The War Department is not requesting enough money to cover military installation maintenance and major improvement needs, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Years of underfunding helped drive the estimated maintenance backlog to a staggering $285 billion in fiscal 2025.
Department policy called for funding 90 percent of estimated maintenance requirements, but the military services have continued requesting only about 80 percent. That persistent gap has allowed repairs to pile up while troops and installation commanders deal with the consequences.
“[The War Department] has not fully determined the risks to its mission and to the quality of life of its personnel as a result of not meeting its funding goal,” the report states. “Fully determining and communicating these risks would provide better information to [the War Department] and Congress to weigh budget priorities.”
GAO investigators examined Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force installations throughout the United States and its territories. Their findings describe a broad readiness problem rather than a handful of isolated buildings suffering from bad plumbing or peeling paint.
A 2014 memorandum from the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics established a goal of funding routine maintenance at 90 percent or more of the amount calculated through the Facilities Sustainment Model. More than a decade later, the services are still failing to meet that standard.
The Army, Navy and Air Force requested roughly 80 percent of their requirements during fiscal years 2017 through 2020. The Marine Corps took an even sharper turn, cutting its requested sustainment funding from 80 percent to 40 percent over the past five fiscal years.
Marine leaders instead directed more money toward facility restoration and modernization projects, according to the report. That trade might produce new ribbon cutting ceremonies, but it also leaves existing buildings deteriorating while routine repairs are deferred.
“By requesting less funding for installation maintenance and improvement projects than its models and experts recommend, [the War Department] has chosen to accept some degree of risk that mission or quality of life will be negatively affected,” the report says. In plain English, officials knowingly accepted the possibility that troops and readiness would suffer.
GAO has previously found that barracks maintenance was “chronically neglected,” resulting in miserable conditions for enlisted service members. A 2023 investigation found that thousands of troops were living in substandard barracks, including facilities with potentially serious health and safety hazards.
That is not merely a quality of life complaint for bureaucrats to file away. Mold, broken ventilation, unreliable plumbing and unsafe living spaces can damage morale, harm health and distract service members from training and operational duties.
Of the 31 recommendations GAO issued in 2023, the department had implemented 19 as of April 2026. Several important recommendations remain unresolved, including the creation of a clear oversight structure for military barracks.
The report also identified serious trouble hiring and retaining skilled maintenance workers, especially at remote and isolated installations. Competition from private employers, along with federal hiring rules, pay limitations and work eligibility practices, has made already difficult staffing problems worse.
Military departments have not fully measured the extent of those workforce shortages and have not developed adequate plans to overcome them. Without electricians, plumbers, heating specialists and other skilled employees, even properly identified repairs can remain stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
Installations also depend on maintenance work order systems to track problems and responses, but GAO found that the available data is limited and generally unreliable. That means department leaders cannot confidently measure whether repairs are timely, effective or consistent across the services.
GAO issued 13 new recommendations, including stronger departmental oversight, a fuller assessment of risks created by underfunding and improvements to maintenance data reliability. The department fully or partially agreed with 12 recommendations and rejected one.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth now faces the cleanup of a maintenance culture that too often treated troop housing like an afterthought. Congress and the Pentagon cannot credibly preach readiness while service members sleep in failing barracks and a $285 billion repair bill gathers dust.
