January 2020
Neither the PB nor the SAR is perfect. In general, the justifcation books that the Services produce annually to support the PB contain more detail, which is good for analysis, but if the data in the justifcation book extend beyond the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) timeframe, then instead of year-by-year data, a single column is labeled “To Complete.” The PB also does not include much history, with most of it in a single column labeled "Prior Years.” The SAR reports costs in both Then Year (TY) and Base Year (BY) dollars, while the PB reports TY dollars exclusively. The SARs are the Ofce of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)’s primary data source for analyzing MDAPs. This dataset is what cost analysts frommany diferent organizations typically use, per the recommendation of the Ofce of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, or OUSD(AT&L) staf, who described SAR data as “the ofcial numbers.” OUSD(AT&L) no longer exists and we have not conducted any interviews with personnel in the successor ofces that exist today—Ofce of the Under Secretary of Defense (Research and Engineering) or Ofce of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Sustainment). Why SARs Matter The SARs are not the dataset used most often for decision-making inside theDoD.When senior leadersmake large resource decisions, analysts most often assemble datasets to suit the needs of the decision maker by pulling data fromnonpublic systems or conducting data calls. Why then do we care about the quality of data in the SARs? The SARs matter for two reasons: triggering and research. What we call triggering is why the SARs were created. The Services trigger investigations when they seek milestone authorities from OSD. OSD can also trigger analyses for program reviews based on the Service’s annual submissions, such as the ProgramObjectiveMemorandum. Only the SARs provide regular information at the program level. For example, no other annual submission can tell OSD or the Congress about the projected procurement costs for a program that is expected to leave the development phase in 5 years. Research on defense acquisition is continuously occurring in government agencies, think tanks, universities, and other organizations. In the past, researchers looking across programs have considered amount of cost growth (McNicol, 2004), setting of production rates (Rogerson, 1991), comparisons among diferent commodity types (Drezner, Arena, McKernan, Murphy, & Riposo, 2011), andmany other subjects. This research helps the government,
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Defense ARJ, January 2020, Vol. 27No. 1 : 28-59
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