One of my Navy officer tours was as the supply officer/department head of the medical supply department at the Naval Hospital in Groton, CT (New London). That "burn the money, don't turn it back in" thing was standard operating procedure, believe me. One year, on September 3rd or 4th, I got a $4 million supplement appropriation dropped on me from our higher headquarters (BUMED) and had to have it spent by close of business on September 30th. I put every purchasing clerk I had on overtime, plus kept my military folks on the clock and we busted rear end to get it all spent, and not on "must have" stuff, either. Mostly, it was "wish list" purchases for the hospital and all its clinics. If I hadn't "obligated" at least 99% of that money by the end of the fiscal year, my annual report of officer fitness (FITREP) would have gotten dinged. And our next-fiscal-year supply budget would have probably taken a hit by the amount of money I failed to obligate. It's crazy.

The only military outfit I ever saw turn money back in at the end of the FY -- and proudly so -- was the Marine Corps. During my enlisted days I was serving in one Marine Corps unit where the skipper and his XO kept tabs on the money being spent and kept cutting the operating target funds dedicated to what they called "non-essentials" (anything NOT for medical supplies, ammo, or field rations, basically ;-). They turned the resulting savings back in at the end of the FY so that it, hopefully, could be "reprogrammed" for other Marine Corps units.