Financial Management: Issues to Be Considered by DoD in Developing Guidance forDisclosing Deferred Maintenance on Ships

摘要

Recent laws have enhanced the legislative requirements to provide policymakersand agency program managers with more reliable financial information to formulate budgets, manage government programs, and help make difficult policy choices. Recognizing the extent of incomplete and unreliable information on the cost and consequences of government programs and activities, these laws have made implementing new accounting standards and audited federal financial statements a priority. New federal financial accounting standards have been adopted to enhance federal financial statements by requiring that government agencies show the financial results of all their operations and provide relevant information on their financial status. This report discusses one such requirement for valuable information related to deferred maintenance on mission assets. The third in a series of reports on the Department of Defense's (non) implementation of this requirement, this letter focuses on Navy ships, including submarines. We are not making recommendations in this report. Rather, we are identifying issues that need to be considered in carrying out the basic recommendation in our September 30,1997, letter to expedite plans to implement the deferred maintenance standard. We continue to be concerned that while DOD agreed that such action was necessary, it has not established milestones for key tasks, as intended by our recommendation, to ensure that it has time to incorporate into the implementing policy the results of a study being conducted, and to publish that policy no later than March 1998.