Defense Transportation: Monitoring Costs and Benefits Needed While Implementing a New Program for Moving Household Goods
Abstract
The Department of Defense (DOD) spends more than $1.7 billion each year to move and store over 600,000 household goods shipments when relocating military personnel. It conducted and evaluated several pilot program studies aimed at fixing its problem-plagued program and, in 2002, issued a report to Congress with three recommendations. The 1997 Defense Appropriations Act Conference Report directed GAO to validate the results achieved by the pilot programs. In response, GAO examined the extent to which DOD's recommendations to Congress (1) offer solutions to long-standing problems in the current program and (2) are supported by the evaluations findings and should be implemented. GAO also assessed the soundness of methodologies used by DOD to develop cost estimates to implement the recommendations. GAO recommends that DOD implement the recommendations within budget constraints, quantify the risk associated with achieving its cost estimates, monitor costs during the implementation phase, and assess the new program to determine if anticipated improvements were achieved at a reasonable cost. DOD agreed with three recommendations, but did not agree with the need to quantify the risk associated with achieving its cost estimates.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- AD1177862
Entities
People
- ;charles W. Perdue
- Arthur L. Jr James
- Jacqueline S. Mccoll
- Lawson Jr Gist
- Nancy L. Benco
- Robert L. Self
- William M. Solis
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office