The Marine Corps has finished its alternate budget planning drills but has not formally submitted its “alternate program objective memorandum” to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the assistant deputy commandant for programs told reporters this week.
“We submitted a balanced POM on the Navy’s timeline,” Brig. Gen. John Jansen told reporters after a presentation at the Modern Day Marine military exposition at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Sept. 26. He added it was unclear when Navy leadership on behalf of both Navy and Marine Corps, as well as Army and Air Force leadership would formally submit their alt-POMs to OSD.
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| Oshkosh Corp. earlier this month delivered its 22 JLTV prototypes to the Army and Marine Corps for testing over the next 14 months. Photo courtesy Oshkosh Corp. |
“What ends up getting submitted all the way up” is also still somewhat of a question, he added, since so many different scenarios were planned out over the past few months as the budget environment became more uncertain.
During his presentation with a panel of officials, Jansen said the alt-POM process took place in about six weeks, whereas typical POM planning–which looks at a six-year period beyond what has already been budgeted–takes six months. The Marine Corps had somewhat of a harder time than other services, he said, because 60 percent of its budget goes toward personnel costs, whereas the Navy only spends 43 percent of its budget on people. Therefore, the Marines had a tougher time trimming or cutting acquisition, research and operations to balance the budget, whereas the Navy had more to work with in those categories.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Jansen said that the alt-POM process was complicated by so many unknowns–whether sequestration would stick around, be undone or be replaced with a different type of cut; whether a continuing resolution would be passed in time to fund the beginning of fiscal year 2014 or not; how long Overseas Contingency Operations funding would be available to the Marines.
“It’s like a seven- or eight-sided Rubik’s cube,” he said. “All that becomes a derivative math problem with multiple permutations. That’s the problem. We go with OSD guidance, we take that guidance and the commandant crafts his guidance” for budgeters to then apply. But ultimately the service is accepting risk in its acquisition and modernization efforts, as well as its base infrastructure at home and its ability to react to a major contingency operation, in favor of maintaining forward presence and current readiness in support for being a crisis response force.
Bill Taylor, program executive officer for land systems, said during the same panel presentation that he was pleased Marine Corps headquarters had taken the time to consult with his office so extensively to discuss that risk being accepting by trimming or cutting acquisition.
“We’re postured and ready to respond accordingly, and I’m comfortable that we’ve developed enough alternatives and decision space so that they can make well thought-out decisions,” Taylor said in his presentation, though he could not elaborate on the details of the alt-POM.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Taylor said that interaction may help avoid problems such as Nunn-McCurdy breaches in programs that are currently on-time and on-cost.
Taylor said his major programs are in good shape right now, based on the president’s budget request for FY ’14, though he would not speculate which ones were at risk as they move through uncertain budgets.
Most expensive over the next several years is the Ground-Air Task Oriented Radar, budgeted at about $1.4 billion from FY ’14 to FY ‘18. The acquisition category 1C program has completed its engineering and manufacturing development phase testing, and the government’s operational assessment report is being written now, Taylor said. Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley is expected to make a Milestone C decision to send the program into production on Dec. 16, and the Marine Corps would immediately afterward be able to a contract to developer Northrop Grumman [NOC].
The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is next most costly, set at about $925 million over the same time period. Earlier this month, all three vendors–Oshkosh Corp. [OSK], Lockheed Martin [LMT] and AM General–delivered their 22 prototypes and associated equipment, Taylor said, and now about 14 months of government and contractor testing can begin at the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. A Milestone C decision and a downselect to one vendor is currently set for late FY ’15, but Taylor said “sequester and budget reductions already realized are pressurizing that, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Milestone C slipped into FY ’16.” Initial operational capability should be reached in FY ’18, he added.