Resource Allocation for Army Installation Management

Given the recent decreases in the defense budget, unfunded contingency operations, aging military infrastructure, and restationing of overseas troops to within the continental United States, military commanders must make informed and difficult decisions with regard to operating military installations and maintaining infrastructure. Unfortunately, these commanders often must trade off infrastructure and quality of life to support training, readiness, and the actual conduct of military operations because of limited funding. In a partial response to this situation, the Army developed the Installation Status Report (ISR) to articulate to Office of the Secretary of Defense and Congress the current condition of the infrastructure of military bases and costs to sustain and upgrade them to an acceptable standard. As a continuation of the ISR effort, the Installation Decision Support Model (IDSM) was developed as an installation-level budgeting priority tool. The IDSM uses data from the Army's ISR, the commander's priorities, and funding strategies as input to produce database viewing and editing capabilities, a map display of conditions, guidance from the commander in developing projects, funding strategies and comparisons, and an after-action report on the effectiveness of last year's budget. This paper summarizes the IDSM from a total-systems perspective and presents the methodology used in the capital budgeting process.