Report to Congressional Requesters

United States General Accounting Office

GAO

May 2001 NATIONAL

PERSONNEL

RECORDS CENTER

Plan Needed to Show

How Timeliness Goal

Will be Achieved

GAO-01-599
Page i GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

Letter 1

Appendix Comments from the National Archives and Records

Administration 13

Figures

Figure 1: Central Corridor of Typical Storage Area 4

Figure 2: Row of Records in Typical Storage Area 5

Figure 3: Backlog of Requests at NPRC at End of Fiscal Year 9

Abbreviations

NARA National Archives and Records Administration

NPRC National Personnel Records Center

VBA Veterans Benefits Administration

Contents
Page 1 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

May 31, 2001

The Honorable Tom Harkin

The Honorable Paul Wellstone

The Honorable Tom Daschle

The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV

United States Senate

The Honorable Lane Evans

House of Representatives

The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), part of the National

Archives and Records Administration (NARA), is responsible for

maintaining the official military personnel records of discharged members

of the military services.1 In fiscal year 2000, NPRC answered about 1.4

million inquiries, including over 700,000 written requests for document

copies and information extracted from records.2

 Veterans and their

representatives depend on NPRC for timely and accurate responses to

their requests for records. A survey of requests completed by NPRC during

a 1-month period in 2000 showed that the majority of requests were from

veterans themselves.3

 Veterans frequently need their records for a variety

of reasons, such as obtaining disability compensation, health benefits, GI

bill education benefits, home loan guarantees, and burial in national

cemeteries. However, access to these benefits has been hampered due to

delays in obtaining documentation of their military service from NPRC.

For example, the Veterans Benefits Administration had cited waiting to

obtain information from NPRC as a significant factor affecting its

timeliness in completing veterans’ disability compensation claims and has

established a unit at the NPRC to obtain needed information more quickly.

 1

The NPRC consists of the Military Personnel Records Center and the Civilian Personnel

Records Center. For this report, NPRC refers to the activities of the Military Personnel

Records Center.

2

The NPRC measures timeliness for these written requests. The remaining inquiries

received consisted of referring requests to other agencies, returning requests to requesters

for more information, returning records to military departments, and transferring records

to other agencies.

3

Other requesters included the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal agencies

(15 percent), veterans’ next of kin (9 percent), and state and local governments (6 percent).

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548
Page 2 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

This report responds to your request that we evaluate NPRC’s timeliness

in responding to veterans’ requests for records. The objectives of our

review were to determine (1) how long it takes NPRC to answer veterans’

requests for records and (2) whether actions NPRC is taking will improve

response time. To address these issues, we reviewed timeliness and

workload data provided by NPRC. We discussed timeliness goals, reasons

for any delays, and actions NPRC is taking to improve response time with

NARA and NPRC officials. We also visited NPRC’s records facility in St.

Louis, Missouri, and other public and private sector records management

organizations to observe their records management practices. We

conducted our review between August 2000 and April 2001 in accordance

with generally accepted government auditing standards.

In fiscal year 2000, NPRC took an average of 54 days to respond to written

requests for records, answering about 6 percent of written requests within

10 working days. NPRC’s long-term goal is to answer 95 percent of

requests within 10 working days by fiscal year 2005. NPRC officials

attribute delays primarily to the current backlog of requests waiting to be

processed. They attribute initial growth in the backlog to the loss of 43

employees out of a staff of 273 in fiscal year 1995 and more recent growth

to the disruptions caused by its ongoing effort to reengineer its outmoded,

manual process for responding to record requests.

Actions that NPRC is taking to respond more quickly are unlikely to

significantly improve timeliness soon, and prospects for meeting its fiscal

year 2005 goal are not clear. To improve response time, NPRC is having

staff work overtime in an attempt to control the backlog while it is

implementing its business reengineering project, which includes

reorganizing and relocating staff, introducing new staffing roles and

responsibilities, and providing computer capabilities. However, even with

NPRC’s overtime the backlog grew by about 69,000 cases to 214,000 cases

in the first 6 months of fiscal year 2001. In addition, NPRC officials believe

that as employees continue adjusting to a new processing approach, the

backlog will get worse, growing to over 240,000 cases by December 2001.

It is also unclear whether NPRC’s actions will enable it to meet its longterm goal. NPRC does not yet have a plan that shows how it will achieve

its fiscal year 2005 timeliness goal. This is due, in part, to the lack of data,

such as the level of production NPRC can achieve in the reengineered

environment, that is needed to develop an adequate plan. NPRC is

currently developing such data. Furthermore, NPRC is depending on

certain computer technologies, such as electronic receipt of requests and

Results in Brief
Page 3 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

access to other agency data bases, to significantly improve timeliness.

However, these computer technologies have not yet been implemented.

We are recommending that NPRC develop a plan that shows what is

needed to meet its fiscal year 2005 goal and how its use of overtime and

reengineering will enable it to meet those needs.

NARA provided comments on a draft of this report. NARA agreed with

our recommendation and provided additional information.

NPRC maintains the personnel and medical records of nearly all former

members of the U.S. military service departments who served during the

twentieth century and responds to requests for these records. The records

maintained by NARA are the property of the Department of Defense

(DoD), which reimburses NARA for storing and servicing the records.4

NARA maintains DoD’s records at the Military Personnel Records facility

in St. Louis, Missouri, which opened in 1955 for this purpose. Although the

building experienced a major fire in 1973 that destroyed some records, 5 it

currently contains about 55 million military personnel records and an

additional 39 million auxiliary records such as military pay vouchers. The

records—paper copy—are kept in cardboard boxes stacked on 10 foot

high shelves. They are filed in sections according to branch of service,

time period of service, or date of transfer to NPRC. Within the sections,

records are filed alphabetically, by service number or by registry number

(a sequential numbering system). Each box is marked with the name or

number of the first record in the box to identify its contents. Figure 1

shows the central corridor of a typical storage area, and figure 2 shows a

typical row of records in the storage area.

 4

NARA’s Federal Record Center Program was converted to a fee-for-service program

effective as of fiscal year 2000.

5

The fire destroyed about 80 percent of the records for Army personnel discharged

between November 1, 1912, and January 1, 1960. About 75 percent of the records for Air

Force personnel with surnames from “Hubbard” through “Z” discharged between

September 25, 1947, and January 1, 1964, were also destroyed. Since there were no indices

to the records involved, and millions of records were on loan to the Veterans

Administration at the time of the fire, precisely which records were destroyed is not

known.

Background
Page 4 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

Figure 1: Central Corridor of Typical Storage Area

Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Page 5 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

Figure 2: Row of Records in Typical Storage Area

Source: National Archives and Records Administration

Prior to 1999, NPRC operated in the same fashion as it had since the 1950s,

when its building first opened. Request processing was manual and labor
Page 6 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

intensive. Only recently has the NPRC begun to make computers and other

technology available to its staff that processes requests. Even telephones

were not installed on employees’ desks until February 2000. The prereengineering philosophy was that having telephones on the desks of all

technicians might reduce productivity. As a result of not having telephones

on their desks, technicians generally did not contact requesters to obtain

additional information to assist them in locating the requested military

service record or to clarify an unclear request. In the past, requests that

were unclear and could not be clarified were returned to the requester.

For requests that were clear, staff located the appropriate cardboard box,

pulled the record, processed the request, and later returned the record.

For each request, staff created a reply using forms with preprinted

responses that could be checked off. The forms were handwritten and sent

out with the relevant record copies.

NPRC was organized by branches of service—the Army, Navy and Air

Force—and each branch processed its own records. Technicians were

assigned work based on the level of difficulty of the tasks required to fulfill

the requests. These tasks could range from simply photocopying a form to

formulating complex correspondence. More complex cases were assigned

to higher pay grade employees. However, the division of workload among

branches and pay grades made it difficult to respond to fluctuations in

workload and affected timeliness and customer service, according to

NPRC officials.

In 1997, NPRC began an ongoing business process reengineering project to

improve timeliness among other things.6

 In February 1999, a pilot team

began using the new work processes. When the reengineering project is

fully implemented, NPRC will be organized into five units or cores. As of

March 2001, four of the cores had been implemented. Each core will

process requests pertaining to records of veterans in all military services.

Within the cores, each technician is expected to be able to process

requests of varying levels of difficulty. In addition, NPRC is introducing

computer technology into its processing. NPRC has implemented an

interim computer system with the capability to track requests

electronically, identify duplicate requests, and access prior responses

concerning a record. Ultimately, NPRC expects to implement a more

capable computer system that, among other things, will enable it to

 6

 According to NARA, project goals also included improving quality of responses,

decreasing cost per request and enhancing individual and organizational development.
Page 7 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

receive requests electronically and directly access other agencies’ data

bases in order to fulfill requests. NPRC officials expect these two features

to significantly improve timeliness.

The challenge that NPRC faces in shortening the amount of time it takes to

respond to requests for records is in part a function of its human capital

challenges. Our designation in January 2001 of strategic human capital

management as a governmentwide high-risk area underscored the

connection between human capital challenges and programmatic

challenges and risks.7

 To help agencies manage these challenges, in

September 2000 we published a human capital self-assessment checklist.8

The checklist emphasized the need to pursue a workforce planning

strategy, through which an organization should identify its current and

future human capital needs, including the size and deployment of its

workforce across the organization, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities

needed for the agency to pursue its mission, goals, and business

strategies.9

 Moreover, an agency’s workforce planning strategy should be

linked to strategic and program planning efforts.

In fiscal year 2000, on average, NPRC took 54 days to respond to written

requests for records.10 Although NPRC completed about 6 percent of

record requests within 10 days in fiscal year 2000, its goal is to eventually

complete 95 percent of requests within 10 days by fiscal year 2005. This

goal is identified in NARA’s strategic plan under the Government

Performance and Results Act. NPRC officials attribute delays in

completing requests primarily to the large backlog of requests waiting to

be processed. As of the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2001,

NPRC had a backlog of about 214,000 requests. This would represent

about a 3-month wait from the time NPRC receives the request to the time

that a technician begins to process the request. NPRC officials identify two

events as the cause of the backlog. The first is the loss of 43 employees out

 7

High Risk Series: An Update (GAO-01-263, Jan. 2001).

8

Human Capital: A Self-Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders (GAO/OCG-00-14G, Sept.

2000).

9

Human Capital: Meeting the Governmentwide High-Risk Challenge (GAO-01-357T, Feb.

2001).

10 According to NARA, requests involving burials and medical emergencies are answered

within 24 hours. However, officials told us they do not keep timeliness statistics on

expedited requests.

NPRC Response Time

Lagging
Page 8 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

of a staff of 273 who accepted buyouts—cash incentives to retire or

resign—in fiscal year 1995. According to NARA, the buyout was part of a

governmentwide effort to streamline the federal workforce. The second is

the ongoing implementation of NPRC’s reengineering project. NPRC

officials told us that reengineering slowed down productivity because

employees were participating in training, moving to redesigned work

spaces, and adjusting to the restructuring of the work process.

Data from NPRC showing changes in the backlog appear consistent with

NPRC’s explanation of the causes of the backlog. Specifically, the backlog

initially increased dramatically in fiscal year 1995, the year of the buyout;

dropped to about 61,000 in 1997 as the number of staff rose to pre-buyout

levels; and increased dramatically again during fiscal years 1999 and 2000

when NPRC began implementing the reengineering project.11 Our analysis

of workload and staffing data provided by the NPRC shows that

productivity declined by about 25 percent from the end of fiscal year 1997

to the end of fiscal year 2000. Figure 3 shows the request backlogs from

1993 through 2000.

 11In general, the number of requests received by the NPRC has been in decline since fiscal

year 1995.
Page 9 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

Figure 3: Backlog of Requests at NPRC at End of Fiscal Year

Source: NPRC data.

NPRC’s current efforts are not likely to improve response time soon, and it

is unclear whether NPRC will meet its fiscal year 2005 timeliness goal.

NPRC’s use of overtime has not stopped the growth in the backlog of

requests while reengineering is being implemented. NPRC expects the

backlog to continue to increase as its employees adjust to the new

process. Moreover, in the long term it is not clear that the reengineering

project will result in NPRC meeting its timeliness goals. NPRC does not

have a plan that shows how it will achieve its fiscal year 2005 timeliness

goal, in part because NPRC does not yet have data to show what level of

production it will achieve by operating in the reengineered environment.

In addition, NPRC has not yet implemented its proposed computer system,

which it expects to have a significant impact on timeliness.

NPRC is using overtime in an attempt to contain the growth of the backlog

while it implements its reengineering. However, the number of cases

completed through overtime work has not reduced the backlog. Even

while using overtime, NPRC was unable to complete its incoming

workload in the first 6 months of fiscal year 2001. As a result, the backlog

NPRC’s Efforts

Unlikely to Improve

Response Time in

Short-Term and LongTerm Results Not

Clear

NPRC’s Efforts Unlikely to

Improve Response Time

Soon

145

93

67

108

84

61

39

32

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Requests pending (in thousands)

Fiscal year
Page 10 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

of cases grew by about 69,000 cases to 214,000 cases in the first half of

fiscal year 2001. NPRC projects that it can complete about 26,000 to 28,000

additional cases per year by using overtime given its current overtime

budget. Even if NPRC could keep up with its normal workload during

regular hours and overtime efforts were applied only to reducing the

backlog, we estimate it would take over 7 years to eliminate the backlog.

NPRC officials expect the backlog of requests to increase as it implements

its reengineering. According to NPRC officials, employees are still

adjusting to their expanded roles and the new process. These adjustments

include learning to work in teams, handling requests of varying difficulty

levels and for different service branches, and using computers to receive,

track, and draft responses to requests. The productivity of staff working

under the old system is greater than that of staff working under the

reengineered system. According to NARA, NPRC’s units working in the

new environment completed about 15 cases per staff day. In fiscal year

2000 units still operating under the old process completed about 31 cases

per staff day. However, according to NPRC officials, future productivity

numbers may not be comparable to those achieved under the old process.

This is because NPRC anticipates handling cases completely and correctly

the first time they are received, which could take longer. NPRC officials

estimate that the backlog could exceed 240,000 cases at the end of this

year. This is almost 100,000 cases more than at the end of fiscal year 2000.

Currently, it is not clear whether reengineering will result in NPRC

meeting its goal of answering 95 percent of requests within 10 working

days by fiscal year 2005. NPRC does not have a plan that shows how it will

achieve its fiscal year 2005 timeliness goal. NPRC has not identified

specific timeframes, staff, or production levels needed to meet its longterm goal and how its use of overtime and its reengineering efforts will

enable it to meet the goal. According to NPRC officials, they do not have

such a plan because they do not have enough information to develop such

a plan. For example, the officials said that they do not have data on the

overall NPRC productivity improvements anticipated in the reengineered

environment. NPRC is currently developing this type of data.

While NPRC has begun implementing its reengineering, full

implementation of its proposed computer technologies has not occurred.

NPRC is depending on electronic receipt of requests and the ability to

access other agency data bases to significantly improve timeliness. NPRC

officials believe that these technologies will significantly free up time for

staff to work on more cases. They believe that in some situations requests

It is Not Clear Whether

NPRC Will Meet Its LongTerm Timeliness Goal
Page 11 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

will be filled electronically without human intervention. NPRC officials do

not anticipate beginning to implement receipt of electronic requests until

April 2002, and accessing other agency data bases could begin as late as

fiscal year 2004.

NPRC is attempting to improve its timeliness in responding to requests for

veterans’ records. NPRC is using overtime to control the backlog while it

implements the business reengineering in an effort to revamp its

outmoded manual process. However, NPRC’s use of overtime has not been

able to control its backlog, which is expected to increase significantly.

NPRC’s ability to realize any potential benefits from reengineering is

hampered by the existence of the backlog. Computer technology, which is

expected to significantly improve timeliness, has not been fully

implemented. NPRC does not have a plan that shows what it needs to meet

its long-term timeliness goal and how its actions will enable it to do so.

Without such a plan, NPRC cannot provide assurances that it will meet its

timeliness goal and that its actions will be sufficient to improve timeliness.

We recommend that NARA require NPRC to develop a plan that shows

what is needed to meet its fiscal year 2005 timeliness goal, including

human capital issues such as staffing and production levels and

timeframes, and how its use of overtime and reengineering will enable it to

meet its goal.

We received written comments on a draft of this report from NARA (see

app. I). In its comments, NARA stated that it supported our

recommendation to develop a plan that shows what is needed to meet its

fiscal year 2005 timeliness goal. NARA noted that it expects to complete a

plan that will link reengineering milestones to cycle time improvements by

mid-July of this year.

NARA also indicated that the draft report did not take into account its

customer service and human capital management initiatives. However,

the draft report discussed changes in both the work environment and

quality of customer service as they potentially relate to timeliness – the

central focus of our review. NARA also commented that timeliness was

just one facet of its effort and that its “balanced scorecard” approach

established other goals. We agree that measuring timeliness without

measuring other factors, such as quality of the work, would be

inappropriate. Finally, NARA commented that the draft report tried to

Conclusion

Recommendation for

Executive Action

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation
Page 12 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

compare productivity statistics from before reengineering to the pilot

phase of the reengineering project. We disagree. In fact, we explicitly

acknowledged that future productivity numbers may not be comparable to

those achieved under the old process because of the NPRC’s plan to

handle cases completely and correctly the first time they are received.

This approach may take longer than the previous system, but, to the extent

that it reduces duplicate requests and other rework, it would ultimately

improve timeliness.

NARA also provided technical comments, which we incorporated where

appropriate. NARA stated that the NPRC backlog is not a factor in the

timeliness of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA’s) servicing of

disability compensation claims. However, our previous work on VBA’s

process shows that NPRC is an external source from which VBA often

needs documentation. To expedite obtaining this information, VBA

established its own unit at the NPRC in 1999.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents

earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days after its

issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the

Honorable John Carlin, Archivist of the United States; appropriate

congressional committees; and other interested parties. We will also make

copies available to others on request.

If you have any questions about this report, please call me on (202) 512-

7101 or Irene Chu, Assistant Director, on (202) 512-7102. Other key

contributors were Martin Scire, Bob Sampson, and Patrick di Battista.

Cynthia A. Bascetta

Director, Education, Workforce,

 and Income Security Issues
Appendix: Comments from the National

Archives and Records Administration

Page 13 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center

Appendix: Comments from the National

Archives and Records Administration
Appendix: Comments from the National

Archives and Records Administration

Page 14 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center
Appendix: Comments from the National

Archives and Records Administration

Page 15 GAO-01-599 National Personnel Records Center (207105)

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