Overview
- A Government Accountability Office report released in late August found an estimated $285 billion in deferred maintenance across more than 736,000 Defense Department facilities.
- The GAO recommended 13 fixes to assess mission risk, improve maintenance data, and address worker shortfalls, and it documented gaps in work‑order tracking and workforce planning.
- The Pentagon agreed with many findings but declined calls for expanded centralized oversight and rejected a recommendation for annual public reporting on maintenance standards.
- Services are coping with labor shortages by using temporary hires and the H‑2B visa program at remote bases and the Pentagon has requested about $57 billion in the next budget to reduce the backlog.
- The backlog more than doubled from $137 billion in fiscal 2020 to $285 billion in fiscal 2025 and has already triggered unsafe housing determinations and mass relocations at installations such as Joint Base San Antonio.