GAO concerned about special ops budget metrics.

• Position: Budget Matters

* The Defense Department is not effectively assessing how much it spends on special operations forces, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report.

In fiscal year 2014, U.S. Special Operations Command received $9.8 billion in base and supplemental funding. But SOCOM relies heavily on the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines to provide logistical, maintenance, manpower and intelligence support to its missions, which costs the services money, U.S. officials have noted.

"Information on funding to support SOF exists, but funding data are tracked and managed across various organizations in a decentralized manner, and neither DoD nor the military services have systematically collected, estimated or reported total SOF funding needs," GAO said in a July report titled, "Special Operations Forces: Opportunities Exist to Improve Transparency of Funding and Assess Potential to Lessen Some Deployments."

Lawmakers and Pentagon officials need to have a better idea of the resources that are being devoted to SOF, particularly in a constrained budget environment, the report said: "Until DoD has more complete information on the total funding necessary to support SOF, decision makers will be unable to effectively identify and assess justification materials for future funding needs, or weigh priorities and assess budget tradeoffs within anticipated declining resources."

To fix the problem, GAO recommended that the secretary of defense direct the comptroller to develop a methodology to track and report funding used to...