Army Facilities Modernization

Readers may have seen a story in the news recently concerning a plan at the Army Materiel Command (AMC) to modernize the 23 depots, arsenals, and ammunition plants that make up its “organic industrial base” starting in fiscal year 2024. The eye-opening section of the story concerns a briefing that AMC leaders gave to Congress regarding the $16B price tag and 15 year duration of the effort.

Even in an era when federal budgets are measured in trillions of dollars $16B is a lot of money. Identifying where that funding will come from is, however, a different story. The article referenced mentions how difficult it is for the Army to find the required dollars, yet there are some clues in the Army’s Operations and Maintenance budget request for fiscal year 2023 which can start us looking in the right direction.

Land Forces Readiness

One budget line of interest is Land Forces Depot Maintenance (LFDM). After having received $1.3B in FY 2022, the requested budget for LFDM in FY 2023 is $1.4B. The extra $100M was added to deal with cost increases. This funding enables “depot level maintenance for Army weapon systems, including physical equipment and digital technology,” meaning that industry partners working on aviation systems, weapons systems and information technology could find related business opportunities.

For example, here are some of the Army’s stated LFDM IT priorities for FY 2023:

Post-Production Software Support (PPSS). Provides the critical operations and infrastructure for a net-centric fight force to include certification and accreditation of software, the purchase of software licenses, adjusting to DOD cyber security standards, field software engineers, and software code anomaly adjustments. This support facilitates secret and top secret networks, and maintains interoperability between all Army command and control systems.

PPSS is slated to receive $19M, including a bump of $587K, for monthly and quarterly cybersecurity releases, certification, and accreditation activities.

Communications and Electronics (CE). Provides overhaul, repair, rebuild and depot level field teams for communications-electronics end items, supporting the readiness of Command, Control, Communications, Cyber, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance assets. Examples include the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System and Standard Integrated Command Post System.

CE will receive $6.0M in FY 2023, if Congress passes a budget, including an increase of $77K to purchase 21 AN/TSC-167H(V)2 Satellite Transportable Terminals.

Altogether, anticipated funding for IT Contract Support Services for LFDM is expected to total $404M. This is down from the $459M budgeted for FY 2022.

Land Forces Readiness Support Base Operations (LFRS BO)

The portion of LFRS BO (in itself a $9.0B budget line) that deals specifically with facilities is Facilities Operations. There is also an IT Services Management line of interest to those doing IT work.

The funding requested for these lines (and a brief description of each) works out as follows:

Facilities Operations (FO). Provides resources to support Utilities, Fire Protection and Emergency Services, Real Property Leases, Engineering Services and Real Property Management, and Municipal Services to operate and maintain Army installations.

Proposed funding for FO in FY 2023 totals $3.3B, with a reduction of $41M vs. FY 2022. The budget decreases funding for utilities to more accurately reflect costs for Utilities Privatization (UP) contracts. The Army continues to resource fixed-price Utility Privatization contracts and continues to meet requirements of our installation needs.

IT Service Management (ITSM). The program includes installation, operation, maintenance, augmentation, modification, rehabilitation and leasing of non-tactical communications, terminal and switching facilities and services associated with production, acquisition, and support of visual images. Supports all common user Command, Control, Communication, Computers, and Information Management technological services, information management services, and network services.

Requested ITSM funding in FY 2023 totals $610M, which is $184M less than received in FY 2022. Proposed decreases effect Enterprise IT-as-a-Service (EITaaS) and Command, Control, Communication, Computers, and Information Management services. Funding also reduces contract services that provide maintenance on communication systems, legacy telephone switches and data infrastructure, and user hardware and software support.

Parting Thoughts

Some of the funding proposed by AMC for depot and arsenal modernization will undoubtedly land in other accounts than the ones summarized above. The accounts above are only those that clearly have a facilities/infrastructure maintenance dimension, particularly Land Forces Depot Maintenance. Already receiving around $1.3B per year, it remains to be seen if this account will be in line for an increase if it is the primary account under which the AMC’s modernization initiative falls. It also remains to be seen if the Army intends to add an estimated $1.06B per year to the Depot Maintenance account for modernization in addition to the approximately $1.3B that account already receives on an annual basis.