Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in coordination with the military departments, collect consistent information on the replacement costs of military physicians and dentists and use this information to inform investment decisions in the package of incentives to recruit and retain military physicians and dentists. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness: Defense Health Agency
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in coordination with the military departments, collect consistent information on current and historical retention data, to include data on the percentage of eligible physicians and dentists who accept retention bonuses, and use this information to inform investment decisions in the package of incentives to retain military physicians and dentists. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness: Defense Health Agency
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in coordination with the military departments, collect consistent information on private sector civilian wages and use this information to help inform investment decisions in the package of incentives to recruit and retain military physicians and dentists. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Defense: Office of the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness: Defense Health Agency
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: To facilitate DOD's oversight of the military services' S&I pay programs, and to fully ensure the effectiveness of these programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), in coordination with the military services, to explore cost-effective approaches to collect and report S&I pay program data for the Reserve Components.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation. In its initial response, DOD noted that it will maintain its focus on the recruiting and retention pays for both the active and reserve components, and will continue to work with the Reserve Components to strengthen the collection of the remaining special and incentive pays. As of November 2019, DOD had not taken action on this recommendation.

Recommendation: To facilitate DOD's oversight of the military services' S&I pay programs, and to fully ensure the effectiveness of these programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the military services, to review whether S&I pay programs have incorporated key principles of effective human capital management and used resources efficiently, and prioritize and complete the establishment of measures for the efficient use of resources.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD partially concurred with this recommendation. In DOD's initial response, it stated that DOD does use key principles of effective human capital management, and although not articulated as GAO's principles, DOD's and GAO's principles share common goals and results. In addition, DOD stated that it will support the opportunity to review and improve upon the principles and methods to assess the efficiency of its S&I pay programs, and, where appropriate, will incorporate these principles in future DOD policy issuances and updates. In May 2018, DOD stated that it believed it was in compliance with this recommendation and that the action was complete. DOD stated that this assessment was based on our finding that most of the Department's S&I pay programs either met or partially met the key principles of effective human capital management. But our finding was on select pay programs. Further, DOD's response did not document what actions the Department has taken to ensure all programs fully meet the key principles. As of November 2019 DOD had not taken action on this recommendation. We continue to believe that fully implementing the key principles of effective human capital management that we identified would help DOD and the services to ensure that S&I pay programs are effectively designed and that resources are optimized for the greatest return on investment.

Recommendation: To facilitate DOD's oversight of the military services' S&I pay programs, and to fully ensure the effectiveness of these programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the military services, to routinely assess the impact of non-monetary incentive approaches on retention behavior and on the necessary levels of S&I pays.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation. As of August 2017, DOD had submitted a proposal to conduct a study focused on aviation officers that will examine the military services' methodologies used to accomplish their retention goals to determine the primary reasons aviation officers remain or leave the service and the degree to which these reasons affect their retention decisions. According to DOD officials, a portion of the study will consider the interaction between monetary and non-monetary incentives such as duty assignments, flying opportunities, reduced administrative burdens, and quality of life. In May 2018, DOD stated that the Military Departments continue to utilize non-monetary incentives as their first approach to access and retain quality servicemembers. DOD added that these incentives consist of choice of career path, duty assignment, selective military training, educational benefits, as well as the career intermission program. DOD noted that the Army's Career Satisfaction Program is just one example of using non-monetary pay incentives to improve retention. According to DOD, this program increases the retention of Army officers at no additional cost to the Army by offering academy cadets and senior ROTC cadets the choice of occupational specialty and assignment location upon commissioning in exchange for extending their active duty service obligation for an additional 3 years. DOD also stated that the Navy currently uses both monetary and non-monetary incentives to retain its surface warfare officer (SWO) community to ensure it retains adequate numbers of officers to fill critical SWO Department Head positions in the rank of Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander. The Department concluded that it believes the recommendation is closed, as it has offered and continues to offer non-monetary incentives as part of its S&l pay program, and continues to encourage the use of non-monetary incentives as an alternative to cash incentives. While the programs DOD mentioned in its response demonstrate progress toward fully implementing our recommendation, we believe that this recommendation should remain open until more progress is made. As of November 2019, DOD had not taken additional actions on this recommendation.

Recommendation: To facilitate DOD's oversight of the military services' S&I pay programs, and to fully ensure the effectiveness of these programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretaries of the Military Departments to develop approaches to directly target Selective Reenlistment Bonuses to cybersecurity skill sets.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD partially concurred with this recommendation. In DOD's initial response, it stated that the services are responsible for developing their personnel requirements in order to meet individual service needs and that it has provided the services with the necessary staffing tools to recruit and retain servicemembers in the cybersecurity skill sets. DOD also noted that it is crucial for the services to retain their flexibility to utilize these pays and benefits to address service-specific shortfalls within their cybersecurity workforce and noted that it will assist the services in growing and maintaining their cybersecurity workforce through existing and future DOD policies. In August 2018, DOD reiterated that the services have responsibility for developing their manpower requirements and employing the necessary manpower tools, such as bonuses and incentives, to achieve their goals, including those for the cybersecurity workforce. DOD added that the current suite of special and incentive pays already provides the services the necessary authorities and flexibilities to access and retain servicemembers in their cybersecurity communities. DOD concluded that it believed their actions to address this recommendation were complete. We recognize that the services are responsible for their specific personnel requirements and that flexibility is important. However, as noted in our report, each military service has assigned cybersecurity personnel to military occupational specialties that include other types of personnel skill sets, such as intelligence or information technology. As a result, because the services offer SRBs by military occupational specialty, the services may award SRBs to specialties that include non-cybersecurity personnel for whom the SRB is unneeded. Therefore, we continue to believe that there are benefits to developing approaches to target cybersecurity personnel in non-designated cybersecurity fields and that this recommendation should remain open. As of November 2019, DOD had not taken additional actions on this recommendation.

Recommendation: To improve the availability of information needed for effective and efficient management of the PCS program, including program costs and time-on-station requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), in coordination with the military services, to improve the completeness and consistency of PCS data in service budget materials. This action should include revising existing guidance on the reporting of non-temporary storage costs, and clarifying existing guidance on the presentation of other PCS data.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation. DOD formed a working group to address issues concerning the PCS program, including the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Military Personnel Policy) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), and the Director, Military Personnel and Construction within the Office of the Deputy Comptroller (Program/Budget). As of September 2018 the working group has met multiple times, with its initial focus primarily on adjudication of major legislation associated with housing flexibility during PCS. In addition, the working group reported to Congress in June 2017 on military family stability and PCS, and sponsored a family stability review by RAND. However, as of September 2018 DOD stated that the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) was continuing to coordinate with the military services to synchronize and clarify budgetary reporting requirements. As such, we believe that this recommendation remains open.

Recommendation: To improve the availability of information needed for effective and efficient management of the PCS program, including program costs and time-on-station requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the military services, to complete periodic evaluations of whether the PCS program is efficiently supporting DOD's requirements for assigning military personnel to new locations while reimbursing servicemembers for allowable expenses incurred during PCS moves. These periodic evaluations should identify changes in PCS per-move costs over time, factors driving such changes, and steps that could be taken to manage and control cost growth.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD partially concurred with this recommendation. DOD formed a working group to address issues concerning the PCS program, including the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Military Personnel Policy) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), and the Director, Military Personnel and Construction within the Office of the Deputy Comptroller (Program/Budget). As of September 2018 the working group has met multiple times, with its initial focus primarily on adjudication of major legislation associated with housing flexibility during PCS. In addition, the working group reported to Congress in June 2017 on military family stability and PCS, and sponsored a family stability review by RAND. The working group has also reviewed PCS initiatives completed by the military services, and the timeliness of PCS orders. As of September 2018, a combatant commander review of overseas tour lengths and an initiative led by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) to review PCS data and costs are ongoing. DOD expects these initiatives, as well as additional efforts to collect and analyze PCS data, will continue into fiscal year 2019. While the initiatives DOD mentioned in its response demonstrate progress toward fully implementing our recommendation, we believe that this recommendation should remain open until more progress is made.

Recommendation: To improve the availability of information needed for effective and efficient management of the PCS program, including program costs and time-on-station requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the military services, to improve the completeness and consistency of data on exceptions used for PCS moves that occur prior to established time-on-station lengths. This action should include clarifying existing guidance with regard to how the services collect, maintain, and report data on exceptions for use in evaluating performance in meeting time-on-station requirements and addressing challenges related to the services' abilities to collect, maintain, and report exceptions data.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation. DOD formed a working group to address issues concerning the PCS program, including the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Military Personnel Policy) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), and the Director, Military Personnel and Construction within the Office of the Deputy Comptroller (Program/Budget). As of September 2018 the working group has met multiple times, with its initial focus primarily on adjudication of major legislation associated with housing flexibility during PCS. In addition, the working group reported to Congress in June 2017 on military family stability and PCS, and sponsored a family stability review by RAND. The working group has also reviewed PCS initiatives completed by the military services, and the timeliness of PCS orders. As of September 2018, a combatant commander review of overseas tour lengths and an initiative led by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) to review PCS data and costs are ongoing. DOD expects these initiatives, as well as additional efforts to collect and analyze PCS data, will continue into fiscal year 2019. While the initiatives DOD mentioned in its response demonstrate progress toward fully implementing our recommendation, we believe that this recommendation should remain open until more progress is made.

Recommendation: To improve the availability of information needed for effective and efficient management of the PCS program, including program costs and time-on-station requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in coordination with the military services, to improve the completeness and consistency of data on waivers used for PCS moves that occur prior to established time-on-station lengths. This action should include establishing guidance for the military services to collect, maintain, and report data on waivers for use in evaluating performance in meeting time-on-station requirements and addressing challenges related to the services' abilities to collect, maintain, and report waiver data.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with this recommendation. DOD formed a working group to address issues concerning the PCS program, including the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Military Personnel Policy) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), and the Director, Military Personnel and Construction within the Office of the Deputy Comptroller (Program/Budget). As of September 2018 the working group has met multiple times, with its initial focus primarily on adjudication of major legislation associated with housing flexibility during PCS. In addition, the working group reported to Congress in June 2017 on military family stability and PCS, and sponsored a family stability review by RAND. The working group has also reviewed PCS initiatives completed by the military services, and the timeliness of PCS orders. As of September 2018, a combatant commander review of overseas tour lengths and an initiative led by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) to review PCS data and costs are ongoing. DOD expects these initiatives, as well as additional efforts to collect and analyze PCS data, will continue into fiscal year 2019. While the initiatives DOD mentioned in its response demonstrate progress toward fully implementing our recommendation, we believe that this recommendation should remain open until more progress is made.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to coordinate with the services on conducting research, as appropriate, to determine optimal bonus amounts.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In a July 2012 report, the USD (P&R) stated that it continued to believe that a study to determine optimal bonus amounts would be beneficial. As of September 2015, DOD was working with the RAND Corporation to develop a model to analyze the impact of adjusting bonuses and special pays for certain personnel communities. According to officials at USD (P&R) the goal of this effort was to provide the services with a tool that can be used to set bonuses and special pays more efficiently. The officials added that models have been developed for officers in the aviation community, and are currently being developed for officers in the healthcare and special operations communities. OSD officials reported in February 2017 that the study by RAND covering all bonuses and special pays had still not been issued. RAND did issue a study, but it covered only mental health care officers. As of November 2019, DOD has not taken any further action on this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, as the consolidation of the special and incentive pay programs is completed over the next 7 years and the instructions directing the services on how to administer the new programs are revised, to monitor the implementation of this consolidation to determine whether it is in fact resulting in greater flexibility and more precise targeting of resources and what impact the consolidation is having on DOD's budget.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In a July 2012 report, the USD (P&R) stated that it was continuing to consolidate special and incentive pay authorities. However, because this consolidation was not yet complete, it has not yet determined whether this consolidation has resulted in greater flexibility, as GAO recommended. In June 2013, OSD reported that OSD was about halfway through with its effort to consolidate special pay authorities, and in September 2015 USD (P&R) officials stated that this effort is continuing. The officials added that, while the Department is tracking the impact of the consolidation on the cost of special and incentive pays, it had not assessed whether the consolidation had resulted in greater flexibility. OSD officials reported that in November 2019 it had still not completed a study of whether the consolidation had resulted in greater flexibility.