The Navy's Computerized Pay System Is Unreliable and Inefficient--What Went Wrong?

Over the last 12 years, the Navy has spent more than $150 million to develop and operate a central automated military pay system that is largely unreliable and inefficient. Although GAO approved the system design, it is not working as designed because it was not implemented as designed.

Two studies conducted in 1978 revealed that 42 percent of 291 selected pay accounts reviewed were inaccurate and 52,200 accounts remained in an overpaid status for more than 90 days. In 1979, GAO found that 34 of the accounts were in error in amounts ranging from $5 to over $1,800. The major problems with the system stem from the lack of timely and accurate input data from field organizations to the central computer. Field units average 12 days to prepare input as opposed to the 3 days required by the system design. The approved system design required an automated control over rejects, but management does not rely on it for control purposes because the automated system was not properly implemented. Navy management did not establish overall goals and objectives to measure pay system performance as required by the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller). The Assistant Secretary's office did not provide the necessary guidance and monitoring of the Navy's pay system development and implementation, or require the Navy to comply with the Department of Defense requirements for managing the automated pay system. It has not determined whether the Navy implemented the pay system design as approved by GAO. Changes made in creating a parallel manual system would not have been approved by GAO if the changes had been submitted to GAO as required. The quality of the input was also very poor. Despite costly efforts to overcome system inefficiencies, the system continues to operate inadequately.

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.

Director: John F. Simonette Team: General Accounting Office: Financial and General Management Studies Division Phone: (202) 275-1581