A Government Accountability Office report says the Defense Department should establish a coordinated approach for military organizations to forecast and manage funding requirements for professional services contracts.GAO said Thursday it found that DoD obligated about $85 billion for the acquisition of research and development, facility management and knowledge-based services during fiscal 2014, more than double the amount of obligated military funds for ground, aerial, maritime vehicles in the same year.
The agency has also observed that military branches maintain data on current and projected service contract spending needs but they have limited insight into future service procurement budgetary needs.
Military departments also do not address outyear funding for professional services contracts in their program objective memorandums, GAO added.
GAO urged Congress to consider requiring DoD to report service contract spending forecasts and recommended that military branches modify their POM guidelines to include contracted services.
