Summary: GAO reviewed selected Navy activities' use of the Shore Facilities Planning System (SFPS) to determine whether the activities' use of the system resulted in accurate determinations of facility requirements and optimum use of existing facilities.
GAO found a number of instances where the use of SFPS by activities resulted in inaccurate facility requirements causing the construction of some unneeded, or excessively large, projects. The Navy criteria for sizing family services centers provide for centers which are larger than Department of Defense (DOD) criteria allow. As a result, at one facility, GAO found that the Navy was planning a family services center which was larger than DOD criteria allowed, and the Navy had not obtained the waivers necessary for construction in excess of DOD criteria. In addition, the Navy has no assurance that the child care centers it plans to build will be properly sized to meet its needs because DOD and Navy criteria for sizing such centers are inadequate, but DOD plans to revise its criteria. GAO found that Navy criteria for aircraft parking aprons are inaccurate, resulting in a parking apron requirement at one activity which was overstated. GAO also found that outdated and inaccurate data in the industrial planning system resulted in a shipyard overstating its electronics shop space requirements. Finally, because of the improper use of factors for converting net floor areas to gross floor areas, an engineering station overstated its space requirement for a proposed diesel engine test facility. GAO believes that current and accurate data are essential if SFPS is to be a useful tool in the management of naval facilities.
