A Preliminary Analysis of Advance Appropriations as a Budgeting Method for Navy Ship Procurements

📖 The Scoop

The Navy shipbuilding program typically comprises a few individually very expensive projects, together with an irregular schedule of new starts. Such a combination can lead to major fluctuations in year-to-year budget totals, even when everything proceeds according to a long-range plan. However, major defense acquisition programs rarely exhibit long-term stability: Changing circumstances dictate changing needs; programs run into problems, causing both schedule and cost overruns; etc. Furthermore, when the Navy prepares its budget, the relatively large shipbuilding portion is occasionally used as a source of funds to meet other needs. The resulting fluctuations in an account as large as shipbuilding (it is usually about 10 percent of the Navy's budget), combined with a budget cycle that normally requires major allocation decisions to be made two to three years before the appropriation year, can pose major problems.

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