GAO-07-372R Officer Data 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

March 8, 2007 

The Honorable Robert M. Gates 

The Secretary of Defense 

Subject: Military Personnel: DMDC Data on Officers’ Commissioning Programs is 

Insufficiently Reliable and Needs to be Corrected 

Dear Secretary Gates: 

The Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) is a key Department of Defense (DOD) 

support organization that, among other things, generates reports for defense 

organizations such as the military services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

and the Joint Staff. External organizations such as GAO and federally funded 

research and development centers also rely on DMDC for quantitative data and 

analyses pertaining to a wide variety of issues, including the numbers of DOD 

personnel in specified occupations or demographic groups, servicemembers’ 

attitudes, and compensation.1

 

DMDC reports to DOD’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness. In describing its databases, DMDC states that it maintains the largest 

archive of personnel, manpower, training, and financial data in DOD. It also notes 

that the personnel data are broad in scope and extend back to the early 1970s 

covering all services, all components of the total force (active duty, guard, reserve, 

and civilian), and all phases of the personnel life cycle (accession, separation, and 

retirement). DMDC data serve as the basis for DOD’s annual Population 

Representation in the Military Forces which, among other things, provides 

information on the numbers of officers who were accessed into the military from 

each service’s various commissioning programs: military academies, Reserve 

Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), Officer Candidate Schools (OCS: for the Army, 

Navy, and Air Force) and Officer Training School (OTS: for the Air Force).

On January 19, 2007, we issued a report on officer accessions, retention, and foreign 

language training.2

 The purpose of this report is to bring to your attention reliability 

 

1

 For example, see GAO, Military Personnel: Reporting Additional Servicemember Demographics 

Could Enhance Congressional Oversight, GAO-05-952 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 22, 2005) and Military 

Personnel: More DOD Actions Needed to Address Servicemembers’ Personal Financial Management 

Issues, GAO-05-348 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 2005). 2

 GAO, Military Personnel: Strategic Plan Needed to Address Army’s Emerging Officer Accession 

and Retention Challenges, GAO-07-224 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 19, 2007). 
issues with DMDC data that we encountered while preparing our report and to 

provide you with our recommendations to address these issues. 

To prepare this report, we drew upon the work from our January 2007 report. As part 

of that examination, we requested that DMDC provide us with information on officers 

commissioned into the four active duty services—Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air 

Force—during fiscal years 2001, 2003, and 2005. During our data reliability 

assessments, we reviewed documentation on DMDC’s databases and checked the 

data to determine if they were consistent with information that we had obtained from 

some of the commissioning programs and DOD’s annual Population Representation 

in the Military Forces. After we found that some of the information from DMDC did 

not agree with the information that some of the commissioning programs had 

provided during our site visits, we requested information from the services for each 

of their commissioning programs in each of the three fiscal years cited. While we did 

not conduct independent analyses using the services’ databases, our review of 

documentation on these databases as well as a comparison of service-provided 

information to similar information from other sources and for other time periods 

suggest that the service-provided findings were sufficiently reliable for the purposes 

of that report. We then compared the DMDC- and service-provided information to 

quantify the extent to which the databases resulted in different findings concerning 

the numbers of officers commissioned each year from the various commissioning 

programs. We conducted our review from August 2006 through November 2006 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief 

We found the information that DMDC provided to us on the number of officers 

accessed from DOD’s various commissioning programs to be insufficiently reliable 

for use in our January 2007 report. Government auditing standards, which are 

applicable to all federal agencies including DOD, require that data be valid and 

reliable when the data are significant to the auditor’s findings.3

 More specifically, 

federal internal control standards require that data control activities, such as edit 

checks, verification, and reconciliation, be conducted and documented to help 

provide reasonable assurance that agency objectives are being met. We found 

discrepancies when we compared the DMDC-provided information on the number of 

officers accessed from DOD’s commissioning programs (the academies, ROTC, and 

OCS/OTS) to information provided by the services. In the most extreme example of a 

discrepancy, DMDC-provided information indicated that 17 officers were accessed 

from the Marine Corps’ ROTC program in fiscal year 2005, but Marine Corps-supplied 

information indicated that 160 officers were assessed. DMDC also provided us with 

information on the total number of officer accessions in fiscal year 2005, which were 

6 per cent to 39 percent higher than the total numbers the four services provided us. 

Until DMDC corrects these data problems, it will be unable to provide policymakers 

with sufficiently reliable data upon which to base decisions related to officers. 

Therefore, we are recommending that DMDC reconcile its data with the services’ data 

on officer accessions from the various commissioning programs for current and past 

officers and verify the accuracy of findings produced with the corrected data. 

 3

 GAO, Government Auditing Standards: 2003 Revision, GAO-03-673G (Washington, D.C.: June 2003). 

Page 2 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
In responding to a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred with our 

recommendation to reconcile DMDC and service data and did not concur with our 

recommendation to verify the corrected data. DOD stated, among other things, that 

we provided DMDC and the services with apparently different specifications in our 

requests for analyses. While we initially requested information on “all officers” from 

DMDC versus “commissioned officers” from the services, we clarified our 

specifications with DMDC staff before any analyses were begun. DOD also stated that 

DMDC has a longstanding policy to not correct historical data. In our evaluation of 

DOD’s comments, we cite DOD and governmentwide policies that run contrary to 

DMDC’s policy and emphasize the need for valid and reliable data. DOD’s comments 

are provided in enclosure I, and our evaluation of the comments appear at the end of 

this report.

Discrepancies Found in DMDC- and Service-Supplied Information on the 

Officers Accessed from the Various Commissioning Programs

We decided not to use the information DMDC provided to us for our January 2007 

report due to our concerns about the reliability of the data on officers’ commissioning 

programs—a primary focus of our examinations of how officers were accessed into 

the military and how long they remained on active duty.4

Government auditing 

standards require that data be sufficiently valid and reliable when the data are 

significant to the auditor’s findings.

5

More specifically, federal internal control 

standards require that data control activities, such as edit checks, verification, and 

reconciliation, be conducted and documented to help provide reasonable assurance 

that agency objectives are being met. 

During our analyses, we found discrepancies when we compared the DMDC-provided 

information on the number of officers commissioned from each program to the 

numbers provided by some of the commissioning programs. To address these 

discrepancies, each service’s personnel headquarters office subsequently supplied us 

with the numbers of officers commissioned in fiscal year 2005.6

For all four services, 

the DMDC-provided numbers for total accessions were greater than the serviceprovided numbers: by about 28 percent for Army, 6 percent for Navy, 39 percent for 

Marine Corps, and 10 percent for Air Force (see table). While many of the DMDCprovided numbers for specific commissioning programs shared this pattern of being 

higher than the service-provided numbers, some discrepancies were in the opposite 

direction. For example, relative to the DMDC-supplied data, the Marine Corpssupplied information showed about 9 times (17 versus 160) as many officers being 

 4

The flexible, risk-based framework that GAO uses in accessing computer-processed data from 

sources outside of GAO is provided in the following guidance: GAO, Assessing the Reliability of 

Computer-Processed Data, GAO-02-15G (Washington, D.C.: September 2002). 5

 GAO-03-673G. 6

 Although not discussed here, we found similar discrepancies in the DMDC- and service-provided

information for fiscal years 2001 and 2003, the other years that we examined in this report and in GAO07-224. In addition, data from DOD’s Population Representation in the Military Forces showed that 

DMDC’s findings were consistent with previously published DOD-wide data for officers accessed in

fiscal year 2003. We could not make the same comparisons for fiscal year 2005 because DOD had not

published its Population Representation in the Military Forces report for fiscal year 2005 at the time 

that we completed the analyses documented in this report. 

Page 3 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
commissioned through ROTC in fiscal year 2005. In contrast, the Army-supplied 

number for officers commissioned in fiscal year 2005 from its OCS was about 26 

percent larger than DMDC’s number.

Table: Discrepancies in the Numbers of Officers Commissioned from Different Programs for Fiscal Year

2005

a

Commissioning program

Service and organization

supplying information Academy ROTC OCS/OTS 

Direct/other/ 

unknown Total

Army 

DMDC 1,000 3,256 1,069 2,401 7,726

 Army headquarters 954 3,067 1,352 672 6,045

 Difference 46 189 -283 1,729 1,681

Navy 

 DMDC 788 869 477 1,590 3,724

 Navy headquarters 749 825 586 1,346 3,506

 Difference 39 44 -109 244 218

Marine Corps 

 DMDC 209 17 1,383 557 2,166

Marine Corps headquarters 213 160 460 728 1,561 

Difference -4 -143 923 -171 605

Air Force 

DMDC 990 2,582 873 1,037 5,482

Air Force headquarters 918 2,391 790 891 4,990 

Difference 72 191 83 146 492

Source: GAO analysis of data from DMDC and the services. 

a

The four commissioning sources identified in the table were those provided by DMDC. Although other units 

supplying information provided additional subcategories of commissioning source (e.g., ROTC scholarship and 

ROTC non-scholarship), we used the four DMDC categories to facilitate the presentation of the information.

We do not know the causes for the discrepancies with DMDC’s data because DMDC 

officials did not respond to our request for additional information or assistance in 

reconciling the problems found when we were preparing our January 2007 report.

However, our prior work has shown reliability problems with other DMDC data and 

analyses. For example, in September 2006, we found problems with the reliability of 

mobilization data for reserve soldiers and that DMDC’s processes for data analyses 

need improvement.7

When we shared our findings with the services prior to the 

publication of our September 2006 report, service officials suggested that some of the 

data discrepancies may have been introduced by DMDC analysts when they made 

changes as the result of their quality check procedures. Although this may be an 

issue, there could also have been errors in the creation of the files sent to DMDC by 

the services. 

Findings produced from unreliable DMDC data on officer commissioning programs 

can lead to adverse consequences. First, it could impair officials’ ability to make

sound data-driven decisions. Second, the inability to use data from a single DOD-wide 

source—DMDC—results in redundant efforts. In the present instance, the four 

services had to each conduct the same analyses. Third, DOD-wide information on 

personnel occupations and other variables that are coded differently in the servicespecific databases are difficult or impossible to compare. For our January 2007 

 7

 GAO, Military Personnel: DOD and the Services Need to Take Additional Steps to Improve 

Mobilization Data for the Reserve Components, GAO-06-1068 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 20, 2006). 

Page 4 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
report, we were unable to conduct planned analyses on officer occupations because 

the services do not use the DOD-wide occupational codes that DMDC uses to 

facilitate service-to-service comparisons for that type of information.

Recommendations for Executive Action 

We recommend that you direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness to require the Defense Manpower Data Center to take the following two 

actions: 

• reconcile its data with data from the services on accessions from the services’ 

commissioning programs for current and past officers, and 

• verify the accuracy of its corrected database through further analyses such as 

demographic breakouts (such as race, gender, and year accessed) for each 

officer commissioning program. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred with one of 

our recommendations and did not concur with our other recommendation. We 

continue to believe that both of our recommendations have merit and should be

implemented as soon as possible to prevent further distribution and use of DMDC 

reports that are based on data of insufficient reliability as well as provide Congress, 

DOD decision makers, and others with the accurate information needed to take 

informed actions. DOD’s comments are reproduced in enclosure I. 

DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to require DMDC to reconcile its 

data on current and past officers with data from the services on accessions to the 

services’ commissioning programs. The department stated that we provided DMDC 

and the services with apparently different specifications in requests for analyses and 

that reconciliation of the DMDC and service differences may not be a reasonable 

request. We disagree with DOD’s suggestion that we provided DMDC and the services 

with apparently different specifications in our data requests. Although we requested 

information on “all officers” from DMDC versus “commissioned officers” from the 

services in our initial request, we clarified our interest in statistics on commissioned 

officers during subsequent interactions with DMDC before its staff began their 

analyses. We used three methods before DMDC began its analyses to explicitly 

indicate that we were concerned with commissioned officers only. Those three 

methods were (1) telephone discussions with DMDC staff to discuss our overall 

engagement questions about commissioned officers and the types of information that 

we needed, (2) written instructions that specified that we intended to construct 

tables showing findings by commissioning program, and (3) several pages of mockedup tables that showed DMDC staff that we were interested in officer breakouts by 

commissioning source. Since warrant officers do not receive their training through a 

commissioning program, they should not have appeared in the information that 

DMDC provided us. Furthermore, if DOD is indicating that the DMDC information is 

different from those of the services because DMDC included both warrant officers 

and commissioned officers, the DMDC and service findings for the Air Force should 

have been exactly the same since the Air Force does not have warrant officers. 

However, the table presented earlier in this report shows that the DMDC-provided 

Page 5 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
information did not match the Air Force-provided information. DOD’s response also 

noted that our recommendation may not be reasonable because the services may not 

have the individual servicemember records needed for the reconciliation analyses. 

This point is specious. As we noted earlier in this report, DMDC conducted its 

analyses on officers’ records that it obtained from the services. 

DOD did not concur with our recommendation to require DMDC to verify the 

accuracy of the information in its database by conducting additional analyses. The 

department provided two reasons for its nonconcurrence. First, DOD stated that we 

provided conflicting guidance to DMDC and the services when making the data 

request. We disagree, as discussed in the previous paragraph. Second, DOD states 

that “DMDC has a long standing policy to not correct historical data ...” Again, we 

disagree with DOD’s statement, as this policy seems to contradict DOD statements 

that may suggest otherwise. For example, the DOD Performance and Accountability 

Report FY20058

 states, “The DOD is committed to providing clear and reliable data to 

those who use it for managing, decision making, and for oversight of the DOD 

programs. The Department also ensures, to the greatest extent possible, that the data 

are quantifiable and verifiable by putting in place internal management controls and 

by being responsive to the insights provided by the Department’s Office of Inspector 

General, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and others.” DMDC’s policy is 

also counter to governmentwide auditing standards which require, among other 

things, that officials have implemented policies and practices to reasonably ensure 

that valid and reliable data are obtained, maintained, and fairly disclosed in reports. 

These controls help assure management that it is getting valid and reliable 

information about whether programs are operating properly on an ongoing basis.

9

While we believe that it is important to understand why earlier and later analyses on 

the same database could result in different findings, DOD’s rationale for continuing to 

supply erroneous findings to decision makers is inconsistent with governmentwide 

and DOD-wide internal control standards which specify the importance of valid and 

reliable data. When DMDC staff completed our data reliability questionnaire asking 

about the completeness and accuracy of the data, they said “We feel that it is 

accurate and can be used for analysis and decision making.” The inconsistencies that 

we identified in the table in this report suggest otherwise. 

---------- 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees. We 

will make copies available to others upon request. This report will be available at no 

charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

 8

 DOD, DOD Performance and Accountability Report FY2005 (Arlington, Va.: Nov. 15, 2005), p. 59. 9

 GAO-03-673G. 

Page 6 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
If you or your staff have any additional questions about the reliability of officer 

commissioning data, please contact me at (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov. 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be 

found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to the 

report are listed in enclosure II. 

Sincerely, 

Derek B. Stewart 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management 

Page 7 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
Enclosure I: Comments from the Department of Defense 

Page 8 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
Page 9 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
Enclosure II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

Derek B. Stewart (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov

Acknowledgments 

In addition to the contact above, Jack E. Edwards, Assistant Director; Laura G. 

Czohara; Alissa H. Czyz; Barbara A. Gannon; Cynthia L. Grant; Julia C. Matta; Jean L. 

McSween; Bethann E. Ritter; Angela D. Thomas; and Adam J. Yu made key 

contributions to this report. 

(350950) 

Page 10 GAO-07-372R Officer Data 
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