Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the weight allowances for transferred uniformed service members moving household goods, focusing on: (1) the services' methodologies for determining weight allowances; (2) how much the system encourages shipment of unnecessary items; and (3) the cost-effectiveness of alternative systems.
GAO found that: (1) the increases that the Department of Defense (DOD) proposed in its fiscal year 1986 budget request were not based on DOD-wide statistical data showing its members' use of the existing allowances or any other statistics that justified the increases; (2) a revised DOD plan providing for separate dependent and nondependent allowances had similar deficiencies; (3) members without dependents shipped slightly more than half of what their counterparts with dependents shipped; and (4) it could not measure the cost-effectiveness of various moving alternatives because of the services' different data-gathering methods and the uncertainty of how much the services would use the alternatives.
