Summary: The Defense Department (DOD) lacks a comprehensive strategy for managing its maintenance and repair needs. Each of the military services now sets it own standards for maintaining its property, using different methods to assess priority conditions, prioritize repairs, and allocate funds for maintenance and repairs. GAO also found that bases and the major commands within the services sometimes apply their own assessment criteria inconsistently. In addition, the services have different maintenance funding goals through 2005, and they plan to fund repairs below the levels required to keep most facilities at current conditions. Therefore, the backlog of repairs, some rated ?critical,? will increase. GAO found several promising practices in the maintenance area among nonmilitary groups, such as (1) using a single system for counting the number and type of facilities and for assessing their conditions and (2) ranking budget allocations for all facilities using common criteria, including physical condition, relevance of facilities to the mission, and life-cycle costing and budgeting. Adoption of these practices by the military, however, is hampered by several factors. GAO has recommended that DOD fund a comprehensive strategic real property maintenance plan. GAO has also recommended that DOD develop a cross-service, integrated strategy to comprehensively address real property maintenance issues. In response, DOD has taken several steps that, in GAO's view, demonstrate a positive commitment to change.
