Using operations and maintenance funds in contingency operations

MANY MILITARY LEADERS misunderstand the importance of fiscal law in military operations, particularly the restrictions on the use of operations and maintenance (O&M) funds. Congress uses fiscal constraints to control military operations and foreign policy. Commanders who ignore those funding restrictions risk their careers and, ultimately, may place the operation itself in political jeopardy. Congress or its watchdog agencies (the Comptrolver General and the General Accounting Office [GAO]) may seize on a well-intended, but misguided use of military resources to tighten the purse strings on a particular operation or on military funding in general. This article is intended to sensitize leaders to these risks and to suggest ways to reduce both personal and mission exposure.

Constraints in Funding National Security Operations

Congress uses a variety of mechanisms to control expenditures, from very general to highly specific legislation. The general legislation is the basic appropriation process. In a national defense budget totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, Congress cannot provide line-item detail for expenditures. Accordingly, it issues lump-sum appropriations-money placed in broad categories such as procurement, military construction (MILCON) and operations and maintenance. Congress then controls expenditures of those categories through statutes that govern all government expenditures-general fiscal law-or through very specific directions for named agencies or programs. In addition, the GAO scrutinizes agency spending for compliance.

General fiscal law. What has been called the "Purpose Statute" is key to Congress's control over how federal dollars are spent. Originally enacted in 1809, the statute is a cornerstone of congressional control over the federal purse. It requires that funds he spent only on the objects for which the appropriations were made, and it prohibits reappropriation, transfer and diversion of unexpended funds, unless authorized.1

For commanders who argue that it is better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission, a set of related statutes known as the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA) may make them think twice. The heart of the ADA is just a few lines long: "An officer or employee of the United States Government . . . may not make or authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount available in an appropriation or fund for the expenditure or obligation."2

Unlike most fiscal constraints, the ADA has teeth, authorizing mandatory "appropriate" administrative sanctions, fines and imprisonment for...