Research for Costs

The Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Manpower, and Personnel asked CNA to analyze ways to transform the size and shape of the enlisted force to better meet the Navy's future requirements at an affordable cost. In this research, we analyze how the Sea Tour Extension Program (STEP) could improve sea/shore balance in the Navy. We discuss who would be eligible and how many sailors would likely extend their sea tours in response to STEP. We also examine how much STEP would improve sea manning, the cost of the program, and how large of a bonus would be effective. We found that a STEP bonus of about $250 per month would eliminate manning differential in the undermanned ratings and improve sea/shore rotation in ratings targeted solely for sea/shore ratio reasons. Such a STEP would have a program cost of about $23 million.

The purpose of this study is to help the Navy identify the costs imposed on the Navy manpower system when military billets are outsourced. In particular, this paper examines how competition will affect the Navy's ability to achieve its objectives with respect to sea-shore rotation and homebasing. It provides, by community, estimates of how different outsourcing options would affect these military manpower decisions. The paper concludes that personnel policy constraints, especially the goal of providing an adequate base of shore billets for rotation, place significant limits on the number of military billets entered into A-76 competitions. Given the magnitude of manpower constraints, the Navy has two policy options: reduce the number of military billets to be competed or loosen the number of constraints. Loosening the constraints would involve: more carefully defining sea/shore ratios, allowing some A-76 competitions with high expected savings to be completed even if exceptions must be made to personnel policy goals, examining overseas shore billets that count as sea duty as good outsourcing candidates, and reexamining some of the IBR exclusions, especially for shore-intensive ratings. DTIC AD-B239314

This paper examines the effectiveness of Voluntary Education (VOLED) Program, which provides off-duty educational opportunities integrating a variety of continuing education programs to Sailors seeking to enhance their professional and personal growth. VOLED comprises three major instructional elements: Tuition Assistance, the Program for Afloat College Education (PACE) and the Academic Skills Learning Centers (ASLCs). The analyses finds that college education through VOLED improves promotion prospects, helps Sailors retake the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to qualify for Navy ratings for which they were not eligible, has a significant positive impact on retention, and that all elements are cost-effective. The report recommends maintaining full support for VOLED and accelerating academic skills investments. It also recommends modifying the ASLC contract to promote greater participation and establishing an academic transcript system. Finally, it recommends encouraging a more supportive command climate and limiting the enrollment of E1s and E2s.

In a previous study, CNA analysts used data from past DoD A-76 competitions to construct a model of savings and projected the potential savings from additional DoD Commercial Activities (CA) competitions. In this paper, we use an alternative approach for estimating savings from future Dod CA competitions. We estimate two separate bidding equations - one for the in-house team bid and another for the minimum contractor bids - along with an equation for baseline cost. Based on these estimated equations, one could then indirectly project future savings in the A-76 inventory as the difference between predicted baseline cost and the predicted winning bid. Using the new approach, we project an annual savings of $6 billion if the entire 1995 DoD CA inventory were competed under A-76 rules.