DOD Force Mix Issues

GAO recommended in 1994 that the Defense Department (DOD) study ways to convert support positions from military to civilian status because federal civilian personnel cost the military less than military personnel of roughly equal grade and rank. Although DOD agreed with GAO's recommendation, it converted no positions on the basis of this work. DOD did convert about 3,200 positions by the end of fiscal year 1996 to comply with the requirement in the Fiscal Year 1996 National Defense Authorization Act to convert at least 3,000 positions. This report presents the results of a similar analysis of commissioned officer positions using fiscal year 1996 end strength data. This is a first step toward identifying officer positions that perform certain support and administrative functions as candidates for civilian conversion.

GAO found that: (1) since 1954, Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 1100.4 has required the services to staff positions with civilian personnel unless the services deem a position military essential for one or more reasons, including combat readiness, legal requirements, training, security, rotation, and discipline; (2) however, the DOD directive and service implementing guidance provide local commanders with wide latitude in justifying the use of military personnel in their staffing requests; (3) the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force are currently staffing officers in about 9,500 administrative and support positions that civilians may be able to fill at lower cost and with greater productivity due to the civilians' much less frequent rotations; (4) examples of career fields that contain positions that might be converted are information and financial management; (5) DOD could save as much as $95 million annually by converting the roughly 9,500 positions GAO identified; (6) savings achieved through military to civilian conversions can be used to pay for needed priorities such as weapon systems modernization; (7) final cost savings and the elapsed time before all of the savings were realized would depend on how many positions DOD converted and how the conversions were carried out; (8) on the other hand, GAO recognizes that a number of impediments exist to military to civilian conversions, such as the ongoing civilian drawdown in DOD and a perceived preference by local commanders for military rather than civilian personnel in certain positions; and (9) these impediments are not insurmountable, but they will be difficult to overcome without direction and support from senior leaders at DOD, such as from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and sustained attention to overcoming the impediments and developing and executing the conversion plan.

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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