Defense Agencies FY 2021 Budget and IT Budget Request Snapshot

Published: March 04, 2020

Federal Market AnalysisBudgetDEFENSEInformation Technology

The Department of Defense (DOD) submitted a $113.2B fiscal 2021 budget request for the 4th Estate, including $7.8B for information technology programs related to unclassified national security systems.

The White House released its fiscal 2021 budget request in early February, with the discretionary portion of the request for Defense Agencies being the smallest total budget, but the largest IT budget among the DOD’s components.

The DOD’s proposed fiscal year 2021 request provides $113.2B in total budget authority for the 4th Estate. If passed intact by Congress and signed into law, the fiscal 2021 budget will deliver 5.5% lower funding for the 4th Estate than the $119.8B enacted in fiscal 2020. The decrease follows a Defense-Wide Review carried out by the Secretary of Defense that identified $5.0B in savings to be reinvested in priority programs related to increased lethality and readiness. The new budget focuses resources on areas of need for Defense Agencies. These areas include maintaining the high state of readiness at U.S. Special Operations Command, modernizing nuclear defense capabilities at the Missile Defense Agency, and funding the Defense Health Program.

Discretionary Funding Highlights (Base + OCO + Emergency)

O&M: $79.4B, a decrease of $3.3B vs. the enacted total in FY 2020. The budget increases funding for Information Management ($2.0B vs. $1.96B enacted in FY 2020) but reduces funding for Base Operations ($1.92B vs. $2.0B enacted in FY 2020).

RDT&E: $24.6B, a decrease of $1.7B vs. the total enacted in FY 2020. In particular, it prioritizes Ballistic Missile Defense ($1.0B vs. $1.3BM enacted in FY 2020) and Network-Centric Warfare Technology ($661M vs. $507M enacted in FY 2020).

Procurement: $5.8B, a decrease of $1.0B vs. the total enacted in FY 2020. Increases funding for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ($495M vs. $407M enacted in FY 2020) and AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense ($402M vs. $336.4M enacted in FY 2020).

FY 2021 IT Budget Request

Because the public can see only a the portion of planned 4th Estate IT investments related to unclassified national security systems the net total IT budget request for FY 2021 is $7.8B.

The total Defense Agency FY 2021 IT budget request is flat compared to the funding received in both FY 2019 and FY 2020.

In terms of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) and Development, Modernization, and Enhancement (DME) splits, the Defense Agencies’ FY 2021 request for IT O&M funding comes in at $6.1B, which is flat vs. the enacted total in FY 2020. For DME in FY 2021 the request is $1.04B, an increase of roughly $100M vs. the enacted total in FY 2020.

FY 2021 Funding Priorities

Here are ten top priority programs, including all-important DME dollars (often thought of as “new” money each fiscal year):

  • Department of Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization ($807M, $462M DME)
  • Non-DISN Telecomm ($650M, $0 DME)
  • Joint Service Provider ($618M, $145M DME)
  • Military Health System Desktop to Datacenter ($453M, $0 DME)
  • DLA Computing Infrastructure ($412M, $3M DME)
  • Joint Artificial Intelligence Center ($218M, $60M DME)
  • Health Enterprise Information Support ($173M, $0 DME)
  • Microsoft Joint Enterprise License Agreement ($167M, $0 DME)
  • DLA Communications Infrastructure ($104M, $6M DME)
  • Defense Agencies Initiative ($86M, $21M DME)