Senate appropriators are asking Army senior leadership to be more transparent with its “night court” budget review process, specifically its planned goal to realign an additional $10 billion towards modernization priorities.
The bill report for the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY20 defense spending bill calls for the Army to provide a report alongside its next budget request detailing all planned program cuts, as lawmakers express concern that a lack of communication on shifting dollars may lead to inefficient funding cycles.
“Continued, wide-ranging truncation or elimination of programs without notification to the congressional defense committees in advance of the subsequent budget submission leads to inefficiencies and misappropriation of resources in the current budget request being considered,” lawmakers wrote.
The Army has previously announced its first “night court” effort resulted in realigning $33 billion from low priorities to fully fund modernization development efforts over the next five years, and which included cutting 93 programs and truncating the buys of 93 others.
Lawmakers said they received a consolidated list of specific cuts included among the 186 programs, which detailed the realignment of around $15 billion.
Army leadership has said its preparing for “tougher decisions” as it looks to find additional cuts that will be required to free up funds to move development of major weapons systems from prototypes to initial production (Defense Daily, Sept. 4).
“In many cases, the congressional defense committees were required to authorize programs and appropriate resources within the fiscal year 2019 defense bills for programs that had already been eliminated or truncated within the Department’s subsequent Program Objective Memorandum and budget review cycles,” lawmakers wrote. “With the continued, senior level reviews for the Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the committee is in a position to again appropriate resources to programs that will be truncated or eliminated in the fiscal year 2021 budget request.”
To ensure the Army is upfront about future “night courts,” the committee’s proposed bill requires a full list of the next cuts with the service’s FY21 budget request and to “submit spend plans for all fiscal year 2020 appropriations allocated to those programs.”
“Of additional concern are indications that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is undertaking a similar process for review of defense agencies and activities in preparation for the fiscal year 2021 President’s budget submission,” lawmakers added.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who most recently led the Army, is working to bring “night court” over to the Pentagon beginning with a review of Fourth Estate, with plans to implement cuts on a rolling basis (Defense Daily, Sept. 9).