Deep staffing cuts at the Pentagon’s independent weapons testing office last year have left the organization with fewer specialists who are now overseeing programs outside their areas of expertise, increasing the risk that problems with new weapon systems could go undetected before they reach troops.
Congress stood up the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) in 1983 following a series of scandals around a number of weapon systems that didn’t perform as expected. The M16 rifle, for instance, malfunctioned so badly in the field that it cost many soldiers their lives. Those deadly combat failures were exactly why Congress created DOT&E.
The fundamental role of DOT&E is to provide independent oversight over testing performed by the services.
But last May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reduced DOT&E office’s workforce from 126 authorized civilian positions to 30 civilians. Senior Executive Service (SES) deputy director positions were eliminated, replacing them with GS-15 action officers who now also serve as deputy directors. Hegseth also eliminated all contractor support.
At the time, Hegseth said these actions would save the department over $300 million per year. He said the move “reflects the department’s commitment to continued reform and reducing bureaucracy.” The goal was to speed up delivery of new capabilities with less independent oversight.
DOT&E then cut the number of programs it oversaw from 265 programs in fiscal 2024 to 173 in fiscal 2025. The move drew criticism from experts and lawmakers, arguing that any short-term savings will be far outweighed by the long-term costs of fielding faulty weapons.
The Government Accountability Office’s recent audit of the organization found that programs were removed for several reasons, including completion of testing and evaluation activities, program cancellations and mergers and DOT&E’s determination that oversight was no longer necessary. It’s unclear how many programs fell into each category.
“Rather than going into specific details on numbers of programs, the more important issue, as we point out in the report, is whether DOT&E has the appropriate workforce to provide the level of oversight that Congress expects. We anticipate that DOT&E’s workforce study will provide greater clarity on what it believes the size of its workforce should be, which will impact the depth and breadth of oversight it provides,” Shelby Oakley, GAO’s contracting and national security acquisitions director, told Federal News Network.
According to the watchdog, action officers — the staff responsible for assessing programs — said workforce cuts have forced them to oversee more programs, including those outside of their areas of technical expertise.
DOT&E staff also reported gaps in expertise in specialized fields such as electronic warfare. They also told GAO that “the losses in oversight depth and breadth caused by workforce reductions, and subsequent loss of subject matter expertise, increase the risk of weapon systems being delivered to the warfighters with undocumented shortfalls related to effectiveness, suitability, survivability, or lethality.”
In addition, the watchdog found that staffing reductions have limited the office’s ability to oversee acquisition programs that fall outside its statutory requirements, particularly rapid acquisition efforts aimed at fielding new capabilities more quickly.
In 2024, Congress appropriated an additional $10.6 million to expand the office’s oversight of middle-tier acquisition (MTA) programs. But as of February, only 15 of roughly 110 MTA efforts remained on its list.
“Action officers cited concerns over the military departments potentially using the MTA pathway and other rapid prototyping efforts to avoid operational and live fire testing requirements,” GAO said in the report.
The watchdog’s findings reinforce some of the concerns lawmakers raised after the Pentagon essentially gutted the office.
“I am concerned that these reductions would violate the law, cutting so deep that the office would no longer be able to meet its statutory functions,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said. “Reductions in staff will inevitably limit the scope of DOT&E’s activities, preventing the office from conducting the reviews and evaluations that save lives and taxpayer dollars.
The Defense Department is still conducting an analysis of its workforce and workload requested by Congress.
The GAO report does not include a response from the Pentagon or make any recommendations for the department — Oakley said that GAO believes “it is more appropriate for Congress to consider steps it may want to take to address the challenges we identified in the report.”
“Ensuring that Congress is clear on its expectations for oversight and the authorities it wants the Director of DOT&E to have is critical – perhaps Congress wants DOT&E reviewing less, for example. In addition, with Congress already directing DOT&E to do the workforce study, it didn’t seem prudent to make recommendations to DOT&E at this point,” Oakley said.
The Pentagon did not respond to Federal News Network’s questions about the GAO’s findings.
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