Inside Defense
Nov. 4, 2009 -- The Office of the Secretary of Defense is expected within days to unveil a rough draft of the U.S. military's fiscal year 2011 spending request in an internal Pentagon document that will detail new changes the services must make to their investment plans as part of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' continuing effort to rebalance the Defense Department.
The draft omnibus resource directive, prepared by the Pentagon's two most important resource shops -- the comptroller's office and the cost assessment and program evaluation (CAPE) team -- will capture decisions that in prior years would have been published in dozens of program budget decisions. The directive will provide the services the first clear direction about changes they must make to their spending plans.
“We're expecting a macro RMD,” said a Pentagon official, referring to the resource management decision. “This will be the first vehicle for a decision. There are bills to be paid, there are monies to be garnered up, there are things now to lock in with a decision mechanism so that people can be directed to make changes to their data base.”
It marks the beginning of the endgame in hammering out details of the Pentagon's FY-11 budget proposal and accompanying investment plan through FY-15.
Gates plans to convene the so-called “Large Group-Plus” on Nov. 23, a gathering that includes the service chiefs, top Pentagon civilians and combatant commanders to review, among other matters, the FY-11 budget proposal, according to Pentagon officials.
After Thanksgiving, the Pentagon expects to receive the “passback” memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which lays out exactly how much the Obama administration plans to allocate for defense in FY-11. Pentagon sources say OMB's national security staff this week began its review of the Pentagon FY-11 budget.
This spring, Gates told Congress the Pentagon requires at least 2 percent real growth -- a hike that with inflation could be as much as 4 percent. A formal appeal to the White House, should Gates elect to seek more money, would likely take place in the coming weeks, according to Pentagon sources.
Gates, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, the service chiefs and their vice chiefs, combatant commanders and top civilian Pentagon officials have since August met regularly, in different combinations, to adjudicate resource issues that span the entire military enterprise (DefenseAlert, Sept. 30).
Through the Quadrennial Defense Review this summer, defense officials proposed nearly $60 billion in changes to service investment plans over the FY-11 to FY-15 planning period, the bulk of which would require changes to Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps investments, according to Pentagon officials.
In addition to these proposals, more than 100 “issue papers” submitted by top brass and senior civilians have been largely sorted through.
The bulk of the budget decisions have been addressed by a group of approximately 30 senior military and civilian resource managers, known as the “three-star programmers.”
The new RMD is a common resource document that can have adjustments to spending accounts made by either CAPE or the comptroller (DefenseAlert, Oct. 21). -- Jason Sherman
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