Federal Manager's Daily Report

GAO called on DoD to improve its process for identifying military construction and IT requirements as it develops initial cost estimates for future BRAC rounds.

It also called on the department to update the standard factor for estimating IT costs, update guidance on how it will identify military personnel savings estimates, and found that some intended BRAC results were not tracked.

In the future DoD should identify appropriate measures of effectiveness and develop a plan to demonstrate the extent it achieved intended results, GAO said.

It said reduction targets should be established for excess infrastructure in BRAC initiating guidance, and that DoD should limit the practice of bundling multiple closures or realignments into a single recommendation because that limits visibility.

GAO also concluded that if cost savings are to be a goal of any future BRAC round, Congress should consider: amending the statute by elevating the priority DoD and the BRAC commission give to potential costs and savings; requiring OSD to formally establish specific goals that the department expects to achieve from a future BRAC process; and requiring OSD to propose selection criteria as necessary to help achieve those goals.

DoD balked at some of the recommendations, arguing their focus was largely to prioritize capacity reductions over military value, but GAO maintained that nothing in the recommendations precluded optimizing military value while still measuring effectiveness and setting capacity reduction targets.