National Service Programs

AmeriCorps--the largest national and community service program since the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s--is now in its sixth year of operation. AmeriCorps consists of four programs that help participants pay for postsecondary education in exchange for doing community service. AmeriCorps estimates that it spent $477 million in fiscal year 1999 to support about 53,000 AmeriCorps participants. Because of continuing congressional concerns about the average annual cost per AmeriCorps participant, GAO identified and compared these per participant costs with other similar groups providing community service. This report provides information on participant costs for both the AmeriCorps*State/National and AmeriCorps* National Civilian Community Corps programs. GAO provides cost and other data for the 1998-99 program year, including information on overhead expenses, education awards, and child care benefits.

GAO noted that: (1) the NCCC program is completely funded by the Corporation for National Service (CNS), whereas the State/National program is funded jointly by CNS, program grantees, and state commissions; (2) for program year 1998-1999, CNS budgeted $23,426 per NCCC participant and $14,857 per State/National participant; (3) program grantees and state commissions added funds estimated at $8,717 per State/National participant for program year 1998-1999; (4) CNS has the goal of reducing its share of the costs of AmeriCorps grantee programs, but CNS data show that while the selected participant funding that GAO reviewed decreased between program years 1994-1995 and 1998-1999 in State/National, AmeriCorps' largest program, CNS' share of those participant costs actually increased from 52 percent to 55 percent; (5) the budgeted participant costs of Job Corps CCC are higher than those of NCCC; (6) for program year 1998-1999, these costs were $28,933 and $23,426; (7) while these are both residential programs for youths, they differ in ways that make Job Corps CCC more costly; (8) AmeriCorps participants receive less in benefits than entry-level military personnel; (9) while both AmeriCorps and the military provide their participants a living allowance, health benefits, child care assistance, and the opportunity to accumulate funds to pay for education, these benefits are higher in the military, reflecting the greater risks and responsibilities of military service; (10) entry-level military service is potentially the first step in a 20-to-30 year career, whereas AmeriCorps is a service period during which some funds for college are earned; (11) most new military recruits are legally obligated to serve at least 4 years, while AmeriCorps' service is voluntary for a 1-year term; (12) military personnel also receive benefits not available to AmeriCorps participants, including enlistment bonuses, leave accrual, and qualifying service toward retirement pay; (13) CNS generally reports program results as the amount of service performed by AmeriCorps participants; (14) CNS data does not measure AmeriCorps programs' progress toward the strategic goals of strengthening communities and improving participants' lives, as required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993; and (15) a CNS evaluation identified a number of results-oriented program accomplishments, but CNS has not yet used this information to set useful performance measures in its strategic planning documents.

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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