Defense Management: Actions Needed to Ensure National Guard and Reserve Headquarters are Sized to be Efficient
Abstract
The National Guard has two elements the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard that mostly consist of part-time forces responsible for both federal and state missions. The Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve (Reserves) also largely consist of part-time forces and are responsible for only federal missions. In addition to these part-time forces, both the National Guard and the Reserves use full-time personnel for duties that can include pay processing, personnel actions, preparing and monitoring training schedules, and other tasks that cannot be effectively executed through the use of part-time personnel. These full-time positions which DOD calls full-time support12 in general are more expensive than part-time personnel because they are paid as full-time employees and receive greater compensation and benefits such as retirement, health-care, and education. As table 1 shows, the Army National Guard is authorized approximately 358,000 soldiers, and the Army Reserve approximately 205,000 soldiers, which collectively constitute about 50 percent of the Army s total authorized end strength.13 Likewise, the Air National Guard has approximately 105,000 military personnel, and the Air Force Reserve has approximately 71,000 military personnel, which collectively are about 35 percent of the Air Force s authorized end strength.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA590516
Entities
People
- Jim Cooper
- Mike Coffman
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office