Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the projects undertaken in fiscal year (FY) 1997 by the Department of Defense (DOD) through its Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) Program.
GAO noted that: (1) Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) officials told GAO that some funding requests were made orally with no supporting documentation provided to OSD; (2) they also said that the services and the components frequently requested one amount of funds to be used for several projects and OSD approved funding for those projects as one amount; (3) where documentation did exist, OSD officials said that the amounts approved may not accurately reflect the amount spent on the projects because: (a) additional funding may have been provided at a later date but not documented in the files; (b) funds may have been held back due to budgetary constraints; (c) services and components may have spent the approved money on another approved project as they deemed appropriate; (d) some approved projects may not have been conducted; and (e) some projects may have required less supplemental funding than had been anticipated; and (4) during GAO's work, Marine Corps Reserve officials provided information on 10 FY 1997 projects that did not require supplemental funding, and, therefore, were not reported to OSD.
