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Law360 (April 7, 2021, 7:33 PM EDT ) The Department of Defense should improve its pandemic plans, the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded in a Tuesday report summarizing the findings of a performance audit that revealed COVID-19 heightened productivity challenges that depots serving the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force already faced.
All eight of the military depots — industrial installations owned and operated by the government — faced numerous challenges prior to the pandemic, such as personnel shortages and having too few materials to complete work, Diana Maurer, the GAO's director of military structure and operations issues, in a report on Tuesday.
"At all eight of the depots, COVID-19 exacerbated productivity challenges the depots were already facing with workforce and parts and materials, according to our analysis," the GAO said. "In addition, at half of the depots we found that COVID-19 exacerbated challenges they were already facing with unplanned work and information technology issues."
The depots "maintain, overhaul, and repair a multitude of complex military weapon systems and equipment for DOD," according to the report. Roughly 40,000 civilians at the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force depots work on maintaining these systems and other equipment.
Personnel shortages steepened when agency officials sent workers home or placed them on weather and safety leave to protect personnel at the start of the pandemic, according to the GAO report. For example, the Marine Corps shut down a production plant in Albany, Georgia, for two months to protect its workforce while also reducing operations at another production plant in California for six weeks.
The GAO's audit, which took place from June 2020 through April 2021, revealed that the depots also failed to meet their planned monthly revenue goals before the pandemic's onset, or at the end of the 2020 fiscal year.
It further showed that the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force experienced difficulties in continuing their operations and improving crisis response.
In fact, depot officials said that adapting existing natural disaster contingency plans to the pandemic "added to confusion" during the early stages of the pandemic.
"Like everywhere else, the depots adapted by protecting personnel, shifting schedules, or pausing operations," Maurer said. "They also struggled, especially at first, to maintain consistent operations, in part due to unclear communication about the status of mission-essential personnel."
To address these shortcomings, the GAO issued nine recommendations, including asking the agencies to document lessons they learned from the pandemic and update any depot-related contingency plans based on that information. The GAO further recommended that the agencies develop exercises to support their productivity during any long-term crisis that could affect the depot workforce.
Incorporating these lessons will assist the depots in protecting their workforce and maintaining productivity, the GAO's report said.
The DoD agreed to implement the recommendations and the GAO will follow up later in the year to track their progress, according to Maurer.
Representatives for the DoD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
--Editing by Michael WAtanabe.
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