Sustaining Service Members and Their Families: Exploring Opportunities for Efficiency and Joint Provision of Services Using Nonappropriated Funds

Abstract : The Department of Defense (DoD) routinely seeks ways to become more efficient and reduce costs. Each military service provides its members and their families with a wide range of services supported by resources that are paid for using nonappropriated funding (NAF), congressionally appropriated funding, or a combination thereof. DoD was interested in determining whether any administrative NAF activities on the employee side could be consolidatedand, if so, whether consolidation would save costs. DoD created a task force to explore these issues and identified 15 areas for improvement, ranging from contracting to information technology. DoD Military Community and Family Policy asked the RAND National Defense Research Institute to review the work of the task force and provide an independent assessment of specific recommendations. In collaboration with the sponsor, RAND provided intensive analysis of recommendations in two areas for improvement that the task force identified. This report contains the results of that analysis, looking at the areas of NAF accounting and NAF employee benefits in terms of best practices in organizational change management, financial costs, and the savings that might be realized from proposed changes. This research was sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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