Originally Posted by Bart
Yes, the end-of-year rush still exists; however, not as haphazardly. They must still comply with all the rules and regulations. The way I've seen it done is that commanders identify and prioritize unresourced requirements so that as funds become available, then they may be resourced. They still have to go through all the wickets and permissions as they would with resourced requirements. It's a matter of differentiating between the "gotta have" and "nice to have" but not in terms of luxury; usually in terms of mission priorities (need a new tactical vehicle first before purchasing an upgraded computer LAN).
It's no different at the local government level. Our training division found themselves with about $5000 at the end of the fiscal year, and they weren't about to give it back. One of the things they bought was this fancy whiteboard that had a printer attached. Push a button, and whatever was on the whiteboard was printed onto a sheet of paper. Very slick, but the only time I ever saw it used is when some curious officer wrote his name or something else on the board and then pushed the print button to see how the thing worked.