Federal Budget IQ

Federal Budget IQ's Becky Leggieri breaks down CNO Adm. Franchetti's plans for the Navy this week. Her priorities, identified in the September 18 Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy (NAVPLAN) include seven targets but on close inspection, two themes come through: readiness and technology. Eliminating maintenance delays for ships and aircraft, doing a better job taking care of personnel and recruiting, improving combat training (real world and virtual), and imrpving critical shore-based infrastructure all fall into the readiness bucket. Scaling robotic and autonomous systems to "integrate more platforms at speed" and creating more modern command centers "to win on a distributed battlefield" fall into the modernization bucket. Leggieri highlights some key program areas from the FY25 budget request that illustrate the modernization efforts including uncrewed undersea and surface vehicles and uncrewed aircraft programs. But she also points out a policy-funding mismatch has arleady emerged. Earlier Navy plans admitted that the department's goals required a 3-5% budget increase above inflation. That hasn't happened. That means all eyes will be on Congress and the department this fall to see (a) if budgets are increased, and (b) what gets sacrificed when there isn't enough money to go around. For more details see the link below. https://lnkd.in/e4PiD2u6 #fy25 #budget #defense #defence #congress #ndaa #appropriations #navy #china #houthi #iran #russia #readiness #marinecorps

Federal Budget IQ's Charles Kieffer reviews upcoming scenarios for Congress -- both disaster response funding and regular full-year funding for FY25 this week. We're still waiting to see the size of the disaster response request from the Biden Administration which may affect when Congress comes back early or sticks to its plan to wait until Nov. 12 (after the Nov. 5 elections). Either way, Congress will face a big price tag given the extent of damage caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton. Additionally, Congress needs to: pass an extension of the expiring Farm bill; the National Defense Authorization bill; address earlier disasters such as the Maui fires and the Baltimore bridge; debate more Ukraine aid; and hold House and Senate party leadership elections. For more details, use the link below. #fy25 #budget #disaster #fema #sba #congress #senate #houseofrepresentatives #biden #flood #hurricane # https://lnkd.in/gAgmiq5x

Federal Budget IQ's Chauncey Goss provides an update on the Space Development Agency's expansion of the number of military low earth orbit satellites this week. The Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture Tranche 0 currently has 27 satellites on orbit. Over the next three years, Tranche 1 will launch approximately 160 satellites, and tranche 2 bring the total to between 300 and 400 satellites. SDA estimates that an additional 200 satellites and associated ground services will be procured under Tranche 3. The agency plans to release solicitations to industry for Tranche 3 of the PWSA’s tracking and transport layers next year for satellites that will be launched in 2028 to replace Tranche 1 satellites that reach the end of their operational service life. The aggressive schedule will provide a wide range of capabilities, including improved missile warning and tracking, the capacity of tactical data links, position, navigation and timing resilience, and mission and network management. For more details, see the link below. #space #defenseindustry #defensecontracting #defence #defense #fy25 #satellite #congress #ndaa #houseofrepresentatives #senate https://lnkd.in/ed7mH8mi

Federal Budget IQ's Chauncey Goss highlights a long-term challenge for the Department of Defense this week -- a $50 billion deferrred building maintenance bill. There are multiple elements to this challenge including: 1. The intended life-span of a building; 2. The current average age of buildings; 3. The impact of deferred maintenance on life-span; 4. Budget limitations (that backlog won't be worked down all at once); and 5. The need to upgrade existing buildings with long remaining life-spans, including IT modernization. For more details of the problem and the opportunities for industry, click the link below. #budget #facilities #dod #pentagon #defense #defence #informationtechnology #fy25 #fy26 #defensecontracting #federalcontracting #defenseindustry https://lnkd.in/e7Mun8-F

Federal Budget IQ's Austin Smythe provides an overview of the presidential transition process and the impact that has on the federal budget. We're in the pre-election phase with the clock ticking down to Nov. 5. Phase two starts the next day. Up until election day, campaigns are much more focused on winning the election than what comes next but a well-run campaign does think ahead, especially about personnel. There are thousands of political appointments to be made by a new president. Another focus of the President-elect, their advisors, and his or her transition team is to prepare administrative actions for rapid execution -- some new presidents have "first 100 days" plan. That effort usually includes a series of executive orders right out of the gate. Additionally, the President-elect and his team will begin preparing a legislative program, including in this case the President’s FY26 Budget. Since 1993, newly elected presidents usually wait to get their Senate-confirmed team in key roles before submitting a full budget. As a result, new administrations usually submit a summary of the budget in late February or early spring followed by the full submission in April or May. For more, see the link below. https://lnkd.in/eifHmU_K #election #2024 #fy26 #presidentialtransition #politics #budget #appropriations #tax #politicalappointees #GSA

Our CEO and Founder, David Taylor, summarizes Federal Budget IQ's election outlook in this excerpt from our monthly report. After a wild ride the past 90 days, the trends are becoming clearer with every round of polling. The most likely outcome now increasingly appears to be divided government, with a 65% chance the Democrats retake the House, a 75% chance the Republicans regain control of the Senate, and Vice President Harris winning the White House. In the short run, that augurs well for completing FY25 appropriations action before the end of the December. Republicans wouldn't have any significant advantage in pushing action into the new year. Over the medium term, David says: "The net result will be two years of legislative gridlock with operational implications for the White House, Congress, budgets, and agency planners. Barring an external event, we won’t see a massive legislative and spending agenda like we witnessed during the 117th Congress." Click the link below for the full analysis. #election #fy25 #budget #appropriations #houseofrepresentatives #senate #politics #kamalaharris #trump #continuingresolution https://lnkd.in/ebSX2HR5

The Senate Appropriations Committee's FY25 Defense bill is a critical sign post for where Congress will eventually end up--even if it's more than the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps. Federal Budget IQ's Chauncey Goss lays out some of the big picture context, including the upcoming continuing resolution, and highlights some of the SAC increases for procurement and RDT&E programs. Given major differences between the House-passed FY25 Defense Appropriations bill and the SAC-approved version, those specific increases are likely to change before FY25 Appropriations are finalized. That won't be until well after the November elections. But these increases are a market signal representing bipartisan SAC priorities. Regardless of the outcome of the November elections, FY25 Defense spending is likely to exceed those caps. #fy25 #congress #appropriations #hac #sac #defense #defenseindustry #defensecontracting #defence #C4ISR #tech #missiledefense #darpa #jadc2 https://lnkd.in/eDyHjx5Y

Federal Budget IQ's Charles Kieffer provides the latest on the FY25 appropriations process this week. His analysis highlights not only the top-line differences between the House and the Senate but some of the individual program-level funding differences. Examples include the Social Security Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the National Institutes of Health on the domestic side. Chuck also lays out the immediate challenges that Congress will face when the return in September--crafting a continuing resolution to preven a partial government shutdown. Among those difficulties are a fight over how long the CR should last, whether to include disaster funding, and how many exceptions or "anomalies" to the freeze on new starts ordinarily built into CRs should be provided. #federalbudget #budget #fy25 #congress #houseofrepresentatives #appropriations #federalcontracting #tech #informationtechnology #disaster #veterans https://lnkd.in/eXZzAyUE

Federal Budget IQ features guest contributor Peter V., this week, discussing DOD investments in tech and the importance of integration. The FY25 budget request includes "$21.1 billion for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) Systems, 7% of the investment budget request and a $6.6 billion increase from the FY24 request." #defense #defence #defensetech #defensebudget #defenseindustry #defensecontracting #cloud #artificialintelligence, #informationtechnology #datastorage #datamanagement #dataintegration #contestedlogistics, #modelingandsimulation #hasc #sasc #ndaa But despite big investments, the "convergence and seamless employment of such enabling digital technologies remains a significant challenge. DOD’s goal of deploying a, “modernized, information network that is a dynamic and agile” with “lower latency, and greater network capacity,” remains a nascent and fragile work in progress." Villano goes on to highlight some specifics from House and Senate versions of the FY25 NDAA, with a focus on emerging tech and contested logistics. Details include guidance on the Agility Prime Transition Working Group, a pilot program on Army readiness in contested logistics environments, High Performance ComputeTechnologies and Integrated Surveillance System Joint Cross-Domain Exchange. https://lnkd.in/ejz4ePFs

Federal Budget IQ's Becky Leggieri lays out DOD and Intelligence Community plans for IT this week. They both have released Information Technology (IT) strategies, including roadmaps. Both documents stress the modernization of IT infrastructure, data and network security, and investment in a digital workforce. DOD's "Fulcrum: The Department of Defense (DOD) Information Technology (IT) Advancement Strategy" was released on June 24 as a guide to building an “interoperable, integrated, digital platform.” The strategy includes four "lines of effort" that include move from proprietary data interfaces to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) built to commercial standards and application of AI/Machine Learning (ML) to the warfighter decision making process. The linked analysis highlights areas of the budget and levels of congressional support. The IC strategy includes five focus areas, including bolstering the foundation, including essential enterprise services and capabilities such as the IC’s cloud environment; computing power, storage and transport services; and regional edge nodes. https://lnkd.in/g-9z5UKK #budget #fy25 #cybersecurity #zerotrust #informationtechnology #defensecontractors #defenseindustry #defensebudget #intelligencecommunity #ai #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #cloudcomputing #dataanalysis #datastorage #api