Independent review of Department of Defense financial management execution benchmarks

(a) Review required Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, shall enter into an agreement with an independent entity to review the financial management execution benchmarks used by the Department of Defense to assess obligation and expenditure performance across major appropriations. (b) Matters reviewed The review required by subsection (a) shall assess— (1) the origin, source, methodology, and authoritative basis of execution benchmarks currently used by the Department; (2) the extent to which such benchmarks are published in, or traceable to, Department-wide policy, regulation, guidance, or other official issuance; (3) whether such benchmarks remain relevant to modern acquisition and financial management practices, including rapid prototyping, software development, Other Transaction Agreements, milestone-based payments, program phase, and period of availability; and (4) whether such benchmarks should be updated, segmented, or otherwise modified to better reflect differences among appropriations, acquisition pathways, contracting mechanisms, and program execution patterns. (c) Report Not later than 180 days after the date on which the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) enters into the agreement under subsection (a), the Under Secretary shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the results of the review, including the findings of the review and any recommendations for changes to Department policy, regulation, guidance, or practice. (d) Definitions In this section: (1) The term execution benchmark means any metric, target, curve, rate, standard, threshold, or other measure used by the Department to assess, evaluate, compare, or characterize obligation or expenditure performance. (2) The term independent entity means a federally funded research and development center, a nonprofit research organization, an institution of higher education, or any other entity with relevant expertise in defense financial management, acquisition, budgeting, and program execution, and no organizational conflict of interest.