Summary

The Defense Department (DOD) must establish relocation assistance programs to help military members and their families undergo permanent change-of-station moves. A key requirement is the creation of an interactive computer system to help relocate members to military bases in other parts of the country. DOD has yet to develop such a system, and the military services have developed systems that do not interact with one another. The services estimate that they have spent at least $300,000 so far to develop these systems. DOD has issued a $58,000 contract to study program interaction further but has not estimated the cost or the time frame for developing and fielding an interactive system.

GAO found that: (1) in fiscal year 1990, DOD approved a software package developed by the Army as the baseline software package for the services' relocation assistance program; (2) the Army has incorporated the software package, called the Relocation Automated Information System, into an existing Army-wide base-level computerized personnel information system, although those upgrades will not make applications compatible with other services' systems; (3) although the Navy and Marine Corps adopted and used the 27 categories of information identified by the Army, they decided not to use the Army's software package because supporting it would be too costly; (4) as an alternative, the Marine Corps translated the programming logic developed by the Army into a Navy and Marine Corps standard application at an estimated cost of $150,000; (5) the Air Force has not adopted either of the software packages and is waiting until DOD decides on an interactive system for all the services; and (6) in January 1992, DOD issued a $58,000 contract to analyze relocation assistance program automation and explore various ways to comply with the congressional mandates, but DOD has not estimated the cost or time frame for developing and fielding an interactive system.