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Military Personnel: Air National Guard Has Taken Steps to Improve the Reliability of Personnel Strength Data, but More Needs to Be Done

GAO-07-1138R Published: Jul 31, 2007. Publicly Released: Jul 31, 2007.
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Highlights

In September 2004, the Air National Guard (ANG) discovered inaccuracies in its personnel strength data for recruits with no prior service assigned to pay groups F (attending Initial Active Duty Training, or IADT) and P (awaiting IADT). Specifically, these data did not reflect an accurate accounting of the number of recruits in pay groups F and P. Those recruits attending IADT work full-time and are paid accordingly (pay group F), while recruits waiting to attend IADT receive pay on a part-time basis at the rate of four drills per month (pay group P). The pay for those attending IADT is much higher than for those waiting to attend IADT, so the effect of miscoding the pay groups on ANG's budget estimates can be considerable. In May 2007, we reported to Congress that although ANG has taken reasonable steps to correct the errors in its personnel strength data, some problems still exist with a key quality assurance tool (the Status Report Card process) and with the reliability of the alternate data being reported while the inaccuracies are addressed. The purpose of this correspondence is to inform Congress of the additional steps we believe that ANG needs to take to ensure the reliability of the personnel strength data being reported for the two pay groups.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs and Logistics) To ensure that ANG has reliable personnel strength data for these pay groups, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs should take steps to ensure that ANG documents the Status Report Card process.
Closed – Not Implemented
DOD concurred with GAO's recommendation to ensure that the Air National Guard documents the Status Report Card Process. The Air National Guard has permanently suspended the Status Report Card process and conducted a review of the methodology and data of the Status Report Card process. The review uncovered processes that could not be validated.
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs and Logistics) To ensure that ANG has reliable personnel strength data for these pay groups, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs should take steps to ensure that ANG establishes needed controls to ensure that data fields are updated before the Status Report Card is generated each month.
Closed – Not Implemented
DOD partially concurred with GAO's recommendation to ensure that the Air National Guard establishes needed controls to ensure that data fields are updated before the Status Report Card is generated each month. This recommendation is closed as not implemented because the Air National Guard has permanently suspended the Status Report Card process.
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs and Logistics) To ensure that ANG has reliable personnel strength data for these pay groups, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs should take steps to ensure that ANG, in conjunction with the owners of the data (e.g., Air Education and Training Command), verifies the reliability of the data used to generate the Status Report Cards and the alternate data being reported.
Closed – Not Implemented
DOD concurred with GAO's recommendation to ensure that the Air National Guard, in conjunction with the owners of the data, verifies the reliability of the data used to generate the Status Report Cards and the alternate data begin reported. The Air National Guard conducted a review of the methodology and data of the Status Report Card process and determined that processes could not be validated.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Budget controllabilityData integrityErroneous paymentsInternal controlsMilitary trainingMonitoringNational GuardPayStatistical dataData errors