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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The Army will look to pursue budget line item consolidation for its command and control (C2) portfolio in fiscal year 2027, a senior official said Tuesday, and plans to further expand on its flexible funding push with its FY ‘28 request.
The update from Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal follows Congress granting some additional flexibility for its drone, counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) and electronic warfare (EW) portfolios in the final FY ‘26 defense appropriations bill, while not fully signing off on the service’s request for “agile funding” authority.
“[For FY] ‘28, we’re in discussions with [Congress] about expanding budget line item consolidation into other critical and very technical parts of the Army’s budget. And that’s about as far as I’ll go, just since we’re still in discussion with them,” Obadal said in remarks at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium here.
On the budget line item consolidation plans for its FY ‘27 request, Obadal said the Army is coordinating with Congress on “allowing the rapid moving of resources to support needs and opportunities alike, application, data, network transport layers, all of it included.”
The Army is currently pursuing the large-scale Next-Generation Command and Control effort which aims to provide “commanders and units at echelon an open and modular C2 ecosystem across hardware, software and applications with access to a common and integrated data layer,” and has described it as a “fundamental change in how the U.S. Army conducts digital mission command.”
Senior service officials have previously pointed to networking as a portfolio suited for flexible funding in order to rapidly acquire promising commercial capabilities and software solutions.
For FY ‘26, the Army had requested $2.4 billion in agile funding authority to be able to move money around its UAS, C-UAS and EW portfolios more flexibly rather than being locked into more rigid budget line items (Defense Daily, June 26).
Senior Army officials have said the push for flexibility to move funds around capability portfolios is needed to more rapidly acquire promising new technologies, whereas funds now are typically tied to one specific system.
Congressional appropriators decided against granting the Army’s push for new agile funding authorities in the final defense spending bill, and said they “discourage” the Pentagon from pursuing similar requests in the future, while they did sign off on more than a dozen budget line item consolidations the service requested across three program categories (Defense Daily, Jan. 23).
“Decisions to unilaterally move funding in the year of execution without sufficient oversight introduce uncertainty to both the programs impacted and the industrial base, increasing the risk of development and procurement delays,” lawmakers wrote in a joint explanatory statement accompanying the appropriations bill.
Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, said in January the service plans to “continue to work with Congress on that one.”
“We have been very clear that what we don’t want to do is buy very specific [capabilities]. We want to have money set aside for drones or long range fires or whatever and have the flexibility to be able to invest in the things that are working really well,” George said.
On the budget line item consolidation granted in the defense appropriations bill, Obadal said it provides Army program executives “the ability to shift from stagnant or obsolete efforts to emerging needs and compelling industry solutions.”
“The speed of innovation is far greater than the speed of our budgeting process and our appropriations,” Obadal told reporters following his remarks. “And that is a phenomenon that has occurred over the last few years as commercial industry and the ability to innovate in the digital space and in the technical space, that cycle gets faster and faster.”
For its push to expand budget line item consolidation to its C2 portfolio, Obadal said the Army recently brought soldiers from the 4th Infantry, 25th Infantry and 82nd Airborne Divisions to Capitol Hill “for two days to demonstrate how they are integrating advanced software and C2 development into their formations. And, as important, to underscore how quickly software changes.”
Obadal said the pursuit for flexible funding will take a “deliberative effort with Congress…to ensure we have the right oversight, understanding and confidence [with] the appropriators.”
“That requires consistent engagement. And we have to demonstrate that in the areas that we have consolidated, that we’re able to perform and provide the right oversight,” he told reporters.
