	Background

According to federal laws and Department of Defense (DOD) policy, servicemembers are entitled to permanent change-of-station (PCS) benefits—paid moving expenses—when assigned to a location for longer than 20 weeks. PCS Entitlements Are Provided by Law, and Few Opportunities Exist to Reduce Costs

The military services have limited control over the costs of relocating servicemembers because most relocation entitlements are provided in U.S. laws and DOD policies. Services Have Taken Steps to Reduce PCS Costs

The services acknowledge that limiting the frequency of PCS moves would reduce costs and improve the quality of life for servicemembers. Consequently, the services are reviewing and revising their PCS policies and practices. In some instances, changes have been made. The goal is to reduce the number of positions with maximum tour lengths. Only one of the alternatives studied reduced the number of PCS moves and saved costs. In commenting on a draft of this report, service officials agreed that some contracting is possible. Number of PCS Moves Declined With the Size of the Force, but Variations Exist by Category and Military Service

For fiscal years 1987 through 1995, total PCS moves declined with the size of the force and changes in U.S. overseas presence. Figure 1 shows that service end strengths declined from 2.2 million in fiscal year 1987 to 1.5 million in fiscal year 1995, while the number of PCS moves declined from 1,145,442 to 846,570. We stated that policies for relocating personnel returning from Europe and general downsizing created personnel imbalances at some U.S. military installations that needed to be corrected. When the cost data were adjusted for inflation, however, total costs decreased slightly and the cost per move still increased. Personnel officers in the other services noted that their services also experienced an increase in the number of servicemembers moving with dependents, but to a lesser degree than the Navy. PCS Moves Have Limited Impact on Unit Readiness

While personnel changes within a military unit (including PCS reassignments) influence that unit’s readiness, PCS moves are not a major contributor to readiness problems. A major cause of personnel turbulence in recent years has been deployments for operations other than war.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the services' practices for relocating personnel, focusing on whether: (1) opportunities exist to reduce the costs of permanent change-of-station (PCS) moves; (2) the number of moves and related costs have decreased in proportion to the reductions in military end stregnths; and (3) frequent reassignments significantly impair military readiness.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) few opportunities exist to reduce PCS costs because federal laws entitle servicemembers to certain relocation benefits; (2) overseas commitments and other laws also require the services to move a large number of servicemembers each year; (3) despite these constraints, the services are taking steps to reduce the number of PCS moves and thereby reduce annual costs; (4) each service has already made at least one major assessment of its PCS policies and practicies and has changed some of them to create efficiencies; (5) to further reduce costs, the services are encouraging consecutive assignments in certain geographic locations and increasing tour lengths where possible; (6) according to an Octover 1995 Department of Defense (DOD) task force report, DOD could futher decrease its overseas military requirements and costs by hiring overseas contractors; (7) the number of relocations, but not their costs, decreased in proportion to the large reductions in military end strengths from fiscal year 1987 (the beginning of military downsizing) through fiscal year 1995; (8) some variation exists among categories of PCS moves and the military services, for example, PCS moves within the Unites States increased slightly in recent years because of turbulence caused by military downsizing and personnel returning from Europe; (9) the main reasons PCS costs did not decrease were inflation, changes in some entitlements, and an increase in the number of servicemembers with dependents; and (10) according to service officials, the frequency of PCS moves is only a minor contributor to readiness problems in military units and other factors, especially the increase in deployments for operations other than war, have a greater impact on readiness.