Navy Could Reduce Costs by Better Monitoring Its Enlisted Transfer Policy

GAO reviewed the Navy's policy which requires that enlisted personnel have enough time remaining in their enlistment to complete their tour at a new location before transferring.

GAO found that the Navy is not complying with its transfer policy and, as a result, is incurring unnecessary costs. This situation is occurring because local commanders are permitting many of their members to transfer without obligating the required additional service. Furthermore, the procedures for ensuring that members obligate additional service before transferring to a new duty station are inadequate. GAO found that at least 6,900 enlisted members transferred to new duty locations between July 1978 and September 1982, even though they did not have enough obligated service to complete their tours at their new locations. While some of these members may have received a waiver of the obligated service requirement or may obligate additional service before their enlistment expires, the practice of large number of members transferring without obligating additional service is costly. GAO identified at least 150 members who left the service at or near the end of their enlistment before completing their tours. These uncompleted tours represented about 180 staff years of lost time valued at about $3.1 million and resulted in unnecessary permanent change-of-station costs.

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: Kenneth J. Coffey Team: General Accounting Office: National Security and International Affairs Division Phone: (202) 275-5140