Army's FY-22 'Night Court' complete

The Army has finished its analysis of which programs will be harvested for modernization efforts in the fiscal year 2022 program objective memorandum, otherwise known as the "Night Court" process, according to a senior leader.

Army Futures Command commander Gen. Mike Murray said during a virtual Defense News conference today the service did what it needed to do to make sure the budget proposal would reflect the service's effort to replace aging equipment and improve upon newer systems.

"The Night Court for '22 is done," he said. "We wrapped that up, that's all been decided. And this was either the third or fourth iteration. It is about hard decisions, and every year has been harder . . . and it's all about priorities. One thing that I will credit the Army senior leadership . . . [with] is consistent priorities for the last four, five years, which makes it not easy, but easier, to do the budget and the POM every year and really make sure that our priorities are funded first."

The process to align Army priorities with the 2018 National Defense Strategy has generated $35 billion for new projects across the five-year spending plans beginning in FY-20 and FY-21.

"There are some hard choices and there are some losers when you do that, and there is risk," Murray continued. "So a lot of it is balancing that risk between what we need to do to sustain the capability to fight tonight and make sure our soldiers have what they need today versus what we know they're going to need in the future."