Need for Improved Reports for Monitoring Military Bonus Program

Gao ID: FPCD-77-34 March 31, 1977

As a result of an earlier GAO report, the House Committee on Armed Services directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to submit semiannual reports on its bonus programs in an effort to ensure that the services would do their utmost to eliminate wasteful practices and administer the programs as intended. GAO now believes that certain changes in the structure of these reports could improve their usefulness in monitoring both the administration of the bonus authority and the bonuses' effect on solving attraction and retention problems in critical skills.

Current report information, format 1, on the number and skills of members who received bonuses is not sufficient to evaluate the bonuses' effect on solving attraction and retention problems in critical skills. Information on the number and skill of bonus recipients serving outside their bonus skills, format 2, does not show whether the data reported is significant in relation to the total bonus recipients on active duty. The Committee did not request DOD to report the number of bonus recipients who received involuntary discharges or the amount of their unearned bonuses. The substantial length of the current reports makes it difficult to use them to monitor the bonuses' effect on solving attraction and retention problems in critical skills. Current reporting periods are not in concurrence with established data collection cycles.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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