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home > March 24, 2008 issue > article
JTRS breach is a technicality
By David Perera
Special to Defense Systems
Reports of recent and sudden cost overruns by the military’s
Joint Tactical Radio Program are inaccurate, officials from the JTRS
joint program executive office said.
The newsletter Inside the Pentagon reported Feb. 21 that Defense
Department acquisition executive John Young had notified
Congress Jan. 31 that the ground mobile radio (GMR) domain of
JTRS experienced a Nunn-McCurdy breach.
Nunn-McCurdy breaches occur when military program costs
increase more than 15 percent from a baseline estimate. In that event,
DOD must notify Congress in a publicly available letter. Based on an
in-house analysis of other public documents, Inside the Pentagon estimated
that GMR costs grew by $1 billion in the final months of last year.
However, the baseline was from 2002 and predates a significant 2006
JTRS reorganization done in large part to prevent costs from spiraling
out of control, said Steven Davis, a JTRS program office spokesman.
In written responses, JTRS officials characterized the Jan. 31
Nunn-McCurdy notification letter as a formality, saying it contained
no new information. “The increases against the 2002 [acquisition
program baselines] have been long known and previously reported”
to Congress, officials said. The JTRS board of directors approved
new cost baselines in December, and the letter “formally communicates
the reset,” officials said.
In a sign that Congress has not lost faith in the program, the fiscal
2008 Defense Authorization Act directs the Army to rely less on its
Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (Sincgars) and
more on JTRS.
“The Army’s continued desire to procure thousands more
Sincgars radios is not consistent with the Army's plan for a future
battlefield network,” lawmakers wrote in a report accompanying the
legislation, which became law Jan. 28.
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