The Defense Department has a backlog of deferred maintenance at its facilities of some $137 billion, with the results showing in problems such as termite damage, leaking roofs, mold in living quarters, the GAO has said.
GAO said that by DoD’s count, it has some 550,000 facilities—falling into the broad categories of buildings, “linear structures” such as runways and roads, and other structures, whether above or below ground. It said that while the goal is to fund facility sustainment at a minimum of 90 percent of annually estimated requirements, actual spending is only about 80 percent since programs such as weapon system acquisitions “are consistently prioritized above facility sustainment” in budget requests. Further, the sustainment funding that is provided is focused on structures such as command-and-control facilities and runways.
Lower priority facilities “frequently include living quarters and childcare centers—facilities that affect personnel and their families’ quality of life,” it said. Such facilities have experienced increased deterioration “to the point where, they said, facilities fail and need restoration or replacement actions that invariably cost more than the sustainment activities that were deferred,” a report said.
Officials also told GAO that “the size of current deferred maintenance backlogs is unsustainable, and that reducing backlogs will require, among other things, disposing of facilities in poor and failing condition rather than sustaining or repairing them.”
The report said that in recent years the department has been working to better evaluate and manage the risk from deferred maintenance. However, it said the data are incomplete and for example do not account for the extra costs of maintaining facilities beyond their lifespans.
It said that department-wide 29 percent of buildings in use or caretaker status are more than 60 years old and are beyond their expected lifespans; the average age of Navy wharfs is 73, 23 years beyond; and “officials at Marine Corps Base Hawaii told us that more than half of the base’s facilities date to the World War II period.”
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