GAO Tells Senate Panel U.S. Shipyards Are Major Readiness Concern
JOHN GRADY
MAY 7, 2024 12:44 PM
Even with space available in shipyards, fewer than 40 percent of Navy ships completed availability repairs on time, the Government Accountability Office’s director of defense capabilities and management told the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee last week.
Diana Maurer told the Senate panel Wednesday her office put shipyard conditions second only to F-35 Lightning II sustainment costs as the most worrisome readiness issues facing the services.
“We see readiness increasingly strained,” she added. In the case of the yards, including the optimization money to modernize the public yards, GAO wants the Navy to develop design, schedule and sustainment costs to avoid the hundreds of millions in overruns marking dry dock work in Pearl Harbor.
According to the report, “The Navy has not developed a full cost and schedule estimate for its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) – an effort to improve its dry docks, facilities, and equipment – and reports that it will not be able to do so until Fiscal Year 2025. In the interim, the Navy plans to provide annual updates of the estimated costs of SIOP projects it intends to undertake during the next 5 years. The Navy reports that it cannot develop an estimate for the full SIOP until 2025, after each shipyard completes its detailed infrastructure plans identifying specific facility projects.”
https://news.usni.org/2024/05/07/gao-tells-senate-panel-u-s-shipyards-are-major-readiness-concern
