Defense Transportation
DOD and GSA Personal Property Programs Gao ID: NSIAD-99-139R April 15, 1999Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) personal property programs.
GAO noted that: (1) there are noted differences in the scope and management between the DOD and GSA personal property programs; (2) GSA is responsible for moving between 12,000 and 15,000 government employees a year, whereas DOD handles approximately 775,000 service member moves annually; (3) GSA deals with far fewer household goods carriers (330) compared with DOD (1,300 carriers); (4) each government agency has the option of selecting one or more carriers from a list of approved GSA carriers, while DOD makes an effort to equally distribute service member moves among its approved carriers; and (5) another important difference is that DOD allows a second phase in the process, in which carriers are permitted to change previously offered rates to match those of the carriers offering the lowest rates.