A McAleese & Associates report shows that the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army requested budgets of $215 billion and $185 billion, respectively, for fiscal year 2024.
The Air Force’s proposed FY 2024 budget includes $185 billion for the service branch and $30 billion for the U.S. Space Force, Jim McAleese, founder and principal at McAleese & Associates, wrote in the overview.
According to McAleese, the proposed Air Force and Space Force budgets reflect a growth of about $5 billion in research, development, test and evaluation funds from the enacted FY 2023 funding level to advance several programs, including the nuclear triad recapitalization, missile warning and tracking initiatives and space resiliency.
For procurement efforts, the Air Force is seeking $30.6 billion in funding for the next fiscal year and the Space Force is requesting $4.7 billion.
McAleese, a member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program and three-time Wash100 winner, noted that the Army’s FY 2024 budget request shows a 4 percent rise from the funding request for the current fiscal year and that the service found $2.1 billion in savings to keep the deployment of its “24-by-2023” modernization prototypes on schedule.
These modernization efforts are the Future Vertical Lift, Long Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle programs.
The Army sought $2.3 billion in funding to advance digital transformation efforts in FY 2024. These initiatives include zero trust implementation, defensive cyber tools, cloud adoption, artificial intelligence and crypto modernization, per the consulting firm’s findings.
