Civilian Personnel: Additional Guidance and Consistent Data Reporting Could Help Improve the Marine Corps' Budget Management
Abstract
The Marine Corps requested $1.81 billion to pay for approximately 16,000 civilian employees in its fiscal year 2020 budget request. The Office of Management and Budget directs federal agencies to develop civilian personnel budgets by calculating workload requirements, the time needed to complete the work, and the number of FTEs needed. The Marine Corps uses a unique budget formulation process that relies on prior fiscal year budget data to calculate FTE estimates for future civilian personnel budget requests. Senate Report 115-290, accompanying a bill for the DOD Appropriations Act, 2019, included a provision for GAO to review how the Marine Corps develops its civilian labor requirements for both FTEs and funding and examine the benefits and shortfalls of the Manage to Payroll process. This report (1) describes how the Marine Corps formulates its civilian personnel budget request and (2) assesses the Marine Corps management of its civilian personnel budget and FTEs, including the benefits and weaknesses of the process. GAO reviewed DOD civilian personnel budget policies, analyzed fiscal years 2013 through 2018 Marine Corps budget data that tracks spending and FTE allotment, and compared 2013 through 2018 budget execution data to budget request data.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1166750
Entities
People
- Aaron Safer-lichtenstein
- Brenda S. Farrell
- Brian Pegram
- Carter Stevens
- Clarice Ransom
- Gregory Wong
- John Van Schaik
- Michael Silver
- Shari Nikoo
- Timothy Carr
- Vincent Balloon
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office