequate accountability 

mechanisms, DOD components will continue to develop duplicative and nonintegrated systems 

that are inconsistent with the Secretary’s vision for reform. 

Keys to Successful Reform

Successful reform of DOD’s fundamentally flawed financial and business management 

operations must simultaneously focus on its systems, processes, and people. While DOD has 

 

42 GAO-03-465. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 15 

made some encouraging progress in addressing specific challenges, it is still in the very early 

stages of a departmentwide reform that will take many years to accomplish. At this time, it is not 

possible to predict when—or even whether—DOD’s reform effort will be successful. Our 

experience has shown there are several key elements that collectively would enable the 

department to effectively address the underlying causes of its inability to resolve its longstanding financial management problems. These elements, which we believe are key to any 

successful approach to transforming the department’s business operations, include 

• addressing the department’s financial management and related business operational 

challenges as part of a comprehensive, integrated, DOD-wide strategic plan for business 

reform; 

• providing for sustained and committed leadership by top management, including but not 

limited to the Secretary of Defense; 

• establishing resource control over business systems investments; 

• establishing clear lines of responsibility, authority, and accountability; 

• incorporating results-oriented performance measures and monitoring progress tied to key 

financial and business transformation objectives; 

• providing appropriate incentives or consequences for action or inaction; 

• establishing an enterprise architecture to guide and direct business systems modernization 

investments; and 

• ensuring effective oversight and monitoring. 

These elements, which should not be viewed as independent actions but rather as a set of 

interrelated and interdependent actions, are reflected in the recommendations we have made to 

DOD and are consistent with those actions discussed in the department’s April 2001 financial 

management transformation report.43 The degree to which DOD incorporates them into its 

current reform efforts—both long and short term—will be a deciding factor in whether these 

efforts are successful. Thus far, the department’s progress in implementing our recommendations 

has been slow. Further, as will be discussed in more detail later, we have not yet seen a 

comprehensive, cohesive strategy that details how some of the ongoing efforts are being 

integrated. For example, we have not seen how the department plans to integrate its objective of 

obtaining an unqualified audit opinion in fiscal year 2007 with the BMMP. It appears as if these 

two key efforts are being conducted in a stovepiped manner. 

DOD Business Transformation Efforts 

Over the years, we have given DOD credit for beginning numerous initiatives intended to 

improve its business operations. Unfortunately, most of these initiatives failed to achieve their 

intended objective in part, we believe, because they failed to incorporate key elements that in our 

experience are critical to successful reform. Today, we would like to discuss one very important 

broad-based initiative—the BMMP—that DOD currently has underway and, if properly 

developed and implemented, will result in significant improvements in DOD’s business systems 

and operations. 

 

43 Department of Defense, Transforming Department of Defense Financial Management: A Strategy for Change

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 13, 2001). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 16 

Effectively managing and overseeing the department’s $19 billion investment in its business 

systems is key to the successful transformation of DOD’s business operations. The 

transformation also depends on the ability of the department to develop and implement business 

systems that provide users and department management with accurate and timely information on 

the results of operations and that help resolve the numerous long-standing weaknesses. As DOD 

moves forward with BMMP, it needs to ensure that the department’s business systems 

modernization projects—such as BSM and LMP, discussed in our recently issued report—are 

part of a corporate solution to DOD long-standing business problems. To assist the department 

with it ongoing efforts, we would like to offer two suggestions for legislative consideration that 

we believe could significantly increase the likelihood of a successful business transformation 

effort at DOD. 

Business Management Modernization Program

The BMMP, which the department established in July 2001 following our recommendation that 

DOD develop and implement an enterprise architecture,44 is vital to the department’s efforts to 

transform its business operations.45 The purpose of the BMMP is to oversee development and 

implementation of a departmentwide BEA, transition plan, and related efforts to ensure that 

DOD business systems investments are consistent with the architecture and provide world class 

mission support to the fighting force. A well-defined and properly implemented BEA can 

provide assurance that the department invests in integrated enterprisewide business solutions 

and, conversely, can help move resources away from nonintegrated business system 

development efforts. 

 

However, we recently reported46 that since our last review,47 and after about 3 years of effort and 

over $203 million in reported obligations, we have not seen significant change in the content of 

DOD’s architecture or in DOD’s approach to investing billions of dollars annually in existing 

and new systems. Few actions have been taken to address the recommendations we made in our 

previous reports,48 which were aimed at improving DOD’s plans for developing the next version 

of the architecture and implementing the institutional means for selecting and controlling both 

planned and ongoing business systems investments. To date, DOD has not yet addressed 22 of 

our 24 recommendations. 

Further, DOD has not yet developed either near-term or long-term plans for developing the 

architecture that explicitly identify and establish a baseline for the actions to be taken, milestones 

 

44 DOD has one Enterprise Information Environment Mission, and six departmental domains including 

(1) acquisition/ procurement; (2) finance, accounting, and financial management; (3) human resource management; 

(4) logistics; (5) strategic planning and budgeting; and (6) installations and environment. 

45 GAO-01-525. 

46 GAO-04-731R. 

47 GAO-03-1018. 

48 GAO-03-458 and GAO-03-1018. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 17 

to be achieved, cost estimates to be met, and targeted outcomes to be achieved. DOD has 

adopted an incremental approach to developing the architecture, including the transition plan, 

and plans to refine and extend the architecture in three increments, the first of which includes in 

part the department’s efforts to obtain an unqualified audit opinion of DOD’s consolidated fiscal 

year 2007 financial statements. 

However, it is unclear what the increments individually or collectively mean, and what they will 

provide or allow DOD to achieve in the near and long term, because, as previously discussed, 

DOD has yet to develop detailed performance measures. Although the three increments were 

identified in November 2003, program officials do not expect to have a plan for increment one 

until the next version of the transition plan is completed in August 2004. According to program 

officials, the goals and scope for the second and third increments were only recently approved 

and, therefore, detailed plans of action and milestones do not yet exist. 

Currently, DOD has three initiatives under way to support increment one. First, the program 

office is developing a plan of action for increment one and intends to complete the plan by 

August 2004. Second, the accounting and finance domain is conducting workshops to develop 

needed business rules and requirements for extending and evolving version 2.0 of the 

architecture. Last, DOD components are developing individual plans detailing their respective 

efforts for supporting increment one. However, there is no evidence that the program office is 

coordinating with the components and that the components are coordinating amongst themselves. 

Because there are not yet detailed plans guiding the program’s activities, it is unclear whether 

and how these activities support each other and whether they support the department’s goal of 

achieving an unqualified audit opinion in 2007. 

As DOD moves forward with the BEA, it will be essential that the department have the 

management structure and processes in place to (1) improve the control and accountability over 

its billions of dollars of business systems investments; (2) develop corporate solutions to 

common business problems; and (3) implement system projects within budget, on time, and 

deliver the promised capability. The failure of the department to have the appropriate 

management structure and processes could result in billions of dollars continuing to be at risk of 

being spent on more systems that are duplicative, are not interoperable, cost more to maintain 

than necessary, and do not optimize mission performance and accountability. 

Control and Accountability Over Business System Investments

As previously discussed, DOD continues to lack adequate control and accountability over its 

billions of dollars of business systems investments. Each DOD component continues to make its 

own investment decisions, which has led to the proliferation of systems. As shown in table 2, the 

department has reported that it has at least 2,274 business systems. For example, the department 

reportedly has 665 systems to support human resource management, 565 systems to support 

logistical functions,49 542 systems to perform finance and accounting functions, and 210 systems 

to support strategic planning and budget formulation. 

 

49 According to logistics domain officials, there are currently about 3,000 systems just within the logistics domain. 

Of that amount, about 1,900 systems have been validated by the DOD components as logistics systems—that is, 

they are not merely a spreadsheet or a report. Such a determination has not been made for the other 1,100. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 18 

Table 2: Reported DOD Business Systems by Domain and Functional Area 

Domain 

Air Force Army 

Navy/ Marine 

Corps DFAS Other Total 

Acquisition 27 31 61 3 21 143 

Accounting and finance 43 88 195 165 51 542 

Human resource management 71 387 86 33 88 665 

Installations and environment 12 98 9 1 8 128 

Logistics 180 191 104 11 79 565 

Strategic planning and budgeting 23 63 98 15 11 210 

Enterprise information 

environment 1 5 2 3 10 21 

Total 357 863 555 231 268 2,274 

Source: GAO analysis of BMMP data.

These numerous systems have evolved into the overly complex and error-prone operation that 

exists today, including (1) little standardization across DOD components, (2) multiple systems 

performing the same tasks, (3) the same data stored in multiple systems, (4) manual data entry 

into multiple systems, and (5) a large number of data translations and interfaces that combine to 

exacerbate problems with data integrity. The proliferation of systems has resulted because DOD 

components are largely autonomous and each receives its own business system funding. 

 

DOD has recognized the need to improve its control and accountability of its business system 

investments and has various initiatives underway and planned. For example, in response to our 

recommendations,50 DOD issued a policy in March 2004 that assigns the domains the 

responsibility for IT portfolio management. However, the procedures to be followed to 

implement the policy are currently being developed and no time frames for completion have 

been provided. In addition, specific roles and responsibilities of the domains have not yet been 

formalized, standard criteria for performing the system reviews have not been developed, and 

explicit authority for fulfilling roles and responsibilities has not been assigned. Although DOD 

recognizes the need to clarify the roles and responsibilities associated with managing the 

domains’ portfolios of business systems and ensuring compliance with the architecture, it has not 

yet established time frames for completing these activities. 

While DOD is continuing to work toward establishing the structure and processes to manage its 

business systems investments, it has not yet conducted a comprehensive system review of its 

ongoing IT investments to ensure that they are consistent with its BEA efforts. Additionally, 

execution of a comprehensive review of all modernization efforts by DOD before billions of 

dollars have been invested will reduce the risk of continuing the department’s track record of 

business systems modernization efforts that cost more than anticipated, take longer than 

expected, and fail to deliver intended capabilities. 

 

50 GAO-01-525 and GAO-03-458. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 19 

Corporate Solutions to Common Problems

The department’s business transformation also depends on its ability to develop and implement 

business systems that provide corporate solutions to DOD’s numerous long-standing problems. 

This approach should help preclude the continued proliferation of duplicative, stovepiped 

systems and reduce spending on multiple systems that are supposed to perform the same 

function. However, as discussed in our recently released report,51 DOD is still developing 

systems that are not designed to solve corporatewide problems. BSM and LMP were initiated in 

November 1999 and February 1998, respectively, prior to DOD undertaking the BEA and 

establishing the domains. As such, they were not directed towards a corporate solution to the 

department’s long-standing weaknesses in the inventory and logistics management areas, such as 

total asset visibility. Rather, both projects are more focused on DLA’s and the Army’s 

respective inventory and logistics management operations. Today, I would like to focus on one 

of those issues—total asset visibility, because of its significant impact on DOD’s operational 

effectiveness. 

In October 2002, a DLA official testified52 that BSM would provide improved control and 

accountability over the Joint Services Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST), which 

is a lightweight, two-piece garment—coat and trousers—designed to provide maximum 

protection against chemical and biological contaminants. Total asset visibility is critical for 

sensitive items such as the JSLIST. For example, tracking the specific location of each suit by 

lot number is necessary if for any reason they have to be recalled, as was the case with the 

JSLIST predecessor the Battle Dress Overgarment (BDO). 

Over 700,000 of the BDOs were found to be defective and were recalled. Since DOD’s systems 

did not provide the capability to identify the exact location of each suit, a series of data calls 

were conducted, which proved to be ineffective. We reported in September 200153 that DOD was 

unable to locate approximately 250,000 of the defective suits and therefore was uncertain if the 

suits were still in the possession of the military forces, or whether they had been destroyed or 

sold. Subsequently, we found that DOD had sold many of these defective suits to the public as 

excess, including 379 that we purchased in an undercover operation.54 In addition, DOD may 

have issued over 4,700 of the defective BDO suits to local law enforcement agencies. This is 

particularly significant because local law enforcement agencies are most likely to be the first 

responders to a terrorist attack, yet DOD failed to inform these agencies that using these suits 

could result in death or serious injury. 

At the October 2002 hearing, the DLA official stated that JSLIST would be included in BSM at 

the earliest practicable date, which was estimated to be December 2003. BSM, however, is not 

 

51 GAO-04-615. 

52 Chemical and Biological Equipment: Preparing for a Toxic Battlefield: Hearing Before the House Committee on 

Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, 107th Cong. 

119 (Oct. 1, 2002) (statement of Deputy Commander, Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, Mr. George H. Allen). 

53 U.S. General Accounting Office, Chemical and Biological Defense: Improved Risk Assessment and Inventory 

Management Are Needed, GAO-01-667 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2001). 

54 U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Excess Property: Risk Assessment Needed on Public Sales of Equipment 

That Could Be Used to Make Biological Agents, GAO-04-81TNI (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7, 2003). 
 GAO-04-941T 

 20 

designed to provide the corporate total asset visibility necessary to locate and track the suits 

throughout DOD’s supply chain. While the suits are expected to be included in a future 

deployment of BSM, at the time of our review program officials had not yet specified a date 

when they will be included. Even when the suits are included, BSM is designed to provide 

visibility over the suits only within the DLA environment—something DLA has stated already 

exists within its current system environment. 

As we have previously reported,55 the lack of integrated systems hinders DOD’s ability to know 

how many JSLIST it has on hand and where they are located once they leave the DLA 

warehouse. For example, we found that military units that receive JSLIST from DLA 

warehouses maintained inventory data in nonstandard, stovepiped systems that did not share data 

with DLA or other DOD systems. The methods used to control and maintain visibility over 

JSLIST at the units we visited ranged from stand-alone automated systems, to spreadsheet 

applications, to pen and paper. One military unit we visited did not have any inventory system 

for tracking JSLIST. BSM does not address asset visibility outside of DLA’s supply chain for 

the JSLIST, and thus cannot provide DOD with the capability to readily locate JSLIST for any 

reason, including any potential need for a recall of defective suits. 

Similarly, we recently reported56 that LMP will not provide the Army with total asset visibility 

until a suite of other systems has been developed and implemented. Specifically, Army officials 

have stated that LMP will require integration with other Army systems that are under 

development in order to achieve total asset visibility within the Army. These additional systems 

are the Product Lifecycle Management Plus (PLM+) and Global Combat Support System—

Army (GCSS–A). According to the Army, PLM+ is to integrate LMP and GCSS–A to create 

end-to-end solution for Army logistics. However, time frames and cost estimates have not been 

developed for these two additional system initiatives. 

Further, to help provide for departmentwide total asset visibility, DLA is undertaking the 

implementation of the Integrated Data Environment (IDE) program. According to DLA, this 

initiative is intended to provide the capability for routing data from multiple systems within DLA 

and DOD into one system. According to DLA, IDE is expected to reach full operational 

capability in August 2007, with a current estimated cost of approximately $30 million. 

However, successfully meeting this completion depends on other departmental efforts being 

completed on time, such as PLM+, for which a completion date had not been established. 

Project Management and Oversight

While the success of BMMP and improved control and accountability of business system 

investments are critical aspects of the department’s transformation efforts, equally important is 

the ability of DOD to implement chosen systems solutions on time, within budget, and with the 

promised capability. The department has not demonstrated the ability to achieve these goals. 

 

55 GAO-02-873T. 

56 GAO-04-615. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 21 

As discussed in our recently released report,57 BSM and LMP have experienced cost increases, 

schedule slippages, and did not deliver planned system capabilities in their first release. Our 

analysis indicated that many of the operational problems experienced by BSM and LMP can be 

attributed to DOD’s inability to effectively implement the disciplined processes necessary to 

reduce the risks associated with these projects to acceptable levels. Disciplined processes have 

been shown to reduce the risks associated with software development and acquisition efforts to 

acceptable levels and are fundamental to successful systems acquisition. 

Specifically, in the case of these two projects, they had significant deficiencies in defining 

requirements and testing—two areas that form the foundation for a project’s success or failure. 

In fact, DLA and Army program officials acknowledged that requirements and testing defects 

were factors contributing to the operational problems and stated that they are working to develop 

more effective processes. To their credit, DLA and the Army have decided that future 

deployments of BSM and LMP will not go forward until they have reasonable assurance that the 

deployed systems will operate as expected for a given deployment. Our analysis of selected 

BSM and LMP key requirements58 and testing processes found that (1) the functionality to be 

delivered was not adequately described or stated to allow for quantitative evaluation; (2) the 

traceability among the various process documents (e.g., operational requirements documents, 

functional or process scenarios, and test cases) was not maintained; and (3) system testing was 

ineffective. 

In commenting on the report,59 the department acknowledged that the initial implementation of 

BSM and LMP experienced problems that could be attributed to the lack of adequate 

requirements determination and system testing. To address these inadequacies, the department 

noted that requirements analysis had been expanded to include greater specificity and that the 

successful completion of comprehensive testing would be required prior to further 

implementation of either system. 

Suggestions for Legislative Consideration

We would like to offer two suggestions for legislative consideration that we believe could 

contribute significantly to the department’s ability to not only address the impediments to DOD’s 

success but also to incorporate needed key elements to successful reform. These suggestions 

would include the (1) creation of a chief management official and (2) centralization of the 

funding business systems investments with the domain leaders responsible for the department’s 

various business areas, such as logistics and human resource management. We provided similar 

views in our testimonies on March 23, 2004,60 before the Subcommittee on Readiness and 

 

57 GAO-04-615. 

58 BSM and LMP have identified and documented 202 and 293 system requirements, respectively. For BSM, we 

reviewed 13 requirements related to finance, order fulfillment, planning, and procurement. For LMP, we reviewed 

12 requirements related to planning and budget development, asset management, inventory management, and 

maintenance analysis and planning. 

59 GAO-04-615. 

60 GAO-04-551T. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 22 

Management Support, Senate Committee on Armed Services, on March 31, 2004,61 before the 

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities, House Committee on 

Armed Services, and yesterday62 before a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on National 

Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, the Subcommittee on Technology, 

Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Census, and the Subcommittee on 

Government Efficiency and Financial Management, House Committee on Government Reform. 

Chief Management Official

I will now discuss our first matter for consideration. Previous failed attempts to improve DOD’s 

business operations illustrate the need for sustained involvement of DOD leadership in helping to 

assure that DOD’s financial and overall business process transformation efforts remain a priority. 

While the Secretary and other key DOD leaders have demonstrated their commitment to the 

current business transformation efforts, the long-term nature of these efforts requires the 

development of an executive position capable of providing strong and sustained executive 

leadership over a number of years and various administrations. 

However, the tenure of the department’s top political appointees has generally been short in 

duration and as a result, it is sometimes difficult to maintain the focus and momentum that are 

needed to resolve the management challenges facing DOD. For example, the former DOD 

Comptroller, who was very supportive of the current transformation effort, and one of its 

principal leaders, served as the DOD Comptroller for slightly over 3 years. Further, within the 

office of the DOD Comptroller, the current Principal Deputy/Deputy Under Secretary of Defense 

for Management Reform will soon be leaving the department. He also was in that position for 

slightly over 3 years. Additionally, leadership voids have existed in other key positions such as 

the program manager for BMMP. From May 2003 to February 2004, there was no program 

manager to identify, direct, and execute program activities.63 The resolution of the array of 

interrelated business system management challenges that DOD faces is likely to span several 

administrations and require sustained leadership to maintain the continuity needed for success. 

One way to ensure sustained leadership over DOD’s business transformation efforts would be to 

create a full-time executive level II position for a chief management official64 who would serve 

as the Principal Under Secretary of Defense for Management. This position would provide the 

sustained attention essential for addressing key stewardship responsibilities such as strategic 

planning, performance and financial management, and business systems modernization in an 

integrated manner. This position could be filled by an individual, appointed by the President and 

confirmed by the Senate, for a set term of 7 years with the potential for reappointment. Such an 

individual should have a proven track record as a business process change agent in large, 

complex, and diverse organizations—experience necessary to spearhead business process 

 

61 GAO-04-626T. 

62 U. S. General Accounting Office, Department of Defense: Long-standing Problems Continue to Impede Financial 

and Business Management Transformation, GAO-04-907T (Washington, D.C.: July 7, 2004). 

63 GAO-04-731R. 

64 GAO-03-192SP. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 23 

transformation across the department, and potentially administrations, and serve as an integrator 

for the needed business transformation efforts. In addition, this individual would enter into an 

annual performance agreement with the Secretary that sets forth measurable individual goals 

linked to overall organizational goals. Measurable progress towards achieving agreed-upon 

goals would be a basis for determining the level of compensation earned, including any related 

bonus. In addition, this individual’s achievements and compensation would be reported to 

Congress each year. 

Functional Domain Control and Accountability Over Business System Investments

We have made numerous recommendations to DOD intended to improve the management 

oversight and control of its business systems investments. However, progress in achieving this 

control has been slow and, as a result, DOD has little or no assurance that current business 

systems investments are being spent in an economically efficient and effective manner. DOD’s 

current systems funding process has contributed to the evolution of an overly complex and errorprone information technology environment containing duplicative, nonintegrated, and stovepiped 

systems. Given that DOD spends billions of dollars annually on business systems and related 

infrastructure, it is critical that actions be taken to gain more effective control over such business 

systems funding. 

The second suggestion we have for legislative action to address this issue, as discussed in our 

report65 and consistent with our open recommendations to DOD, is to establish specific 

management oversight, accountability, and control of funding with the “owners” of the various 

functional areas or domains. This legislation would define the scope of the various business 

areas (e.g., accounting, acquisition, logistics, and personnel) and establish functional 

responsibility for management of the portfolio of business systems in that area with the relevant 

Under Secretary of Defense for the six departmental domains and the CIO for the 

Enterprise Information Environment Mission (information technology infrastructure). For 

example, planning, development, acquisition, and oversight of DOD’s portfolio of logistics 

business systems would be vested in the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, 

Technology and Logistics. 

We believe it is critical that funds for DOD business systems be appropriated to the domain 

owners in order to provide for accountability and the ability to prevent the continued parochial 

approach to systems investment that exists today. The domains would establish a hierarchy of 

investment review boards with DOD-wide representation, including the military services and 

defense agencies. These boards would be responsible for reviewing and approving investments 

to develop, operate, maintain, and modernize business systems for the domain portfolio, 

including ensuring that investments were consistent with DOD’s BEA. All domain owners 

would be responsible for coordinating their business systems investments with the chief 

management official who would chair the proposed Defense Business Systems Modernization 

Executive Committee and provide a cross-domain perspective. Domain leaders would also be 

required to report to Congress through the chief management official and the Secretary of 

Defense on applicable business systems that are not compliant with review requirements and to 

include a summary justification for noncompliance. 

 

65 GAO-04-615. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 24 

In commenting on our report, DOD stated that it did not agree with this funding concept. The 

department stated that the portfolio management process being established—to include 

investment review boards—would provide the appropriate control and accountability over 

business system investments. DOD also stated that beginning with the fiscal year 2006 budget 

review process, the domains will be actively involved in business system investment decisions. 

DOD stated that the military services implement their own statutory authorities for acquisition 

and IT systems development in consultation with DOD. While the establishment of the 

investment review boards is consistent with our previous recommendations, we continue to 

believe that appropriating funds for DOD business systems to the domains, rather than the 

various DOD entities, will significantly improve accountability over business system 

investments. DOD’s comments indicate that the domains will be more accountable for making 

business system investment decisions, but unless they control the funding, they will not have the 

means to effect real change. Continuing to provide business system funding to the military 

services and defense agencies is an example of the department’s embedded culture and parochial 

operations. As a result of DOD’s intent to maintain the status quo, there can be little confidence 

that it will not continue to spend billions of dollars on duplicative, nonintegrated, stovepiped, and 

overly costly systems that do not optimize mission performance and accountability and, 

therefore, do not support the department’s transformation goals. 

Conclusion

The excellence of our military forces is unparalleled. However, that excellence is often achieved 

in the face of enormous challenges in DOD’s financial management and other business areas, 

which have serious and far-reaching implications related to the department’s operations and 

critical national defense mission. Our recent work has shown that DOD’s long-standing financial 

management and business problems have resulted in fundamental operational problems, such as 

failure to properly pay mobilized Army Guard soldiers and the inability to provide adequate 

accountability and control over supplies and equipment shipments in support of Operation Iraqi 

Freedom. Further, the lack of appropriate accountability across all business areas has resulted in 

fraud, waste, and abuse and hinders DOD’s attempts to develop world-class operations and 

activities to support its forces. Additionally, DOD cannot provide Congress reasonable 

assurance that the billions of dollars spent annually on business systems modernizations are not 

being wasted on projects that will perpetuate the current costly, nonintegrated, duplicative 

systems environment. If DOD is unable to address the underlying causes that have resulted in the 

failure of previous broad-based reform efforts, improvements will remain marginal, confined to 

narrowly defined incremental improvements. 

As our nation continues to be challenged with growing budget deficits and increasing pressure to 

reduce spending levels, every dollar that DOD can save through improved economy and 

efficiency of its operations is important. As previously noted, the Secretary has stated that the 

department could save approximately 5 percent of its budget annually—which equal about $20 

billion—through improved business operations. DOD’s senior leaders have demonstrated a 

commitment to transforming the department and improving its business operations and have 

taken positive steps to begin this effort. We believe that implementation of our open 

recommendations and our suggested legislative initiatives would greatly improve the likelihood 

of meaningful, broad-based reform at DOD. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 25 

The continued involvement and monitoring by congressional committees will also be critical to 

ensure that DOD’s transformation actions are sustained and extended and that the department 

achieves its goal of securing the best performance and highest measure of accountability for the 

American people. We commend the Subcommittee for holding this hearing and we encourage 

you to use this vehicle, on at least an annual basis, as a catalyst for long overdue business 

transformation at DOD. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes our statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions you 

or other members of the Subcommittee may have at this time. 

Contacts and Acknowledgments

For further information about this testimony, please contact Gregory D. Kutz at (202) 512-9505 

or kutzg@gao.gov. The following individuals contributed to the various reports and testimonies 

that were the basis for this testimony: Beatrice Alff, Molly Boyle, Art Brouk, Cherry Clipper, 

Mary Ellen Chervenic, Francine Delvecchio, Stephen Donahue, Francis Dymond, Eric Essig, 

Gayle Fischer, Geoff Frank, John Kelly, Randolph Hite, Cynthia Jackson, Neelaxi Lakhmani, 

Evelyn Logue, John Martin, Elizabeth Mead, Mai Nguyen, Michael Peacock, David Plocher, 

Gregory Pugnetti, Cary Russell, John Ryan, Katherine Schirano, Darby Smith, Carolyn Voltz, 

Marilyn Wasleski, and Jenniffer Wilson. 
 GAO-04-941T 

 26 

Selected GAO Products Related to DOD’s Business Systems Modernization 

_____________________________________________________________________________

U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Important Progress 

Made to Develop Business Enterprise Architecture, but Much Work Remains, GAO-03-1018 

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 19, 2003). 

U.S. General Accounting Office, Business Systems Modernization: Summary of GAO’s 

Assessment of the Department of Defense’s Initial Business Enterprise Architecture, GAO-03-

877R (Washington, D.C.: July 7, 2003). 

U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Longstanding 

Management and Oversight Weaknesses Continue to Put Investments at Risk, GAO-03-553T 

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2003). 

U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Continued Investment 

in Key Accounting Systems Needs to be Justified, GAO-03-465 (Washington, D.C.: March 28, 

2003). 

U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Improvements to 

Enterprise Architecture Development and Implementation Efforts Needed, GAO-03-458 

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2003). 

U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Financial Management: Integrated Approach, 

Accountability, Transparency, and Incentives Are Keys to Effective Reform, GAO-02-497T 

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 6, 2002). 

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: Architecture Needed to Guide 

Modernization of DOD’s Financial Operations, GAO-01-525 (Washington, D.C.: May 17, 

2001). 

 

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