GAO To Coast Guard: Improve Data Collection For Cutter Maintenance

The Government Accountability Office released a report June 25 to the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that urges the U.S. Coast Guard to improve data collection to better manage and maintain its aging fleet of cutters.

The GAO is an independent, non-partisan agency of Congress whose primary role is to investigate how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars and to provide Congress with objective, fact-based information to help improve government operations and save money.

The Coast Guard classifies “cutters” as vessels that are at least 65 feet long with crew live-aboard accommodations. On paper, that fleet numbers 241 vessels. The GAO has been sounding alarms about the condition of the cutter fleet since 2012, when it reported that the “legacy cutters” were approaching, or had exceeded, their expected service lives and that their physical condition was generally poor. The Coast Guard began a cutter recapitalization program in the late 1990s, but delays in delivering replacement vessels have required the Coast Guard to extend the service life of older vessels.

In this latest report, the GAO was asked to review how the cutter fleet has changed since 2012. GAO staffers conducted site visits to observe facility operations and interviewed Coast Guard officials, including maintenance officials and cutter crews representing a mix of cutter types and geographic locations.

The report notes, “Since fiscal year 2019, the cutter fleet’s availability to conduct missions generally declined due, in part, to increasing equipment failures. Across the cutter fleet, the number of instances of serious cutter maintenance issues increased by 21 percent from 3,134 in fiscal year 2018 to 3,782 in fiscal year 2023. As a result, more cutters are operating in a degraded state and at an increased risk of further maintenance issues.”

Deferred maintenance and delays in obtaining obsolete parts are two big reasons why, the report said. In fiscal year 2024, the Coast Guard deferred $179 million in cutter maintenance, almost nine times the amount deferred in 2019 (based on inflation-adjusted values). Due to delays in receiving critical parts needed for repairs, the Coast Guard cannibalizes cutters by moving working parts between cutters. However, “The Coast Guard lacks complete information to address the impacts of these challenges. Systematically collecting data on, and assessing, deferred maintenance and parts obsolescence could enable the Coast Guard to better prioritize projects and funding,” the GAO report stated.

Another area of concern noted was, “The Coast Guard has not fully addressed the impacts of personnel shortages that are a major challenge to operating and maintaining the cutter fleet. Cutter crew and support positions are short staffed, with vacancy rates increasing from about 5 percent in fiscal year 2017 to about 13 percent in fiscal year 2024. Cutter personnel workload has increased to meet mission demands, and cutters often deploy without a full crew, which the Coast Guard does not account for in its staffing data.”

In a May report on recruitment, the GAO noted that, due to changes the Coast Guard made in 2024, including opening new recruiting offices, updating policies on the maximum recruiting age and visible tattoos, the agency has recently enjoyed a surge in recruits. For the first time since 2017, the Coast Guard has achieved all its recruiting missions for enlisted active duty, the reserve and non-Academy officer program accessions—more than 4,400 new active-duty members in total. But years of under-recruitment need to be made up.

The report recommends that the Coast Guard’s commandant collect and assess data on when previously deferred maintenance may have caused equipment failures, how many delays have been lost due to unplanned maintenance issues and the availability of cutter crew and support personnel. Additionally, the GAO recommended completing ship structure and machinery evaluation boards for all cutter types.

The Department of Homeland Security concurred with the recommendations for all but evaluating staffing, saying that the Coast Guard’s personnel tracking practices are already managed appropriately at the unit level.

The full report is available at https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-107222.pdf.