Future Year Defense Program (FYDP)

The Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) (10 USC § 221) summarizes forces, resources, and equipment associated with all DoD programs. The FYDP displays total DoD resources and force structure information for 5 years; the current budgeted year and 4 additional years.

Definition: The Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) is an internal DoD database and accounting system that summarizes forces and resources associated with programs approved by the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF).

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) Updates

The FYDP is updated two times during the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Process cycle:

In August/September to reflect the Services combined Program Objective Memorandum (POM) / Budget Estimate Submission (BES) submission and
In January of the following year to reflect the President’s Budget (PB) that will be submitted to Congress the following month.

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) Parts

The FYDP consists of three parts that are:

The Organization
Appropriations accounts
Major force programs

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) Major Force Programs

The FYDP is a crossover between DoD’s internal system of accounting via Major Force Programs and Congressional appropriations. The 12 Major Force Programs (MFP) are:

Program 1: Strategic Forces*
Program 2: General Purpose Forces*
Program 3: Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, and Space*
Program 4: Mobility Forces*
Program 5: Guard and Reserve Forces*
Program 6: Research and Development
Program 7: Central Supply and Maintenance
Program 8: Training, Medical, and Other General Personnel Activities
Program 9: Administration and Associated Activities
Program 10: Support of Other Nations
Program 11: Special Operations Forces*
Program 12: National Security Space (10 US Code 239)

* Those considered combat forces programs are marked by an asterisk.

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) Main References

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) Program Element (PE)

The Program Element (PE) is the primary data element in the FYDP and normally the smallest aggregation of resources controlled by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). It generally represents a collection of functional or organizational entities and their related resources. PEs are designed and quantified to be comprehensive and mutually exclusive. There are over 3,600 active PEs. As the building blocks of the Programming and Budgeting phase of the PPBE Process, PEs are continually reviewed to maintain proper visibility into the multitude of defense programs. They may be aggregated in a variety of ways:

To display total resources assigned to a specific program
To display weapons systems and support systems within a program
To select specified resources
To display logical groupings for analytical purposes
To identify selected functional groupings of resources

Budget Preparation Schedule

February: FYDP Updated
April: DoD Send Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) to Services
30 July: Services submit Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and Budget Estimate Submission (BES) to OSD, CAPE and OMB for POM Review (FYDP Updated)
October – December: Joint OMB-OSD review leading to Resource Management Decision (RMD)
December: DoD Budget Request sent to OMB
1st Monday of February: Presidents Budget due to Congress (FYDP Updated)

Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) Tracks

The FYDP tracks the three broad categories of resources available to the DOD as its inputs: [2]

Total Obligatory Authority (TOA) – Appropriated funding, in thousands of dollars;
Manpower – Military end strength and civilian full-time equivalent work years; and
Forces – Identified as either item of equipment or combat units.

AcqTips:

The FYDP structure has changed in accordance with the Memorandum from the Deputy Secretary of Defense dated 9 April 2010.
The graphic shows the two years included in the full FYDP for the FY06-11 PPBE cycle. For this cycle, FY04 is the prior year and FY05 is the current year. FY06 and FY07 are the two budget years and FY08 through FY11 are the out-years. FY12 through FY14 are the years for which only force level information is shown in the FYDP.
The FYDP is considered an internal DoD working document and is generally “closely held” within DoD. Since the FYDP out-year programs reflect internal planning assumptions, FYDP data beyond the budget years is not released outside the Executive Branch without the permission of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) (USD(C)). However, after submission of the President’s Budget, DoD sends the Congressional oversight committees and the Congressional Budget Office FYDP information covering the budget years along with the two years preceding and the four years following the budget years.

AcqLinks and References:

Updated: 7/11/2021

Rank: G7.6

PPBE Process