Defense Budget Wrangling

Political maneuvering over the Defense Department budget for fiscal 2002 is likely to result in delays of new information technology projects, a senior Pentagon official said Aug. 29.

Margaret Myers, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense and deputy chief information officer, told executives at a Federal Sources Inc. breakfast briefing that it is likely Congress will not approve the budget by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Instead, continuing resolutions will be used to extend spending at fiscal 2001 levels until a budget resolution is hammered out.

Defense spending on IT programs is expected to increase 2.7 percent, to $22.9 billion in fiscal 2002. By comparison, fiscal 2001 spending grew less than 0.5 percent over the previous year, to $22.3 billion.