Consolidating DoD Housing and Allowance Data Collection

Abstract : Data on Service member's housing costs are collected for four primary purposes: to determine the eligibility for basic allowance for quarters payments; to determine the eligibility for, and amount of, variable housing allowances or overseas housing allowance payments; to determine housing deficits at military installations; and to calculate the appropriate variable housing allowance ceilings for an installation. We identified 14 different data collection forms now being used by DoD and the Military Services. The information on those forms is required for the four major purposes and clearly overlaps. It is collected from Service members several times; in fact, the military spends more than 2 million manhours annually on filling out and processing forms - just for housing and allowances. We found that much of the data collected are redundant, some are unnecessary, and some are readily available from other sources collecting the same data using different methods and agents can result in inconsistent and erroneous analyses. The Finance Office should be the primary sponsor of the form and the data. DoD could realize additional savings by integrating the data collection process into a single automated system.