Despite $38.5 billion in new funding during the 2025 and 2026 federal fiscal years, the Coast Guard is still struggling to carry forward its modernization program, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress June 30.
“Since 2019 we've reviewed some of the Coast Guard's modernization efforts and steps it took to incorporate leading practices and address issues,” wrote Triana McNeil, the GAO’s director for Homeland Security and Justice.
“While the Coast Guard has made progress, it could be doing more. For example, we previously found that it didn't fully assess its workforce needs…it doesn't have a plan to assess whether current efforts are working,” McNeil testified to the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
In its review of the Coast Guard’s Force Design 2028 ‘foundational documents,’ the auditors found how the service has taken some steps “to implement leading practices in its current reform effort but gaps remain.”
The Coast Guard has assigned officers to lead the reform effort and focus on long-standing challenges of workforce, technology, contracting and acquisitions, the GAO report states.
“However, the document does not describe how the Coast Guard will measure this effort or know when it achieves its reform goals,” the auditors wrote. “Further, how proposed reforms align with Coast Guard missions is unclear, and there is no performance plan or other mechanism to assess the results.”
Yet the Coast Guard “is facing a readiness crisis, according to DHS and Coast Guard leadership,” the auditors report.
In May 2025, DHS announced an effort called Force Design 2028 to modernize operations and capabilities, and “transform the Coast Guard into a more capable and agile force to meet future challenges across four areas – organization, people, technology, and contracting and acquisition.”
Congress appropriated nearly $25 billion in Coast Guard funding for fiscal year 2025 in the largest single commitment of funding in Coast Guard history, to support Force Design 2028.
The GAO’s latest report reprises eight years of working with Coast Guard officials on reform.
“In three of the four prior reform efforts, leadership attention waned. Two of the reform efforts did not fully establish goals and outcomes, making it difficult to determine if the reforms had the intended effect,” the auditors wrote. Now Force Design, potentially the Coast Guard’s biggest transformation since World War II, “has not fully established goals and outcomes or a plan with which to evaluate implementation,” according to the GAO.
The GAO concludes with two recommendations:
“The Commandant of the Coast Guard should update the service’s foundational modernization documents as necessary to ensure strategic alignment with Coast Guard missions, desired outcomes, and measurable targets for each area of reform emphasis—organization, people, technology, and contracting and acquisition.”
“The Commandant of the Coast Guard should develop an evaluation plan with mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of reform actions for each area of reform emphasis – organization, people, technology, and contracting and acquisition.”
