The guidance directs the use of military personnel for any one or more of the following reasons:
Required training is only available in the military. These activities established staffing requirements at the time their missions were tasked to include determining which positions were military essential. Since the establishment of officer positions can be subjective and judgmental and the services generally prefer using military rather than civilian staffing, once the positions are established, neither the services nor local commanders have much incentive to revalidate the positions and these positions often remain categorized as military essential because they already are military. We used criteria based on DOD and service implementing guidance to evaluate such positions as research and development officer and systems automation officer in the Army, comptroller and oceanographer in the Navy, and acquisition management officer and civil engineer in the Air Force. DOD Could Save About $95 Million Annually by Converting About 9,500 Positions

If DOD converted all of the positions that we identified and maintained the existing grade structure, DOD could achieve annual cost savings of about $95 million in the converted positions. Also, the Army has a number of streamlining initiatives underway intended to save as much as $8 billion. However, final cost savings and the elapsed time before the full savings are realized will depend on the number of positions converted and the way conversions are carried out. Impediments Limit the Services’ Ability to Convert Positions to Civilian Status

Finally, as we reported in our 1994 report on military to civilian conversions, a number of impediments exist to military to civilian conversions. Second, local commanders may have little guarantee that funding will be provided for converted positions. These impediments are not insurmountable, but will be difficult to overcome without direction and support from DOD’s senior leadership, such as from OSD, and sustained attention to carrying out conversions by senior-level staff to overcome the impediments and develop and execute the conversion plan. Second, DOD stated that conversions run contrary to the ongoing civilian drawdown. However, conversion of support positions from military to civilian status would not affect military capability, but merely lower the cost of getting support work done, freeing up funds that could be used to enhance modernization.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed certain military support officer positions as possible candidates for conversion to civilian status, focusing on the: (1) criteria the military services use to determine which officer positions are military essential; (2) officer positions that could be filled with civilians without harming operational capabilities; and (3) cost savings achieved through the conversion of military positions to civilian status.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) since 1954, Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 1100.4 has required the services to staff positions with civilian personnel unless the services deem a position military essential for one or more reasons, including combat readiness, legal requirements, training, security, rotation, and discipline; (2) however, the DOD directive and service implementing guidance provide local commanders with wide latitude in justifying the use of military personnel in their staffing requests; (3) the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force are currently staffing officers in about 9,500 administrative and support positions that civilians may be able to fill at lower cost and with greater productivity due to the civilians' much less frequent rotations; (4) examples of career fields that contain positions that might be converted are information and financial management; (5) DOD could save as much as $95 million annually by converting the roughly 9,500 positions GAO identified; (6) savings achieved through military to civilian conversions can be used to pay for needed priorities such as weapon systems modernization; (7) final cost savings and the elapsed time before all of the savings were realized would depend on how many positions DOD converted and how the conversions were carried out; (8) on the other hand, GAO recognizes that a number of impediments exist to military to civilian conversions, such as the ongoing civilian drawdown in DOD and a perceived preference by local commanders for military rather than civilian personnel in certain positions; and (9) these impediments are not insurmountable, but they will be difficult to overcome without direction and support from senior leaders at DOD, such as from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and sustained attention to overcoming the impediments and developing and executing the conversion plan.