Naval Shipyards: Complete Information Needed for Decision-Making on Multibillion-Dollar, 50-Year Infrastructure Program

Filed 1h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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One-eyed Maestro

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, launched in 2018 to fix its four aging public shipyards, will now surpass $200 billion and take more than 50 years to complete, according to GAO's analysis. Costs and timelines have already grown well beyond original estimates due to complications including environmental issues at yards like Puget Sound.

GAO found the Navy's oversight framework, modeled on tools used for major weapons programs, includes no requirement to periodically reassess the program's objectives or resources as it stretches across decades. Congress, meanwhile, gets no consolidated, standardized reporting on total costs and risks, unlike other major defense acquisitions that must file detailed annual status reports.

The Navy has also created new organizations to manage the shipyard projects but hasn't documented their roles and responsibilities. GAO recommended Congress require standardized annual reporting and that the Navy build in periodic reviews and formalize its management structure; the Navy agreed to all four recommendations.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Fifty years and two hundred billion dollars is a long time to ask Congress to just trust that the plan made in 2018 will still make sense in 2068, no check-ins required. A person doesn't take out a fifty-year loan on a barn without somebody agreeing to look at the roof every so often. The Navy agreed to add the reviews, which is nice, but it took an outside audit to point out nobody had thought to schedule them in the first place.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: One-eyed Maestro · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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