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GAO-08-1037R 1 (2008-09-18)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaanjw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: , E ,G A 0 .,! = Accountability * Integrity Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 September 18, 2008 Congressional Committees Subject: Military Personnel: Evaluation Methods Linked to Anticipated Outcomes Needed to Inform Decisions on Army Recruitment Incentives Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has launched several military operations that have dramatically increased the operations tempo of the military services and required the large-scale mobilization of reservists. These factors have particularly affected the active Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, which have shouldered the bulk of the personnel burden associated with ongoing operations in Iraq. A 2007 Congressional Research Service report notes that many observers have expressed concern that these factors might lead to lower recruiting and retention rates, thereby jeopardizing the vitality of today's all-volunteer military.' Additionally, in 2004 the Army began its modular force transformation to restructure itself from a division-based force to a more agile and responsive modular brigade-based force-an undertaking it considers to be the most extensive reorganization of its force since World War II. Both ongoing military operations and transformation have prompted the Army to increase its recruitment efforts. To encourage military service, Congress, through Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006,2 temporarily authorized the Army to provide not more than four new recruitment incentives and directed the Secretary of the Army to submit to Congress a plan for each recruitment incentive it develops under the authority provided. Section 681 states that each plan should include (1) a description of the incentive, including its purpose and the potential recruits to be addressed by the incentive; (2) a description of the provisions of the U.S. Code relevant to the military3 that would need to be waived in order for the Army to provide the incentive and an explanation of why these provisions would need to be waived; (3) a statement of the anticipated outcomes as a result of providing the incentive; and (4) the method to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the incentive. The Army is also required to submit an annual report to Congress on each of the recruitment incentives developed under this authority; this report is to include a description of the incentives and an assessment of their impact on recruitment during the previous fiscal year. The Army began providing recruitment incentives under this authority in June 2006 and is currently using it to pilot three recruitment incentives. Under Section 681, the Army's authority to provide these new recruitment incentives expires on December 31, 2009. The Army may modify, expand, or take steps to make permanent some or all of these recruitment incentives, based on the data it collects during this pilot phase. ' Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, Recruiting and Retention: An Overview of FY2005 and FY2006 Results for Active and Reserve Component Enlisted Personnel (Washington, D.C.: Updated Jan. 26, 2007). 2 Pub. L. No. 109-163 (2006). 3 See titles 10 and 37, U.S. Code. GAO-08-1037R, Army Recruitment Incentives

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