Defense Department reports most goals met in 1999

In one of the first annual performance reports to be released under the Government Performance and Results Act, the Defense Department Tuesday said it met most of its goals in fiscal 1999.

DoD reported it met 29 of the 41 goals laid out in the department's annual report, for a success rate of 70 percent. Twelve of the goals were not met. The performance report was included in Defense Secretary William Cohen's annual report to Congress, which also includes an update on the Quadrennial Defense Review, the strategic plan drafted by the Pentagon in 1997.

"I am proud to report to you that we are meeting the goals I set when I came before you three years ago," Cohen wrote in his message to Congress. "My successor will inherit a department and military, not only far better than that which won the Gulf War, but given our rapid application of lessons learned from Operation Allied Force, better than that which prevailed in the conflict with Belgrade."

The 41 goals (plus four additional measures not included in the performance report) are divided into two categories: 1) "Shape the international security environment and respond to crises;" and 2) "Prepare for the future by modernizing the military and the department's infrastructure."

Of the 19 goals in the first category, seven were not met in 1999. For example, the Air Force and Army maintained troop levels overseas at expected levels, but diversions of Navy and Marine Corps personnel to Southwest Asia left Europe and the Pacific understaffed.

The military services failed to meet goals in balancing training time with deployment time, but generally met goals in providing enough flying hours for pilots.

In modernization, the Pentagon fared better in its own eyes, meeting 17 of 22 goals. Efforts to streamline acquisitions were successful in 1999, but the department failed to control cost growth in major acquisition programs. The department had hoped to keep cost growth below 1 percent per year. In 1999, costs grew 3.1 percent.

In purchases below $2,500, the department did a better job, exceeding its goal of having 80 percent of such purchases made with charge cards. In 1999, 91 percent of small purchases were made with charge cards, with an estimated average savings of $92 per transaction in procurement costs.

The Pentagon's report also includes performance goals for 2000 and 2001. In 2001, the department will include financial management goals in its performance plan for the first time.

Under the Government Performance and Results Act, agencies are required to set performance goals each year and then report on whether they met their goals. Fiscal 1999 is the first year for which the act is in full effect. Agencies are required to release their first annual performance reports by March 31.

Cohen's report is available online at www.dtic.mil/execsec/adr2000/. The GPRA performance report is in Appendix I.