GAO Report - Trends in Nunn-McCurdy Cost Breaches for MDAPs

Report dated March 9, 2011 Trends in Nunn-McCurdy Cost Breaches for Major Defense Acquisition Programs For nearly 30 years, the statutory provision, known as the Nunn-McCurdy has been an oversight tool for Congress to hold the Department of Defense (DOD) accountable for cost growth on major defense programs. A Nunn-McCurdy breach occurs when a program's unit cost exceeds certain thresholds. When that happens, DOD must notify Congress of the breach. There are a number of statutory provisions that help implement cost growth reporting under Nunn-McCurdy. For the purposes of this report, we refer to these statutory provisions as the Nunn-McCurdy process. In September 2010, you requested that we examine trends in Nunn-McCurdy breaches and factors that may be responsible for these trends. In this report, we also discuss changes DOD is making or proposing to make to the Nunn-McCurdy process.