Military Personnel: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues Page: 2 of 80
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SGAO
aAccountabiity Integrity Reliability
Highlights
Highlights of GAO-07-259, a report to
congressional committeesWhy GAO Did This Study
Since September 11, 2001, the
Department of Defense (DOD) has
mobilized more than 500,000
reservists. As reservists demobilize,
concerns exist about difficulties
with their civilian employment.
Public Law 109-163 required GAO
to report on reservists' civilian
employer data and employment
matters. GAO assessed (1) the
status of DOD's efforts to capture
reservists' employer data; (2) DOD,
Labor, Justice, and Office of
Special Counsel processes to track
and address reservists' USERRA
complaints; and (3) the four federal
agencies' efforts to track reservists'
USERRA complaints related to
disabilities incurred while on active
duty. GAO reviewed policies and
procedures for reporting and
tracking complaints; DOD's civilian
employer database for reservists
and reservists' USERRA
complaints; and data reliability and
quality checks.
To improve oversight of reservists'
complaints, Congress should
consider changing the law to
require Labor's annual report to
include DOD complaint data; DOD
should improve its reporting of
employer information; Labor
should make aggregate complaint
data available to DOD; and
agencies should adopt uniform data
elements, and track disability-
related USERRA complaints. In
commenting on a draft of this
report, DOD, Labor, and Office of
Special Counsel generally agreed
with GAO's recommendations.
Justice had no agency comments.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-259.
To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on the link above.
For more information, contact Derek B.
Stewart at (202) 512-5559 or
stewartd @ gao.gov.MILITARY PERSONNEL
Additional Actions Needed to Improve
Oversight of Reserve Employment IssuesWhat GAO Found
DOD has made progress in capturing employment information on reservists,
but challenges remain. The percent of reservists reporting employer
information increased from about 60 percent in August 2005 to about 77
percent as of August 2006. However, only one of seven reserve components
has met DOD's employment reporting goal of 95 percent for the Selected
Reserve-the largest category of reservists. DOD does not have specific time
frames for reserve components to achieve the reporting goals. In addition,
some employment information reported may not be current because the
services have not established a formal mechanism to remind reservists to
update their reported employment information. Finally, DOD's verification
process is not adequate to verify civilian employer data for 24 percent of
reservists that reported employer information.
The four federal agencies responsible for assisting reservists with USERRA
complaints-DOD, the departments of Labor and Justice, and the Office of
Special Counsel-track and address these complaints. Between fiscal years
2004 and 2006, the four agencies addressed approximately 16,000 informal
and formal complaints. However, no one agency has total visibility over all
the complaints, and only a small percentage of complaints are reported to
Congress. For example, DOD has visibility over all complaints in its system,
but its visibility over complaints in Labor's system is limited to those
originally filed with DOD and then later refiled with Labor. The Department
of Labor does not make aggregate complaint data available to DOD.
Furthermore, Labor's annual report to Congress on reservists' complaints for
fiscal years 2004 and 2005 did not include almost 10,000 informal complaints
filed with DOD, or 80 percent of the total informal and formal complaints
addressed by the four agencies during this period. Labor is required to
report formal complaints addressed by the three agencies, but not DOD.
Consequently, Congress does not have the comprehensive information
necessary to allow for complete oversight of reservists' employment and
reemployment problems. Finally, the information GAO obtained on the
approximately 16,000 reservists' complaints filed between fiscal years 2004
and 2006 showed that the nature of those complaints has not been uniformly
categorized to completely reveal trends in the kinds of problems some
returning reservists experience because the agencies use different complaint
categories to characterize the complaints.
Agencies responsible for assisting reservists with USERRA issues can not
systematically record and track disability-related employment complaints
because they do not use consistent and compatible complaint categories or
have a mechanism in place for distinguishing disability-related complaints
from others. Without the ability to track disabled reservists' USERRA
complaints, DOD may be unaware of the effect disabilities incurred while on
active duty have on reservists' employment and what additional assistance
may be needed to help transition this population back into the workforce.,United States Government Accountability Office
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United States. Government Accountability Office. Military Personnel: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues, report, February 8, 2007; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc299303/m1/2/: accessed April 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.