Building a U.S. Coast Guard for the 21st Century - Center for ...

• Executing all acquisitions within cost,
schedule, and performance
• Providing transparency
• Encouraging unity of effort
• Achieving organizational synergy
• Providing alignment within the (prospective)
deputy commandant for
mission support organization
• Identifying, developing, documenting,
and implementing best government
and business policies
• Recruiting, building, and training a
certified acquisitions workforce
• Establishing effective knowledge and
information management processes75 Congress and Coast Guard leadership must ensure that the Acquisition’s Directorate
is given a sufficient and stable level of funding over a five-year term so that it can
manage its programs and achieve these goals and hold it accountable for outcomes.
Develop clear progress and performance metrics for the Coast Guard’s
recapitalization program
According to GAO, “One of the Coast Guard’s key challenges is the development
of adequate measures to assess the progress and outcomes of the modernization
program.” As the National Academy of Public Administration pointed out in its
April 2009 report on the modernization program, such metrics are necessary to
“ensure that the impacts of modernization are aligned with intended objectives;
also, such measures provide an opportunity to “course-correct” as necessary.” 76
The establishment of appropriate metrics to inform decision making and ultimately
create a clear rationale for the modernization program was a key recommendation
of the 2009 NAPA Modernization study. The service should create
these metrics as soon as possible and make them public to enable proper oversight
and accountability.
Require the Coast Guard to provide more comprehensive budget reporting
to Congress on all Coast Guard acquisition projects
While the Coast Guard budget reports include total acquisitions costs for their
projects, they do not include information on contracts. The Navy, by contrast,
includes all of the above information in all its budget reporting. The lack of these
three items limits public and congressional understanding of the Coast Guard’s
budget, leading to a lack of transparency. And it hinders the decision-making process,
which increases the risk of cost and schedule overruns.
37 Center for American Progress | Building a U.S. Coast Guard for the 21st Century
Congress must
ensure that the
Acquisition’s
Directorate is
given a sufficient
and stable level of
funding over a five-
year term.