MILITARY CHILD 

CARE

DOD Is Taking 

Actions to Address 

Awareness and 

Availability Barriers

Report to Congressional Committees

February 2012

GAO-12-21

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-12-21, a report to 

congressional committees 

February 2012 

MILITARY CHILD CARE

DOD Is Taking Actions to Address Awareness and 

Availability Barriers 

Why GAO Did This Study

About a million military 

servicemembers serve the United 

States while raising a family, and many

need reliable, affordable child care. 

Paying for high-quality child care can 

be challenging for these families, so 

the Department of Defense (DOD) 

offsets costs by subsidizing oninstallation child care centers and 

offering subsidies for approved offinstallation care providers. 

Deployments related to the wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan increased the demand 

for child care. The extent of military 

families’ out-of-pocket child care costs 

for those using subsidized care are not 

known, and families may face barriers 

to obtaining DOD-subsidized care. 

GAO was mandated to examine: 

(1) the out-of-pocket child care costs 

paid by military families who use DODsubsidized care; and (2) the barriers, if 

any, to obtaining DOD-subsidized care, 

and what has DOD done in response.

To address these objectives, GAO 

reviewed DOD policies and guidance; 

interviewed officials from DOD, its 

contractor that administers DOD’s offinstallation child care subsidies, and 

organizations that support military 

families; reviewed DOD fee data for 

school year 2009-2010 (school year 

2010) and school year 2010-2011 

(school year 2011); and analyzed child 

care costs for a random probability 

sample of 338 families using offinstallation care in school year 2010. 

GAO conducted nongeneralizable 

discussion groups with military parents 

at two large military installations. 

GAO is not making recommendations 

in this report.DOD generally agreed 

with the report’s findings and also 

provided additional information on

several specific points in the report.

What GAO Found

Out-of-pocket costs for military families who use DOD-subsidized child care are 

largely driven by policies that vary by service. DOD establishes income-based 

fee ranges for on-installation child care, but each service sets its own fees and 

discounts within these parameters. As a result, in school year 2010 the per-child 

costs that families from the same income categories paid for on-installation care 

varied by service and installation. For example, the monthly per-child cost for a 

family with an income of $50,000 could have ranged from $335 to $518. Families’ 

costs for off-installation child care through private providers are also affected by 

policy differences among the services. All services offer subsidies for offinstallation care that are intended to make families’ costs comparable to those for 

on-installation care. In an effort to offer benefits to more families, some services 

use a fixed cap to limit the subsidy amount. In school year 2010, the Air Force 

and Navy capped their subsidies at $200 per child per month, and families in 

these services had higher average monthly costs for off-installation care than 

Army and Marine Corps families, and also had higher costs than what they would 

have paid for on-installation care. For example, on average, Navy families using 

off-installation care paid $87 more per month than they would have paid for oninstallation care, while Army families paid $63 less. Other factors, such as the 

number of children in care, also contributed to families’ costs for off-installation 

care. DOD and the services’ recent policy changes reduced differences among 

and within services in families’ costs for on-installation care, and DOD plans to 

further reduce these differences in the next 3 to 5 years. While the effects of 

these policy changes on individual families’ costs for off-installation care vary by 

family, families in services with fixed subsidy caps will likely continue to have 

higher average costs than families in services that do not. 

Military families face two main barriers to obtaining DOD-subsidized child care: 

lack of awareness and insufficient availability. According to DOD officials and 

based on GAO’s group discussions, some families remain unaware of subsidized 

child care, particularly off-installation care, despite DOD’s efforts to provide 

information at pre-deployment briefings, and through other outreach efforts. 

Families who are geographically isolated from an installation, such as reservists 

and recruiters, may be less likely to be aware of subsidized care. The individual 

services have taken steps to increase awareness of DOD-subsidized child care, 

such as establishing positions for professionals who educate families about child 

care options. However, even families who are informed about DOD-subsidized 

child care may face barriers obtaining it due to a lack of available space at oninstallation centers and a scarcity of eligible child care providers off installation. 

The shortage of on-installation child care spaces resulted, in part, from heavy 

deployment demands, and DOD has responded by approving construction 

projects that it anticipates will provide over 21,000 new child care spaces using 

fiscal year 2008 through 2010 funding. DOD and the services have initiatives 

under way to increase the availability of eligible off-installation providers. In 

addition, DOD is developing an agencywide system that will provide 

servicemembers a central place to request both on-installation and off-installation

child care. DOD plans to pilot the system in the spring of 2012 and intends to 

market it DOD-wide to servicemembers once it is fully implemented. The agency 

is in the process of contracting for the development of a marketing plan. 

View GAO-12-21 or key components.

For more information, contact Kay E. Brown at 

(202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Letter 1 

Background 4

Military Families’ Child Care Costs Are Largely Driven by Policies, 

Including Subsidy Caps, Which Vary by Service 8

Limited Awareness of DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs and 

Availability of Care Pose Barriers for Military Families 17

Concluding Observations 27

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 29

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 32

Appendix II On-Installation Fee Ranges in School Year 2011 38

Appendix III Supplemental Data from Sample of Families Using DOD-Subsidized 

Off-Installation Care 40

Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Defense 42

Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 44

Tables

Table 1: Primary DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs 5

Table 2: Average Monthly Costs per Family for Off-Installation Care 

in School Year 2010, by Service 12

Table 3: Subsidy Caps and Minimum Subsidies for Off-Installation 

Care in School Year 2010, by Service 14

Table 4: OSD Income Categories and Fee Ranges for OnInstallation Care in School Year 2011 15

Table 5: Changes to Services’ Subsidy Policies for Off-Installation 

Care in School Year 2011 17

Table 6: Number of Families and Children in Sample, by Service 

and Component 40

Contents
Page ii GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Table 7: Average, 10th Percentile, and 90th Percentile Annual Total 

Family Incomes of Families Using Off-Installation Care in 

Fiscal Year 2010, by Service 40

Table 8: Percent of Families Using Off-Installation Care with a 

Servicemember Who Was Deployed in Fiscal Year 2010, by 

Service 41

Table 9: Average Monthly Costs per Child for Off-Installation Care 

in School Year 2010, by Service 41

Table 10: Percent of Air Force and Navy Families Using OffInstallation Care Affected by Subsidy Cap in School Year 

2010 41

Figures 

Figure 1: OSD Allowable Monthly Fee Ranges and Ranges in the 

Actual Fees Charged by Services for On-Installation Care 

in School Year 2010, by Income Category 9

Figure 2: Common Sources of DOD Child Care Information 18

Figure 3: Determining Eligibility for DOD-Subsidized OffInstallation Child Care 26

Figure 4: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Allowable 

Monthly Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual Fees 

Charged by Services for On-Installation Care in School 

Year 2011, by Income Category 38

Abbreviations 

CDC Child Development Center 

DOD Department of Defense 

NACCRRA National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral 

Agencies 

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense 

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Page 1 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

February 3, 2012

The Honorable Carl Levin

Chairman

The Honorable John McCain

Ranking Member

Committee on Armed Services

United States Senate

The Honorable Howard P. “Buck” McKeon

Chairman

The Honorable Adam Smith

Ranking Member

Committee on Armed Services

House of Representatives

About a million members of the United States’ armed services1

 

1

In this report “armed services” refers to the Departments of the Army, Navy, Air Force, 

and Marine Corps. For the remainder of the report we refer to the armed services as 

“services.” 

are 

balancing the demands of serving our country and raising a family, and 

many need reliable, affordable child care. Deployments related to the 

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased the demand for child care. 

Paying for high-quality child care can be challenging, so the Department 

of Defense (DOD) subsidizes some child care costs for military families. 

Families using DOD-subsidized care may pay less than they would pay 

for similar child care in the private market. Specifically, DOD subsidizes 

the cost of operating Child Development Centers (CDC) that provide child 

care on most military installations, allowing these centers to charge fees 

that are the same or lower than similar privately operated centers offinstallation. However, if on-installation care is unavailable, DOD provides 

subsidies to reduce the fees that military families pay for care of 

comparable quality in the community (off-installation care). For example, 

such subsidies allow servicemembers geographically isolated from an 

installation, including members of the National Guard and Reserves and 

some active duty personnel such as recruiters or educators, to obtain 

DOD-subsidized child care. Although DOD subsidizes a portion of military 

families’ child care costs, the extent of out-of-pocket costs are not known, 

and families may face barriers obtaining DOD-subsidized care.

 
 

Page 2 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

The Congress, interested in learning more about DOD’s financial 

assistance for child care, mandated in the National Defense Authorization 

Act for Fiscal Year 2010 that GAO report on a number of questions 

related to this assistance.2

1. What are the out-of-pocket child care costs paid by military families 

who use DOD-subsidized child care?

As agreed with your offices, we assessed outof-pocket child care costs for military families and barriers associated with 

obtaining subsidized child care. In April 2011 we briefed your committees 

on our preliminary findings related to these questions, which are covered 

more fully in this report:

2. What are the barriers, if any, to obtaining DOD-subsidized care, and 

what has DOD done in response?

To address our objectives, we reviewed the child care fee policies set by 

DOD and the services for school years 2009-2010 (school year 2010) and 

2010-2011 (school year 2011),3 including the ranges of allowable fees 

charged to families for on-installation care. Some aspects of the services’ 

fee policies, such as their methods of calculating subsidies for offinstallation care, were not contained in written policies. We obtained this 

information through interviews with DOD and service officials. We also 

obtained data from the services on the actual fees charged per child 

using on-installation care in school years 2010 and 2011. In addition, we 

analyzed these costs for families using off-installation care for a random 

probability sample of 338 families from all four services in school year 

2010 based on family files maintained by the contractor that administers 

DOD’s off-installation child care subsidies, the National Association of 

Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA).4

 

2

Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 573, 123 Stat. 2190, 2318. 

Because we 

conducted our sample data collection in the spring of 2011, school year 

2010 was the most recent school year for which data for a full school year 

were available. This analysis allowed us to generalize our findings to all 

families receiving DOD subsidies for off-installation child care in school 

3

According to DOD officials, the school year may begin in August or September, 

depending on the local school schedule. However, DOD normally requires that child care 

policies for the new school year be implemented no later than September 30.

4

Our sample included active duty servicemembers and members of the National Guard 

and Reserves.
 

Page 3 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

year 2010.5 In order to present data on costs for on-installation care that 

covered the same time period as our off-installation care cost data, we 

analyzed on-installation fee data for school year 2010. We also analyzed 

changes to the on-installation fee ranges in school year 2011. We 

conducted semi-structured discussion groups with military parents, 

including parents who did and did not have their children enrolled in DODsubsidized child care, during site visits to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, 

Wash. (Army/Air Force), and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., in 

order to identify barriers to obtaining DOD-subsidized child care. The 

information obtained during these visits is illustrative and not 

representative of each service or of DOD programs as a whole. We 

selected large installations that had a Guard and/or Reserve presence 

and had significant deployment activity. We provided DOD with criteria 

that they used to select parents for our structured discussion groups. We 

reviewed relevant policies and guidance, studies, and surveys of military 

parents, and interviewed child and youth program officials with DOD and 

each of the four services, including officials at service headquarters and 

installations.6

We conducted this performance audit from June 2010 through February 

2012 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. These standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives. For more information on 

our scope and methodology, see appendix I.

We also interviewed NACCRRA officials, researchers 

knowledgeable about DOD child care programs, and officials from 

national organizations that represent military families.

 

5

See appendix I for our sampling methodology. 

6

DOD defines an installation as a base, camp, post, station, yard, center, homeport facility 

for any ship, or other activity under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, including 

any leased facility. We use the term “installation” in this report to refer to any DOD 

locations included in this definition that have on-site child care facilities. Similar to DOD 

and the services, we use the terms “on-installation” and “off-installation” to distinguish 

between child care facilities on and off of installations, respectively.
 

Page 4 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

DOD has provided subsidized child care to military members and civilian 

military employees for decades.7 Today, DOD-subsidized child care is 

widely considered to be a high-quality model for the nation. A recent DOD 

report said that the Military Child Care Act of 1989,8 which created DOD’s 

current child care structure and was enacted in response to concerns at 

the time about quality and availability of services, focused on assuring 

high-quality services and expanding access through subsidies.9 DODsubsidized care assists military families in balancing the competing 

demands of family life, accomplishing the DOD mission, and improving 

the financial health of military families. However, DOD-subsidized child 

care is not guaranteed to all who need it, and the availability of such care 

depends on demand and the services’ budgetary resources. DOD’s goal 

is to meet 80 percent of the demand for child care.10 Table 1 shows the 

primary DOD-subsidized child care programs that are available to families 

in all four services, although a few other service-specific programs exist. 

Most military families who receive child care assistance do so by using 

CDCs or other forms of on-installation care.

 

7

GAO, Child Care: How Do Military and Civilian Center Costs Compare?, 

GAO/HEHS-00-7 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 14, 1999).

8

Pub. L. No. 101-189, Div. A, Title XV, 103 Stat. 1352, 1589, as amended.

9

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense, Report of the Tenth 

Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, Volume II: Deferred and Noncash 

Compensation (Washington, D.C.: July 2008). In a 1982 report, we highlighted several 

problems with DOD child care, including unsafe child care facilities and other issues, 

which led to a new DOD child care policy prior to the enactment of the Military Child Care 

Act of 1989. See GAO, Military Child Care Programs: Progress Made, More Needed, 

GAO/FPCD-82-30 (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 1982). 

10Based on a demand formula calculation, DOD estimates the approximate number of 

military children that will need child care; DOD’s goal is to meet 80 percent of that 

demand. The calculation is based on data DOD collects about military families and 

children such as the number of servicemembers’ children who are 12 and under, and 

related assumptions, such as the percentage of children living in different family types 

(e.g., single-parent families, and families in which both parents are servicemembers). 

Background
 

Page 5 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Table 1: Primary DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs

Program Setting Purpose

Child Development Center On-installation child care centers certified, 

inspected, and operated by DOD and the services.

Provides high-quality full- or part-time 

child care. 

Family Child Care On- and off-installation care in military housing. 

Providers—usually military spouses—are 

trained and certified by the services, and the 

homes are inspected according to DOD and 

service requirements. 

Provides an alternative to CDC care if 

CDCs are full or if families’ needs are 

not met by CDCs. Some Family Child 

Care may offer overnight, emergency, 

or infant care, for example.

School Age Care On- or off-installation providers including CDCs, 

Family Child Care, youth centers, communitybased nonprofit entities, or schools. Providers 

must be certified or licensed, and inspected, by 

DOD or the state.

Provides before- and after-school care 

and summer/holiday care.

Operation Military Child Care

Military Child Care in Your 

Neighborhood

Off-installation child care providers licensed and 

inspected by the state including child care centers 

and family child care homes. Military Child Care in 

Your Neighborhood providers are required to be 

accrediteda

Subsidizes the cost of off-installation 

care if on-installation facilities are full or 

there is no installation nearby. 

Operation Military Child Care is 

intended for short-term care, primarily 

during deployment. 

to ensure quality comparable to a 

CDC. In practice, services may waive this 

requirement if no accredited provider is available. 

Sources: Interviews with DOD officials and NACCRRA, DOD guidance on child development programs, DOD’s Military HOMEFRONT 

website (www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/tf/childcare), and NACCRRA’s Military Programs website (www.naccrra.org/MilitaryPrograms) 

and brochures.

a

Accreditation is designed to improve the quality of early and school-age care programs. Accreditation 

systems require programs to meet standards that exceed minimum state regulatory requirements. 

Achieving accreditation involves extensive self-study and validation by professionals outside the child 

care program to verify that quality standards are met. Other eligible providers include family child care 

homes with a Child Development Associate–credentialed provider or a family child care home 

provider with an Associate’s degree or higher in Early Childhood Education or Child Development. 

The Child Development Associate credential is a widely recognized credential in early childhood 

education. 

Several additional subsidized child care programs have been adopted DODwide, such as programs specifically for injured servicemembers’ families,11

and respite12

 

11This report discusses costs for families using regularly scheduled DOD-subsidized child 

care programs, and therefore does not include discussion of families’ costs for respite and 

hourly care. 

and hourly care—both of which are intended to offer sporadic, 

rather than regularly scheduled care. In addition, services offer several 

12DOD offers 16 hours per month of free respite child care to the families of active duty 

and Reserve and Guard servicemembers who are deployed or meet other criteria, such as 

those undergoing a temporary change of station. DOD also offers care for family 

members with special needs as part of its Exceptional Family Member Program. We did 

not include this program in this review because it was not specifically child care. 
 

Page 6 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

service-specific subsidized child care programs. For example, Army Child 

Care in Your Neighborhood, available only at specified installations, aims to 

increase the availability of eligible community-based child care providers and 

Air Force’s Extended Duty Care offers child care during nontraditional hours 

to support servicemembers working extended or additional shifts to support 

the military mission. The services acknowledge that some families may also 

use youth development programs—programs outside of School Age Care, 

such as recreation programs—as child care, although these are not required 

to meet the DOD’s standards for child care13

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) establishes eligibility criteria 

for subsidized child care and provides oversight and guidance to the 

services, which each administer their own child care programs. For example, 

OSD defines the following groups as eligible for military child care programs: 

active duty military personnel, DOD civilian personnel, reservists on active 

duty or during inactive duty personnel training, and DOD contractors.

and they are not intended to be 

used as such.

14 In 

fiscal year 2010, there were approximately 1 million servicemembers with 1.8 

million children ages 13 and under, according to our analysis of data from the 

Defense Manpower Data Center.15 According to DOD, its child care system 

is serving about 200,000 children from birth to age 12, and NACCRRA 

records indicate that in fiscal year 2010, about 25,000 of these children were 

served in subsidized off-installation care. OSD specifies that first priority be 

given to active duty military and DOD civilian personnel who are either single 

parents or whose spouse is employed on a full-time basis outside the home 

or is a military member on active duty.16

 

13Youth development programs must meet a separate set of standards. 

However, OSD officials told us that 

they are in the process of revising this policy. The revision under 

consideration broadens the range of those in first priority status, adding 

surviving spouses of servicemembers deceased while on active duty, among 

other groups.

14DOD Instruction 6060.2(4.3). Reservists include members of the Reserves and the 

National Guard.

15These counts include members of all reserve categories, including those who were not 

on active duty or in personnel training. Therefore, not all of these servicemembers and 

their children were eligible for DOD child care programs.

16DOD Instruction 6060.2(4.2 and 4.3). Some DOD child care programs have other 

eligibility requirements. For example, Operation Military Child Care and Military Child Care 

in Your Neighborhood are primarily for servicemembers, rather than civilians. 
 

Page 7 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

OSD also sets standards for provider eligibility for DOD’s off-installation 

child care subsidies. DOD requires that providers under Military Child 

Care in Your Neighborhood, intended for longer-term care periods, be 

nationally accredited, to help ensure they are comparable in quality to 

DOD’s Child Development Programs, such as CDCs. According to DOD 

officials, child care can be considered accredited under a number of 

different national accreditation and state child care quality programs, 

which help ensure that child care providers meet quality standards. 

Operation Military Child Care is intended for families of deployed 

servicemembers, and DOD requires that, at a minimum, providers be 

licensed and inspected annually.

OSD sets allowable ranges for the fees that families pay for on-installation 

child care at CDCs, within which the services must set their fees. In contrast 

to private providers, who generally set fees based on a child’s age, OSD sets 

fee ranges based on total family income.17 OSD sets two fee ranges—one 

for standard-cost areas, and one for high-cost areas, or areas with high 

market rates for child care. Installations in high-cost areas must pay higher 

salaries to retain qualified child care staff, and are allowed to charge higher 

fees to help cover these additional personnel costs. The services have some 

flexibility in how they set their fees for on-installation child care within the 

ranges set by OSD. For on-installation care, a family’s cost is the fee that the 

service or installation sets minus any fee reductions, such as discounts for 

multiple children in care.18

The subsidies services offer providers for off-installation child care are 

intended to provide benefits comparable to those that families would 

receive for on-installation care. As with fees for on-installation care, 

however, the services have the ability to determine the extent to which 

they subsidize the cost of off-installation care. The services contract with 

NACCRRA to administer these subsidies, which NACCRRA pays directly 

to DOD-approved child care providers. A family’s cost for off-installation 

care is the portion of their provider’s fee not covered by the subsidy.

Other factors affect family-level costs, such as 

family size and the number of hours that children are in care.

 

17Total family income includes both the income of the servicemember and the 

servicemember’s spouse, if applicable.

18In school year 2011, all four services offered a multiple child discount of up to 20 percent 

for additional children in care as well as discounts for families experiencing financial 

hardship. The Army also offered a 20 percent deployment discount, and both the Army 

and Navy offered discounts for families with injured servicemembers.
 

Page 8 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

As a result of services’ policies, the per-child monthly cost of oninstallation care at a CDC for families within the same income category 

varied by as much as $230 in school year 2010, depending on their 

service and installation (see fig. 1). However, the per-child monthly costs 

for most families in the same income category varied within a smaller 

range. For example, the per-child monthly cost for on-installation care for 

a family with an annual income of $50,000 could have ranged from $335 

to $518 in school year 2010; however, for families in this income category 

at most military installations with CDCs,19 the per-child monthly cost was 

within the OSD standard fee range of $335 and $413.20

 

19In school year 2010, 64 percent of military installations with CDCs charged fees within 

OSD’s standard fee range, while over a third charged fees within OSD’s high-cost range. 

In school year 2011, the number of military installations with CDCs that charged fees 

within OSD’s high-cost range declined to about 11 percent.

20Because these data are at the child level, they cannot be used to draw conclusions 

about costs at the family level for on-installation care in school year 2010, since individual 

families may have had more than one child in care. In addition, these fee data do not 

include any fee reductions offered by the services.

Military Families’ 

Child Care Costs Are 

Largely Driven by 

Policies, Including 

Subsidy Caps, Which 

Vary by Service

For On-Installation Care, 

Services’ Policies Resulted 

in Variations in Per-Child 

Costs
 

Page 9 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Figure 1: OSD Allowable Monthly Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual Fees Charged by Services for On-Installation Care in 

School Year 2010, by Income Category
 

Page 10 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Note: Fees are for full-time child care at CDCs, and do not include any fee reductions that individual 

families may receive. Because high-cost installations were allowed to calculate their fees by 

increasing the standard fee by the percentage of their cost-of-living allowance, two Air Force 

installations, three Army installations, and one Marine Corps installation with very high cost-of-living 

allowances charged fees that were above the OSD high-cost range. All other installations charged 

fees within the OSD ranges. OSD fee policy sets ranges for weekly fees, and all of the services 

except the Army set and charge fees on a weekly basis. Fee ranges for all services except the Army 

have been converted to monthly terms using calculations that assume a 365-day year and an equal 

number of days per month. Families’ actual monthly costs will vary slightly depending on the length of 

the month. In addition, all Army installations allow families 2 weeks of vacation per year, during which 

they do not pay child care fees if their children are not in care. Army families’ monthly fees are 

calculated such that families pay more during the other weeks of the year to make up for the two 

weeks of vacation. We recalculated Army fees without this vacation credit to make them comparable 

to other services’ fees, which are generally not reported in this form. Due to rounding, in a few 

instances the services’ fee ranges appear slightly lower or higher than the OSD fee ranges. 

a

One Army installation charged Category I families $182 per month and one charged $193. All other 

Army installations charged families in this income category $188 per month. 

The services have different policies for setting fees within the ranges set 

by OSD. In school year 2010, the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps all 

allowed installation commanders to set fees for on-installation child care, 

based on factors such as local market rates for child care. Most 

installations set their fees within the OSD standard fee ranges. 

Installations in high-cost areas, however, could set their fees using the 

OSD high-cost fee range, or by increasing the standard fee by the 

percentage of their cost-of-living allowance, which sometimes resulted in 

fees that were above the OSD high-cost range.21 In contrast to the other 

services, the Navy set one fee per income category for all of their 

standard-cost installations and another fee per category for high-cost 

installations. In addition, the services have the discretion, within DODprescribed policy, to set their own policies regarding the fee reductions 

they offer to families, which generally apply only to on-installation care.22

For example, services may offer fee reductions for families with multiple 

children in care, families with a deployed servicemember, families with 

injured servicemembers, and families experiencing financial hardship.

 

21The services are allowed to charge higher fees at high-cost installations under DOD 

Instruction 6060.2, section E3.6.3.5. According to OSD, in addition to standard fee ranges, 

in school year 2010 it set high-cost fee ranges for installations in high-cost areas, but also 

allowed installations to adjust the standard fee by the percentage of their cost-of-living 

allowance, post differential, or locality pay. OSD officials said that, beginning in school 

year 2011, they set a single set of high-cost fees, which all high-cost installations are now 

required to charge.

22The Army offers fee reductions for both on-installation and off-installation care.
 

Page 11 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

In school year 2010,23 families using off-installation care24 in the Air Force 

and Navy, which capped the monthly amount of subsidy a family could 

receive at $200 per child, had higher average monthly child care costs 

than did families in the Army and Marine Corps, which did not have fixed 

subsidy caps.25 Across all services, on average, military families paid 

about $556 per month for DOD-subsidized off-installation care (see table 

2).26 However, the average monthly costs for Air Force and Navy families 

were $787 and $734, respectively, compared to $501 and $556, 

respectively, for Army and Marine Corps families. In addition to fixed 

subsidy caps, several other factors affected families’ costs for offinstallation care, including fee rates charged by private providers.

 

23We drew our sample from families using off-installation care at some point from October 

1, 2009, through September 30, 2010. Because we conducted our sample data collection 

in the spring of 2011, school year 2010 was the most recent school year for which we 

could collect a full school year of data.

24When we refer to “off-installation care,” we are referring to off-installation, private child 

care providers who receive DOD child care subsidies to serve military families.

25Our data on these families’ costs only include the fees families paid to providers (minus 

the subsidy amount paid by DOD on their behalf). Families may have additional child care 

costs such as registration fees.

26GAO’s sample of families receiving subsidies for off-installation care in school year 2010 

provides data on their monthly child care costs at the family level. Because families may 

have had more than one child in care, these costs are not directly comparable to the costs 

per child for on-installation care.

For Off-Installation Care, 

Families in Services with 

Fixed Subsidy Caps Had 

Higher Average Costs in 

School Year 2010 than 

Families in Other Services
 

Page 12 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Table 2: Average Monthly Costs per Family for Off-Installation Care in School Year 2010, by Service

Service

Average cost for 

off-installation 

care

Average difference 

between cost for offinstallation care and 

estimated oninstallation fee a

Average cost for 

off-installation care 

as a percentage of 

estimated oninstallation fee b

Average cost for offinstallation care as 

percentage of family 

income c

Average cost for offinstallation care as 

percentage of private 

provider fee (fee before 

subsidy reduction) d

All

e

$556 f -$38 93.9 8.7 69.6

Air Force 787 +48 110.9 11.4 78.1

Army 501 -63 88.9 7.7 69.2

Marine Corps 556 -59 92.2 9.3 60.3

Navy 734 +87 116.0 12.3 77.7

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA.

Note: GAO’s sample of family files included families of activated members of the National Guard and 

Reserves who were receiving DOD subsidies for off-installation care. These families were 

categorized with their respective services for the purpose of our analysis. 

a

The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/- $45 to $93. 

b

The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/- $28 to $57. 

c

The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/- 3.9 to 8.6 percentage points. 

d

The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/- 0.6 to 1.5 percentage points. 

e

The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/- 1.3 to 5.2 percentage points.

f

The averages are weighted to adjust for unequal probabilities of sample selection across services. As 

a result, the average for all families should not equal the unweighted average across services. 

Air Force and Navy families had higher average costs by other measures 

as well. For instance, families in these services using off-installation care 

paid more, on average, than the estimated amount they would have paid 

for on-installation care (by 11 percent and 16 percent, respectively).27 In 

addition, on average, Navy families’ costs for off-installation care were 12 

percent of their family income, while the average Army family’s costs 

were 8 percent of their family income. Air Force and Navy families also 

paid a higher percentage of their private providers’ fees (the fee before 

being reduced by the subsidy), on average, than Army or Marine Corps 

families.28

 

27Because we estimate the average difference for Air Force families to have ranged from -

$9 to $104 in 95 percent of the samples we might have drawn, there is a small chance 

that the estimated higher amount paid for on-installation care is caused by sampling error.

28All of the differences between families in the Navy and Air Force and Army and Marine 

Corps discussed in this paragraph are significantly different from zero at the α = .05 

confidence level.
 

Page 13 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Families’ costs for off-installation care are affected not only by subsidy 

caps, but also by the fees services charge for on-installation care. 

Generally, the subsidy amount is the fee charged by the private provider 

minus the estimated amount that a family would have paid for oninstallation care at a CDC.29 For example, if an off-installation provider 

charges $1,000 per month, and a family would have paid $600 per month 

on installation, the subsidy amount would be $400 (if there is no subsidy 

cap), and the family would pay the same amount they would have paid on 

installation: $600. However, in school year 2010, the Air Force and Navy 

set subsidy caps, or limits, on the per-child subsidy for off-installation care 

in order to offer benefits to more families. As a result, some families in 

these services paid more for off-installation care than they would have 

paid on installation. In the example above, if the family was in the Air 

Force or Navy, which both had fixed subsidy caps of $200 per month in 

school year 2010, the family would have paid $800 per month (the 

provider rate of $1,000 minus the subsidy of $200), which is $200 more 

than they would have paid on installation. The Army also used subsidy 

caps in school year 2010. However, in contrast with the Air Force and 

Navy, the Army’s intention was that a family’s subsidy would only be 

capped if they used private providers who charged rates above what the 

Army considered reasonable for high-quality care in their local market. 

The Army caps varied from $153 to $2,576, depending on a number of 

family factors, such as total family income. The vast majority of these 

caps were above $200, and over half were above $500. Thus, Army 

families were likely less affected by their service’s caps than were Navy 

and Air Force families, as suggested by the lower average costs of Army 

families in our sample.30

In addition to fixed caps, other factors also affect families’ costs for offinstallation care, including minimum subsidies, family factors, and 

provider rates. Three of the four services offered minimum subsidies in 

 

29Beginning in July 2011, rather than calculating the subsidy amount in this manner, the 

Marine Corps began providing a subsidy of $250 per month to all eligible families using 

full-time, off-installation child care.

30Army officials said they replaced the subsidy caps with provider rate caps beginning in 

school year 2011 because these caps are much easier to administer and this type of cap 

helps ensure that funds support families who need assistance. They said that, in contrast, 

their subsidy caps were difficult to manage and, as a result, were not accurate or 

comprehensive enough to ensure fee equity for all families or to provide sufficient fee 

assistance for all who needed it.
 

Page 14 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

school year 2010,31 which families received even if their off-installation 

providers charged less than they would have paid on installation (see 

table 3). Army officials said that they offered minimum subsidies to 

encourage families living off installation to participate in DOD-subsidized 

child care programs. Other factors that affect off-installation costs include

family income, which is a factor in the services’ subsidy calculations,32

Table 3: Subsidy Caps and Minimum Subsidies for Off-Installation Care in School 

Year 2010, by Service 

and other family factors such as the number and ages of children in care 

and the amount of time that they are in care, which may affect how much 

a family pays in fees to a given provider. The fee rates charged by private 

providers, which are influenced by child care supply and demand as well 

as the geographic location of the local community, affect costs for some, 

but not all families. In the absence of subsidy caps, provider rates do not 

affect costs, since the family’s subsidy covers the full difference between 

their provider rate and estimated on-base fee. For families in services 

with subsidy caps, however, the subsidy may not cover the full difference, 

in which case families with higher provider rates will have higher costs.

Service

Subsidy cap 

(per month) Minimum subsidy (per month)

Air Force $200 $50

Army Variable $50 for part-time care; $100 for full-time care a

Marine Corps None None

Navy $200 $50

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy.

a

Ranged from $153 to $2,576, depending on geographic location, family income, child’s age, and type 

of care. 

 

31The Marine Corps did not have an official minimum subsidy policy in school year 2010. 

However, a NACCRRA official said that they offered a minimum subsidy of $100 to Marine 

Corps families.

32The subsidy calculation takes into account an estimate of what the family would have 

paid for on-installation care, and fees for on-installation care are based on family income. 

Because the Marine Corps began offering $250 a month to all eligible families in July 

2011, family income is no longer a factor in Marine Corps families’ costs for off-base care.
 

Page 15 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Recent and planned changes to OSD and the Army’s fee policies will 

continue to reduce variation in the amount families in the same income 

category pay for on-installation care. In school year 2011, OSD revised 

the fee ranges for the first time since school year 2005 to account for 

inflation and increases in servicemembers’ incomes and to achieve a 

more equitable distribution of fees for military families. Specifically, OSD 

divided the top income category into four categories, increased the 

maximum income for each category, and increased both the minimum 

and maximum fees for all categories except Category I (see table 4).

Under the new fee structure, OSD set a single fee per income category 

for high-cost installations, which all high-cost installations are now 

required to charge.

Table 4: OSD Income Categories and Fee Ranges for On-Installation Care in School 

Year 2011

Category

Family income

OSD fee range 

(standard cost areas)

OSD fee 

(high-cost areas)

I $0 – 29,400 $191 - 256 $269 

II $29,401 – 35,700 $261 - 322 $339 

III $35,701 – 46,200 $326 - 391 $413 

IV $46,201 – 57,750 $395 - 456 $478 

V $57,751 – 73,500 $461 - 526 $552 

VI $73,501 – 85,000 $530 - 565 $595 

VII $85,001 – 100,000 $569 - 578 $608 

VIII $100,001 – 125,000 $582 - 591 $621 

IX $125,001+ $595 - 604 $634 

Source: GAO analysis of data provided by OSD. 

Note: Fee ranges have been converted to monthly terms using calculations that assume a 365-day 

year and an equal number of days per month. Families’ actual monthly costs will vary slightly 

depending on the length of the month. 

The impact of these revisions on military families’ costs for on-installation 

care varied depending on families’ service, installation, and income. In 

general, however, the new OSD fee policy reduced the variation in the 

per-child monthly cost for families in the same income category using oninstallation care among and within services. For example, while in school 

year 2010 the per-child monthly cost for on-installation care for a family 

with an annual income of $50,000 could have varied from $335 to $518 

Policy Changes Will Likely 

Reduce Differences among 

Services in Families’ Costs 

for On-Installation Care, 

but Effects on OffInstallation Costs Will Vary
 

Page 16 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

(see fig. 1), in school year 2011 the per-child monthly cost for families 

with the same income could have varied from $358 to $47833

OSD officials said that they are working with the services to transition in 

the next 3 to 5 years toward a DOD-wide fee policy like the one currently 

used by the Navy, with one fee per income category for standard-cost 

installations, and another fee per category for high-cost installations.

According to these officials, the new fee policy implemented in school 

year 2011 is the first step in this transition.

(see app. II, 

fig. 4 for the full range of fees charged by the services in school year 

2011). Costs for families with this income at most installations were within 

the OSD standard fee range of $395 to $456 (see table 4).

OSD’s changes to its fee policy and additional changes the services have 

made to fee policies for off-installation care affect costs for some families 

using off-installation care, but the extent of these effects is largely 

unknown. The new OSD fee ranges affect costs for families using offinstallation care, as well as on-installation care, since the on-installation 

fee rates are used to calculate subsidies for off-installation care. In 

addition, all of the services have recently made changes to their offinstallation fee policies that make these policies more consistent in some, 

but not all, respects. See table 5 for a summary of these changes. 

Subsidy minimums are one area where the services’ subsidy policies for 

off-installation care are not consistent, since Navy and Air Force families 

receive a minimum of $10 per child per month, all Marine Corps families 

eligible for full-time care receive $250 per child per month, and Army 

families no longer receive a minimum subsidy. Given that the average 

costs for families in our sample in services with $200 subsidy caps were 

higher than those for other families, the average costs of Marine Corps 

families using off-installation care are likely to rise with the 

implementation of the Marine Corps’ $250 subsidy cap. Some Marine 

Corps families, however, will see a decrease in their costs if they 

previously received a subsidy of less than $250 per child per month. In 

general, the effects of these subsidy policy changes will vary by family. In 

particular, the effects will vary for families in services with subsidy caps, 

 

33The Army obtained permission from OSD to allow certain installations that had been 

charging rates at the lower end of the previous fee ranges to charge rates below the new 

fee ranges in school year 2011, to prevent families at these installations from experiencing

large fee increases. Consequently, the lower end of the range of fees actually charged by 

the services is lower than the minimum OSD fee for this, and other, fee categories.
 

Page 17 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

because costs for these families are driven partly by private provider fees, 

which vary considerably regardless of the services’ policies.

Table 5: Changes to Services’ Subsidy Policies for Off-Installation Care in School 

Year 2011

Type of policy Policy change

Subsidy minimums 

(per month)

Air Force and Navy: Reduced minimum subsidy from $50 to $10 

per child.

Army: Discontinued minimum subsidy.

Marine Corps: Began providing all eligible families with the same 

subsidy amount of $250 per child.

a

Subsidy caps (per 

month)

b

Air Force and Navy: Increased subsidy cap to $225 per child.

Army: Replaced variable subsidy caps with caps on provider 

rates.

Marine Corps: Began providing all eligible families with the same 

subsidy amount of $250 per child (i.e., cap of $250 per child).

c

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy.

a

Under the new Army policy, families whose per-child subsidy amount is less than $10 do not receive 

a monthly subsidy. Instead, the Army subsidizes these families’ registration fees (up to $150 per 

child) and pays the provider rate for up to 2 weeks a year while the family is on vacation. 

b

Families with monthly provider rates less than $250 per child receive the actual child care fee 

amount paid, and those with children in part-time care receive a prorated subsidy amount per child. 

c

Under the provider rate cap, the Army will only subsidize provider rates of up to $1,800 per child per 

month. If a servicemember can justify that there is no other child care available, and his or her only 

option is to use a provider who charges a fee above this cap, the Army will make an exception in 

these cases. 

Although DOD provides information about subsidized child care programs 

through a number of sources, DOD officials and military parents cited 

limited awareness of these programs as a key barrier to their use. DOD 

uses many outreach methods, such as deployment briefings and other 

events, brochures and ads, e-mails to servicemembers, staff assigned to 

provide child care information, and Internet avenues, including websites 

Limited Awareness of 

DOD-Subsidized Child 

Care Programs and 

Availability of Care 

Pose Barriers for 

Military Families

Even with Outreach 

Initiatives, DOD Faces 

Challenges Educating 

Military Families about 

Child Care Programs
 

Page 18 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

and social media. Figure 2 shows common sources of DOD child care 

information.

Figure 2: Common Sources of DOD Child Care Information
 

Page 19 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

a

The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program was established by the National Defense Authorization 

Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-181, § 582, 122 Stat. 3, 122. The purpose of the program is 

to provide the National Guard and Reserve members and their families information and activities to 

facilitate access to services supporting their health and well-being during the entire deployment cycle. 

These services include services for children, which can include child care. 

b

The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, Pub. L. No. 109-364, § 

675, 120 Stat. 2083, 2273, authorized the Joint Family Support Assistance Program. The purpose of 

this program is to provide various types of assistance to families of servicemembers, including 

financial and material assistance and mobile support services. DOD funded Joint Family Support 

Assistance Program teams at National Guard Joint Force Headquarters in 15 pilot states in 

November 2007, and expanded to all states and territories in September 2008. 

DOD officials stated that while military families living on or near an 

installation likely know about child care available through CDCs and 

Family Child Care, they may not know about other on-installation child 

care programs, such as respite care. Furthermore, both those living on or 

near an installation and those living far from an installation may not know 

about off-installation programs. For example, many servicemembers we 

spoke with did not know about DOD-subsidized off-installation child care. 

In addition, those who knew about the DOD-subsidized off-installation

programs had not always learned about them when they needed child 

care. For example, two servicemembers we spoke with said that they had 

learned about off-installation programs, but only through the communitybased provider they were using without benefit of DOD subsidies. One of 

these servicemembers said that he had used a community-based 

provider for a number of months before the provider told him about the 

DOD subsidy program, and this was only when he notified the provider 

that he no longer planned to use its services because he could not afford 

the child care fees charged. Also, families that learn about DODsubsidized off-installation child care programs may not be aware of the 

eligibility requirements of the programs. For example, officials at the 

National Military Families Association told us that many military families 

that heard about DOD off-installation subsidized child care believed that 

the programs are needs-based, and thus assumed that they were not 

eligible for them because their income was too high, even though the 

programs are not limited to low-income families. Similarly, two military 

spouses we spoke with incorrectly assumed that only those with low 

incomes were eligible for such subsidies.

DOD faces a number of challenges to educating military families about 

DOD-subsidized child care, particularly off-installation care. These 

challenges include the large quantity of information servicemembers 

receive during briefings, the timing of information provided, fewer 

opportunities off installation to educate servicemembers about DODsubsidized programs for those geographically isolated from an 
 

Page 20 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

installation, and fragmented child care application procedures. DOD and 

the services have taken a number of steps to address these challenges.

• Quantity of information received. DOD officials and an organization 

representing military families told us that information on DODsubsidized child care programs is frequently provided at predeployment or other briefings, but because these briefings are often 

lengthy and cover multiple topics, servicemembers often do not retain 

information about child care. In 2007, we reported that DOD had a 

similar concern regarding briefings provided at mobilization sites and 

demobilization sites, which DOD considers to be primary educational 

tools. DOD officials said then that these briefings are often so full of 

critical information that it is difficult for reservists to absorb all of the 

details of its health care insurance program.34

DOD officials recognize this concern and said that they try to ensure 

that military families learn about DOD-subsidized child care by 

providing them with many opportunities, beyond briefings, to learn 

about these programs. For example, because DOD considers 

command unit leadership to be key to ensuring readiness, including 

supporting spouses and families, DOD has taken steps to help units 

provide child care information to their servicemembers and families 

through unit contacts. Officials from all four services told us that they 

provide information on these programs to these contacts, including 

the unit commander and other unit staff designated to provide this 

type of information to families. Two services—the Army and Marine 

Corps—created professional positions

In fact, several 

servicemembers we met with noted that they tune out or become 

overwhelmed by long briefings and therefore do not retain much of the 

information, such as on child care.

35 within military units that are 

responsible for supporting family readiness by providing assistance to 

families, such as child care information. These positions also support 

formal volunteer organizations tasked with communicating information 

and providing education and support to military families.36

 

34GAO, Military Health: Increased TRICARE Eligibility for Reservists Presents Educational 

Challenges, 

Although 

GAO-07-195 (Washington D.C.: Feb 12, 2007).

35Within the Marines this position is the Family Readiness Officer and within the Army it is 

the Family Readiness Support Assistant. 

36These volunteer organizations typically include military members and their spouses. 
 

Page 21 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

the Air Force and Navy have not designated such professionals within 

units, they have family services professionals outside of units who are 

assigned to serve servicemembers in units. For example, the Air 

Force has community readiness consultants and family child care 

coordinators assigned to serve specific units and provide the same 

type of support to families as do Army and Marine Corps unit-based 

professionals. Both Air Force and Navy also support similar volunteer 

organizations and efforts, such as Navy’s Family Ombudsman 

Program. Many servicemembers we spoke with stated that these 

family readiness professionals and volunteer organizations are helpful 

in learning about DOD-subsidized child care programs, while others 

noted that the level of assistance varies.

Each of the four services has taken additional steps to increase 

outreach for these programs. For example, the Marine Corps 

prepared a fact sheet on DOD-subsidized off-installation child care 

programs, which includes answers to frequently asked questions 

including updated information on program policy changes. The Navy 

hired an outreach coordinator for installation and community-based 

child care programs. Also, the Army and Marine Corps provided 

resource and referral staff a “script” to ensure that staff members 

provide consistent, specific information on DOD-subsidized offinstallation child care programs. The Air Force developed a marketing 

strategy including materials such as pamphlets and an 

implementation guide for program staff, intended to provide 

information on family child care programs to servicemembers. 

• Timing of information provided. Officials from DOD and groups 

representing military families told us that information on DODsubsidized child care is more likely to be absorbed if it is provided 

when military families need it. Some servicemembers we spoke with 

mentioned that they ignored information on DOD-subsidized child 

care programs when they did not need child care, but were interested 

in such information when they later needed this service, such as when 

they became parents and had to return to work. One servicemember 

said briefings targeted to parents-to-be or those with children of 

similar ages would help overcome the problem of not getting 

information at the right time. For example, without targeted briefings 

about child care, not all parents-to-be learn about the need for getting 

on waiting lists for on-installation care. On one installation we visited, 

not all of the military mothers we spoke with had been advised that 

they needed to get on the CDC waiting list, which was about 9 

months, as soon as they learned they were pregnant. Those who 
 

Page 22 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

were not alerted said that they had to take leave to care for their 

infants until they could find child care.

Services recognize the need for targeted information on child care 

and have implemented education programs, such as those for 

expectant and new military parents, and mandatory physical training 

for postpartum servicemembers, both of which offer the opportunity to 

educate participants about the need to get on CDC wait lists. Services 

target child care information to military families in other ways, as well.

For example, the Air Force offers a sponsorship program aimed at 

facilitating permanent change of station moves. Under this program, 

Air Force servicemembers trained as sponsors welcome and assist 

colleagues and their families who are new to an installation by 

providing information on local services, which can include information 

on DOD-subsidized child care options. One Air Force servicemember 

we spoke with had a sponsor that had helped her find housing and 

child care when she moved to a new installation. Other examples 

include the Navy and Air Force’s new programs to market DODsubsidized child care programs to military families, such as to 

reservists who have children and have recently deployed.

• Fewer opportunities off installation to educate servicemembers.

DOD estimates that two-thirds of those stationed in the United States 

do not live on an installation and many of these families live long 

distances from an installation. However, because DOD child care 

programs have traditionally been focused on installations, more 

information about DOD-subsidized child care, including daily exposure 

to sources of child care information, is available to those living on or 

near an installation. For example, installation outreach can include a 

walk-in information and referral center and ongoing child care 

publicity, such as on marquees on the installation promoting child care 

programs. Also, military families that are geographically isolated from 

installations are likely isolated from military peers that DOD officials 

and several parents we spoke with cited as a source of child care 

information. As a result, families of servicemembers who do not live or 

work on an installation, such as recruiters and Guard and Reserve 

members, may be less aware of DOD-subsidized child care programs, 

including those that become available when they deploy. For 

example, results from a 2010 Army Guard survey showed that many 

Army Guard members were unaware of DOD-subsidized child care, 

while most military families living on or near an installation are likely 

knowledgeable about the availability of on-installation care.
 

Page 23 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Limited exposure to on-installation information about DOD-subsidized 

child care may affect Guard and Reserve families to a greater extent 

than active duty families that live remote from an installation. These 

military families may often identify with the civilian, rather than the 

military world, and thus may be less likely to look to the military as a 

source of support. One reservist told us that reservists generally 

assume that if they do not live near a military installation, military 

services will not be available. Thus, many reservists might not even 

think to ask about DOD-subsidized child care when they are activated.

DOD and NACCRRA have both taken steps to address the need to 

provide more opportunities to educate servicemembers about DODsubsidized off-installation child care. DOD implemented the Joint 

Family Support Assistance Program to supplement and coordinate 

family services provided by the services, including child care, target 

military families geographically dispersed from a military installation, 

and collaborate with community organizations to enhance the 

availability of high-quality family services.37

 

37DOD partnered with the University of Georgia to formally evaluate the Joint Family 

Support Assistance Program in fiscal year 2011. OSD expects the evaluation to be 

completed in November 2012.

The services have also 

taken such steps. For example, the Air Force implemented an Air 

Force Reserve web page on the Family Members programs, which 

includes information on child care available to reservists. Marine 

Corps officials stated that in light of the subsidy cap they implemented 

in school year 2011 that will make subsidies available to more Marine 

Corps families, they have taken additional steps to contact reservists 

to educate them about off-installation program information, including 

program changes and how to obtain access to programs. In addition 

to hiring an outreach coordinator for installation and community-based 

child care programs, the Navy is developing marketing and 

communication strategies and webinar training specific to the Navy 

Reserves in order to better educate reservists about DOD-subsidized 

child care programs. The Army makes phone calls to families of 

deployed reservists to ask what services they need, including child 

care, and provides information and contacts for DOD-offered services. 

Also, because Reserve and Guard members may turn to civilian 

sources of assistance, NACCRRA officials stated that they asked their 

members to inform those who identify themselves as military families 

about DOD off-installation child care subsidy programs.
 

Page 24 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

In addition to learning about DOD-subsidized child care, obtaining 

information about applying for this care has also been a challenge 

families face, because servicemembers must apply for on-installation 

child care at different places than for off-installation child care. Also, for 

off-installation programs there are a number of eligibility requirements for 

the military family and standards for the community-based provider that 

differ depending upon the program. Generally, in order to apply for oninstallation child care, including CDCs and Family Child Care, parents 

must contact the on-installation child care resource and referral office. 

However, if on-installation care programs have waiting lists and the family 

needs child care immediately, they must contact another entity, generally 

NACCRRA, if they choose to pursue DOD-subsidized off-installation care. 

For the most part, this process is separate from the installation’s resource 

and referral office and the installation generally does not follow up on 

each family’s success in finding off-installation care. Although NACCRRA 

assists families in finding an eligible community-based provider, if 

available, and applying for DOD-subsidized care, some servicemembers’ 

spouses and Guard officials found applying for the programs difficult. For 

example, several servicemembers’ spouses stated that the website did 

not provide clear steps on how to apply for DOD-subsidized child care. 

Further, several regional Guard officials stated that applying for offinstallation DOD-subsidized child care is complex because requirements 

vary among programs, making it difficult to determine the programs for 

which a military family may be eligible. Also, they noted that providers that 

meet DOD’s requirements, which vary by program, are often not 

available, especially for programs with more stringent standards and in 

areas far from military installations. Additionally, several military parents 

we spoke with said that because there is no one place to find child care 

options available to them, particularly for off-installation child care, they 

had to research these options themselves in order to find alternatives to 

on-installation care.

DOD is developing a central system intended to enable eligible military 

families worldwide, regardless of their service branch, to request military 

Child and Youth Program services that meet individual child and family 

needs. DOD officials told us that the system is aimed at helping educate 

military families about DOD-subsidized child care by identifying programs 

the family is eligible for based on information they enter into the system. 

Such a system may help alleviate the problem of unclear information on 

how to apply for programs and difficulties determining eligibility. DOD 

intends to market the system DOD-wide to servicemembers once it is fully 

implemented. The agency is in the process of contracting for the 

development of a marketing plan which will include assessing marketing 
 

Page 25 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

needs and a strategy to market the system to users, in coordination with 

the services, among other things. DOD plans to pilot the system in the 

spring of 2012, and to begin full implementation of the system in the late 

summer or fall of 2012.

In response to limited availability of on-installation child care and eligible 

off-installation providers, DOD and the services are increasing capacity at 

on-installation facilities and in the community as part of their commitment 

to family readiness. According to DOD officials, the increased demand, 

due to high deployments and increased operational tempo, puts pressure 

on the services, the Army and Marine Corps in particular. DOD officials 

stated that CDC waiting lists are common and DOD officials told us that 

Family Child Care home capacity is not increasing. As a result, many 

military families may not be able to obtain on-installation care when they 

need it. This is particularly an issue for families with children under the 

age of 3, especially infants. To meet this demand, DOD is increasing oninstallation child care capacity by constructing new CDCs that it expects 

will result in meeting 80 percent of the estimated demand for military child 

care by 2012. DOD anticipates that construction projects approved in 

fiscal years 2008 through 2010 will add over 21,000 additional child care 

spaces.

Military families that cannot obtain on-installation care due to wait lists 

and those that are geographically isolated from an installation may be 

eligible for DOD-subsidized off-installation care, but community-based 

providers who meet DOD’s quality standards are in short supply. Figure 3 

shows the circumstances under which servicemembers may be eligible 

for DOD-subsidized off-installation care.

Availability of OnInstallation Care Is Limited 

but Increasing, and 

Eligible Off-Installation 

Providers Are Scarce
 

Page 26 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Figure 3: Determining Eligibility for DOD-Subsidized Off-Installation Child Care

Providers under Operation Military Child Care must be, at a minimum, 

licensed and annually inspected by their states, but according to 

NACCRRA not all states have requirements to regularly inspect licensed 

child care providers. Standards for providers under Military Child Care in 

Your Neighborhood are even more stringent. Under this program DOD 

requires eligible providers to be nationally accredited, but relatively few 

child care providers in the United States are accredited. According to a 

NACCRRA review,38

DOD is taking steps to increase the number of community-based 

providers eligible for DOD subsidies. In the near term, Army Child Care in 

Your Neighborhood and Army School-Age Programs in Your 

Neighborhood subsidize nonaccredited providers who are participating in 

an Army quality improvement program. To help increase providers 

in 2008 only about 10 percent of child care centers 

and 1 percent of family child care homes in the United States were 

nationally accredited. Additionally, the percent of child care centers with 

national accreditation varied from 2 to 47 percent among states.

 

38Linda K. Smith and Mousumi Sarkar, Making Quality Child Care Possible: Lessons 

Learned from NACCRRA’s Military Partnerships, NACCRRA (September 2008). 

According to the NACCRRA review, in 2008 only about 6 percent of family child care 

homes had a Child Development Associate-credentialed provider.
 

Page 27 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

participating in these and other off-installation programs the Army 

established a full-time position to coordinate and manage communitybased child care at selected installations, such as Joint Base LewisMcChord in Washington.39 In addition, DOD is making more communitybased providers available to military families who qualify for Military Child 

Care in Your Neighborhood by allowing the services to waive the 

accreditation requirement if it is determined that no accredited provider is 

available to the applicant. Further, according to NACCRRA it obtained 

agreements from all but three states to inspect licensed providers 

annually on a case-by-case basis so that military parents using these 

providers can receive subsidized care. Even with these efforts, DOD 

officials told us that some military families potentially eligible for DODsubsidized child care assistance, including many who pay for child care, 

do not use subsidized care because they are not willing to switch to an 

eligible provider, or because they have no providers nearby who meet 

DOD’s standards. In the long term, DOD is piloting a 13-state initiative 

working with other federal agencies and state officials to increase the 

quality of child care programs by improving state-level child care 

oversight and licensing practices. The pilot’s intended purpose is to 

increase the number of providers who meet DOD quality standards. DOD 

selected these states, in part, because they have large military 

populations.

The flexibility DOD has given the services to set their own child care fee 

policies, including subsidy caps for off-installation care, allows the 

services to adjust fees and subsidy amounts to meet their budgetary 

needs and respond to local cost-of-living variations. However, this 

flexibility has also contributed to differences in the out-of-pocket costs 

paid by families with similar incomes, both among and within services.

DOD’s efforts to reduce its on-installation fee ranges for families with 

similar incomes and its plan to require all services to charge one fee per 

income category in a few years may help provide increased financial 

consistency for families moving among installations. It is difficult to 

determine the degree to which policy changes, such as those related to 

subsidy caps, will affect costs for off-installation care for individual 

families, because these costs are driven to some extent by private 

provider fees, which vary considerably regardless of the services’ 

 

39In the past, the Army had a contractor perform this work. 

Concluding 

Observations
 

Page 28 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

policies. However, it is likely that families in the three services with 

subsidy caps will, on average, have higher costs than families in the 

Army, which does not. Thus, DOD and the services face a policy trade-off 

in determining the extent to which they will shoulder child care costs for 

military families who cannot obtain on-installation care. For instance, 

differences among the services in families’ costs for off-installation care 

could be minimized if all services offered subsidies that made up the full 

difference between a family’s private provider rate and what they would 

have paid for on-installation care, with no subsidy caps. However, such a 

policy change would require increased spending on child care for most of 

the services, likely requiring them to divert budgetary resources from 

other family programs to provide these higher subsidy amounts. In 

addition, eliminating the caps could require greater oversight from the 

services to ensure that providers did not raise their fee rates in response 

to subsidy increases. On the other hand, some services use subsidy caps 

to avoid having to limit the number of families who can benefit from 

subsidies for off-installation care, so that all eligible families can have at 

least some of their child care costs covered. As DOD and the services 

move forward with their new fee policies, balancing these competing 

priorities will be critical to supporting military families as they serve their 

country, while also using resources carefully in an austere fiscal 

environment.

DOD has taken some important steps to make military families aware of 

DOD-subsidized child care programs, particularly off-installation 

subsidies, and to make eligible child care available. Additional steps that 

DOD is taking, such as waiving accreditation requirements and piloting a 

13-state initiative designed to help states increase the quality of private 

providers are important in helping families living off installation obtain 

safe, reliable child care. As DOD increases the number of eligible child 

care providers for off-installation programs and moves toward centralizing 

access to DOD-subsidized child care programs through its planned 

agencywide system for requesting both on- and off-installation care, 

outreach will need to keep pace, with particular attention to families who 

live off installation. DOD anticipates that its proposed marketing plan will 

help better ensure that servicemembers are aware of this system once it 

is fully implemented. Such a plan also provides an opportunity for 

services to identify and share communication strategies with the most 

potential. How well DOD executes both its marketing plan and 

communication strategies will be crucial to ensuring that all families learn 

about DOD-subsidized child care, including families that are 

geographically isolated from installations and have few opportunities to 

benefit from ongoing contact with installation resources, such as walk-in 
 

Page 29 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

information centers, on-installation child care publicity, and contact with 

other military families who could tell them about military child care 

options. Otherwise, the barriers families face in learning about and 

accessing DOD-subsidized child care programs will likely persist.

We provided a copy of this draft report to DOD for comment and review. 

DOD provided written comments, which are reproduced in appendix IV of 

this report, and technical comments, which we incorporated as 

appropriate. In its comments, DOD said that, in general, the report 

correctly addresses the issues of providing fee assistance to military 

members and assisting with access to child care. DOD also provided 

clarification about the following issues: variations in on-installation child 

care costs, fee caps, changes in policies to reduce out-of pocket costs, 

and family support assistance. DOD also suggested caution in drawing 

conclusions based on our random sample.

Regarding variations in per-child, on-installation child care costs, DOD 

stated that in practice the fee variations are smaller than those we 

reported due to the limited number of programs utilizing the high-cost fee 

option. We believe that the report is very specific about not only the actual 

fee ranges but also the percentage of installations that are charging these 

fees. As stated in the report, we found that 64 percent of military 

installations with CDCs charged fees within OSD’s standard fee range in 

school year 2010, which means that over a third of the installations 

charged fees within OSD’s high-cost range. The high-cost exceptions to 

this were a few installations—a total of six and, again, specifically noted in 

the report—that had very high cost-of-living allowances and charged fees 

that were above OSD’s high-cost range. We recognize that in school year 

2011 the number of military installations with CDCs that charged fees 

within OSD’s high-cost range declined to about 11 percent and we noted 

this in our final report in response to DOD’s comment.

DOD commented that eliminating the caps that three of the services have 

placed on off-installation care fee assistance may not require increased 

spending on child care for those services. DOD provided an Army 

analysis that concludes that the average amount of child care fee 

assistance the Army paid per child in recent fiscal years was less than the 

capped rate currently paid by the other services. However, the Army’s 

analysis does not take into consideration the effect of removing subsidy 

caps for those services that have such caps. Based on our analysis, over 

60 percent of Air Force and Navy families receiving subsidies for offinstallation care were affected by these services’ subsidy caps in school 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 30 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

year 2010. Thus, if the Air Force and Navy were to eliminate their subsidy 

caps, they would incur paying higher subsidy amounts to over 60 percent 

of families using this type of care, which would increase their total 

spending on child care.

DOD stated that in addition to the recent and planned changes to DOD 

and the Army’s fee policies that will likely reduce the differences among 

the services, the Air Force also implemented fee policy changes reducing 

out-of-pocket expenses for families. The Air Force change eliminates 

additional fees if a child is in care more than 10 hours per day. However, 

our analysis of the child care fees charged by the services did not include 

any additional fees they may have charged beyond the base fees for 

regularly scheduled care, such as fees for care beyond 10 hours per day. 

Thus, eliminating those additional fees would not change the fee 

differences among the services that we include in this report.

DOD also commented that in regard to the family support assistance 

provided by professional positions, it believes that the Air Force and Navy 

provide the same level of service as the Army and Marine Corps, but in a 

different manner. We did not assess the level of family support assistance 

provided by each service. Instead, we reported the various ways these 

services provide such assistance through professionals within and 

outside the units and through the services’ support of volunteer 

organizations. That said, we recognize the importance of the Navy’s 

Family Ombudsman Program and have added it as an example of a 

volunteer effort in the report.

In addition to these clarifications, DOD also commented that the GAO 

random probability sample of 338 families relative to the total number of 

families accessing the system of care indicates the need for caution in 

drawing conclusions about accessibility of information and child care 

options. We agree that this sample does not represent the total number of 

families accessing DOD’s child care system. The sample’s analysis, 

which is outlined in appendix I, provides findings related to families’ offinstallation child care costs at the family and child level, in conjunction 

with other variables such as family income, private provider fees, and the 

estimated fee the family would have paid for on-installation care.
 

Page 31 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, 

appropriate congressional committees, and other interested parties. The 

report also is available at no charge on the GAO website at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-7215 or brownke@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 members who made key 

contributions to this report are listed in appendix V. 

Kay E. Brown

Director, Education, Workforce,

 and Income Security Issues
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 32 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Our review focused on the following questions: (1) What are the out-ofpocket child care costs paid by military families who use Department of 

Defense (DOD) subsidized child care? (2) What are the barriers, if any, to 

obtaining DOD-subsidized care, and what has DOD done in response?

To determine the out-of-pocket costs for families using DOD-subsidized 

off-installation care, we analyzed these costs for a random probability 

sample of 338 families from all four services in school year 2010.1,2

NACCRRA maintains an electronic database with information that 

allowed us to identify all the military families it served in school year 2010. 

We used this database to generate our sampling frame of families. 

However, since this database does not include the information needed to 

calculate families’ out-of-pocket costs, we collected our data variables 

from the information contained in paper files NACCRRA maintains for 

each family. To create our sampling frame, NACCRRA used the database 

to generate a list of all families and children who received DOD subsidies 

for off-installation care in school year 2010. In selecting our sample, we 

Specifically, we collected and analyzed data from family files maintained 

by the contractor that administers DOD’s off-installation child care 

subsidies, the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral 

Agencies (NACCRRA). Our sample included families that participated in 

regularly scheduled child care through Operation Military Child Care and 

Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood, the two DOD-wide subsidy 

programs for off-installation care, as well as smaller service-specific 

programs: Army Child Care in Your Neighborhood, Army School-Age 

Program in Your Neighborhood, the Army’s Warriors in Transition 

program, and the Marine Corps’ San Diego Quality Improvement 

Program. This analysis allowed us to generalize our findings to all families 

receiving DOD subsidies for off-installation child care in school year 2010.

 

1

Our sample included active duty servicemembers and members of the National Guard 

and Reserves.

2

According to DOD officials, the school year may begin in August or September, 

depending on the local school schedule. However, DOD normally requires that child care 

policies for the new school year be implemented no later than September 30. For the 

purposes of our sample, we used fiscal year 2010 (October 1, 2009 through September 

30, 2010) as a proxy for school year 2010. Because we conducted our sample data 

collection in the spring of 2011, school year 2010 was the most recent school year for 

which we could collect a full school year of data.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology 

Objectives

Sample of Family Files
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 33 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

stratified families by service (Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy) 

and either Active Duty or National Guard and Reserves (combined group) 

component. No prior data existed on the out-of-pocket child care costs of 

military families receiving subsidies that would allow us to calculate the 

variance in these costs, which we needed to determine our sample size.

Thus, we collected a presample of 157 files (at least 36 from each 

service), calculated the out-of-pocket costs for those families, and then 

calculated the variance in costs for each service. We used the variance to 

determine the number of family files we would need to collect for the final 

sample in order to calculate the margin of error for each stratum to be no 

more than plus or minus $90.

To obtain the family files for both the presample and the final sample, we 

provided NACCRRA with the family identification numbers for the files we 

had randomly selected. When NACCRRA staff had pulled the paper files 

for these families, we went to their offices in person to verify the files they 

had pulled. NACCRRA staff then scanned the documentation we needed 

and sent it to us in PDF form. We requested only documentation 

pertaining to school year 2010 (October 1, 2009 through September 30, 

2010). We requested and received the following documentation from 

each file:

• Each child’s schedule of care,

• all provider rate sheets,

• all fee calculator(s) used to calculate the subsidy rate, and

• servicemember’s deployment orders, if applicable.

Using this documentation, we input data for each family and child in Excel 

spreadsheets. We ensured the reliability of these hand-entered data by 

having two analysts enter all data, then reconciling any discrepancies 

between the two data spreadsheets.

For the first objective, to determine the out-of-pocket costs for families 

using on-installation care, we obtained data from DOD and the services 

on the range of fees charged per child at installations in school years 

2010 and 2011. Family-level cost data for on-installation care were not 

available. Our analysis on families’ out-of-pocket costs is limited to their 

weekly or monthly child care fees, although families may pay additional 

costs, such as fees for special events and activities. In addition, our 

Data Analysis
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 34 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

analysis of these fee data focused on school year 2010, so that we could 

present data on costs for on-installation care that covered the same time 

period as our data on off-installation care costs. We also analyzed

changes to the on-installation fee ranges in school year 2011. DOD and 

three of the four services provided data on weekly fees, while the fourth 

service (Army) provided monthly fees. We converted DOD and the other 

services’ weekly fees to monthly fees using the same calculation used by 

the Army to obtain monthly fees. Specifically, we multiplied the weekly 

fees by 365/7 (the number of weeks in a year) to get the yearly fee 

amount, and then divided by 12 to obtain the monthly fee amount. This 

calculation assumes a 365-day year, as well as an equal number of days 

in each month. Since months vary slightly in length, the monthly amount 

paid by families in services that charge fees on a weekly basis will also 

vary slightly. In addition, all Army installations allow families 2 weeks of 

vacation per year, during which they do not pay child care fees if their 

children are not in care. Army families’ monthly fees are calculated such 

that families pay more during the other 50 weeks of the year to make up 

for the 2 weeks of vacation. We recalculated Army fees without this 

vacation credit to make them comparable to other services’ fees, which 

are generally not reported in this form.

To determine families’ costs for off-installation care, we collected data 

from a sample of 338 NACCRRA family files, as described above. We 

analyzed these data to determine families’ off-installation child care costs 

at the family and child level, in conjunction with other variables such as 

family income, private provider fees, and the estimated fee the family 

would have paid for on-installation care. We compared the averages of 

these variables across services. In this analysis, we weighted family and 

child data based on the family’s probability of being selected for the 

sample, which varied due to differences in the population size of each 

stratum (e.g., families of active duty Army servicemembers). Because we 

followed a probability procedure based on random selections, our sample 

was only one of a large number of samples that we might have drawn. 

Since each sample could have provided different estimates, we express 

our confidence in the precision of our particular sample’s results as a 95 

percent confidence interval (e.g., plus or minus $100). This is the interval 

that would contain the actual population value for 95 percent of the 

samples we could have drawn.

For this objective, we also reviewed the child care fee policies set by 

DOD and the services for school years 2010 and 2011, including the fees 

charged to families for on-installation care, any discounts offered to 

families, and how subsidies are calculated for off-installation care. Some 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 35 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

aspects of the services’ fee policies, such as their methods of calculating 

subsidies for off-installation care, were not contained in written policies. 

We obtained this information through interviews with DOD and service 

officials. We also interviewed these officials regarding the implementation 

of these policies.

Because external data were significant to our research objectives, we 

assessed the reliability of the data obtained from DOD and NACCRRA. To 

assess the reliability of the data on the range of fees charged by each 

service in school years 2010 and 2011, we interviewed officials from each 

service on their annual process for collecting and reviewing data on the 

fees charged by their installations.3

 

3

Because Navy fee policy requires that all standard cost installations charge one fee for 

each income category and all high-cost installations charge a different set of fees for each 

income category, we reported the standard- and high-cost fees set in Navy fee policy, and 

did not need to assess the reliability of these fee data.

To assess the reliability of the 

NACCRRA data that we used as the sampling frame for our sample of 

families using off-installation care, we interviewed NACCRRA officials 

about their database and how they maintain it. To assess the reliability of 

the Defense Manpower Data Center data that we used to determine the 

number of servicemembers and their children who were eligible for DOD 

child care assistance in fiscal year 2011, we interviewed Defense 

Manpower Data Center officials about the reliability of the relevant data 

fields and also conducted electronic testing of the data. We found the data 

we assessed to be sufficiently reliable for the purposes of reporting the 

range of on-installation fees per child by service in school years 2010 and 

2011, and out-of-pocket costs for families using DOD-subsidized offinstallation child care in school year 2010. We found that the Defense 

Manpower Data Center data may not capture 100 percent of the children of 

servicemembers who are eligible for child care, because Guard and 

Reserve members are not required to report their children in the data 

system that populates the Defense Manpower Data Center data fields on 

servicemembers’ children. In addition, we found that, because the Defense 

Manpower Data Center data we received included members of all reserve 

categories, these data included some servicemembers and children who 

were not eligible for child care. We determined that these limitations were 

minor enough to allow us to report the approximate number of 

servicemembers eligible for DOD child care in the background of the report.

Data Reliability
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 36 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

To address the second objective, we reviewed relevant federal laws, 

policies and guidance, studies and surveys of military parents, and 

interviewed child and youth program officials with DOD and each of the 

four services, including officials at service headquarters and installations. 

We also interviewed representatives of NACCRRA, nonprofit 

organizations that support military families, and researchers 

knowledgeable about DOD child care programs. In addition, we visited 

two large military installations (Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.—

Army/Air Force), and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C.) and 

conducted phone interviews with officials at two additional large military 

installations (Naval Station Norfolk, Va., and Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.) 

to learn how each implements child care programs and discuss barriers 

faced by families in obtaining access to these programs. To obtain 

examples of child care programs and barriers faced by military parents at 

installations with no on-installation child care facilities, we also conducted 

telephone interviews with officials at two small installations affiliated with 

two services (Army’s Yakima Training Center, Wash., and Creech Air 

Force Base, Nev.), for a total of four phone interviews with installations. 

For our site visits, we selected large installations that had a Guard and/or 

Reserve presence and had significant deployment activity. Visiting two 

large installations—one each representing the Army and Marines––

provided examples of a large and a small service’s approaches to child 

care programs. We also selected one installation that is a joint base—

having two military services on base—the Army, the lead service, and the 

Air Force.

During our site visits we also conducted six semi-structured discussion 

groups with military parents at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and five at 

Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, including parents who did and who 

did not have their children enrolled in DOD-subsidized child care. We also 

held two additional semi-structured discussions with reserve 

servicemembers at Camp Lejeune. During these semi-structured 

discussions we inquired into how parents learned about DOD-subsidized 

child care and any barriers they may have encountered obtaining this 

care. In addition, we conducted phone interviews with child care officials 

and military parents at two additional large military installations—Naval 

Station Norfolk, Va., and Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. The information 

obtained during these visits and through phone calls is illustrative and not 

representative of each service or of DOD programs as a whole.

In order to select servicemembers for our small discussion groups at the 

two sites we visited, we provided DOD with selection criteria that they 

used to identify servicemembers to invite to these groups. Because we 

Installation Site Visits and 

Structured Discussion 

Groups
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 37 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

held separate discussions with officers and enlisted servicemembers, we 

used the same criteria for each. Our criteria were officers and enlisted 

servicemembers with children 12 and under who were using DOD child 

care—including both on-installation facilities and off-installation 

community care subsidies—and those not using such care. In addition, at 

each site we visited we also met with a small group of spouses of 

servicemembers with children 12 and under. Many of these spouses 

worked for a DOD family support office or were members of military 

organizations that serve spouses, such as the Marine Corps L.I.N.K.S 

program, which is a volunteer, mentoring program, designed by Marine 

Corps spouses to help family members understand and adapt to the 

unique challenges of military life.

To assess the methodological quality of a NACCRRA study we used to 

support the scarcity of providers eligible to receive DOD child care 

subsidies,4 we reviewed the study’s methodology and also obtained 

responses from NACCRRA to questions we had about this methodology. 

We used a different NACCRRA study to identify differences in how states 

oversee and regulate private child care providers.5 Since this study did 

not include a methodology, we obtained information from NACCRRA 

about the methodology it used to prepare this report. We also confirmed 

certain information NACCRRA included in the study for the two states 

where we performed site visits at installations in order to help verify the 

accuracy of this information and found no relevant discrepancies between 

the study and state-provided information. We found these reports to be 

sufficiently reliable for the purposes described above.

 

4

Linda K. Smith and Mousumi Sarkar, Making Quality Child Care Possible: Lessons 

Learned from NACCRRA’s Military Partnerships, NACCRRA (September 2008).

5

Unpublished NACCRRA study done at the request of DOD.

Review of NACCRRA 

Studies
Appendix II: On-Installation Fee Ranges in 

School Year 2011 

Page 38 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Figure 4: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Allowable Monthly Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual Fees Charged by 

Services for On-Installation Care in School Year 2011, by Income Category

Appendix II: On-Installation Fee Ranges in 

School Year 2011
Appendix II: On-Installation Fee Ranges in 

School Year 2011 

Page 39 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Note: Fees are for full-time child care at Child Development Centers (CDC), and do not include any 

fee reductions that individual families may receive. OSD fee policy sets ranges for weekly fees, and 

all of the services except the Army set and charge fees on a weekly basis. Fee ranges have been 

converted to monthly terms using calculations that assume a 365-day year and an equal number of 

days per month. Families’ actual monthly costs will vary slightly depending on the length of the 

month. In addition, all Army installations allow families 2 weeks of vacation per year, during which 

they do not pay child care fees if their children are not in care. Army families’ monthly fees are 

calculated such that families pay more during the other weeks of the year to make up for the 2 weeks 

of vacation. We recalculated Army fees without this vacation credit to make them comparable to other 

services’ fees, which are generally not reported in this form. The Army also obtained permission from 

OSD to allow some of its installations that had been charging rates at the lower end of the previous 

fee ranges to charge rates below the new fee ranges in school year 2011, to prevent families at these 

installations from experiencing large fee increases. Additionally, Army officials said that OSD officials 

granted permission for nearly all Army installations to charge fees below the OSD standard range for 

Categories VII through IX. Consequently, the lower end of the range of fees actually charged by the 

Army is lower than the minimum OSD fee for all but one fee category. Three Army installations—Fort 

Monroe, Fort Monmouth, and Fort McPherson—were in the process of closing due to Base 

Realignment and Closure in school year 2011, and were therefore not required to adopt the new 

school year 2011 fee policy. As a result, we did not include these installations in our fee range 

calculations. Due to rounding, in a few instances the services’ fee ranges may appear slightly lower or 

higher than the OSD fee ranges. 
Appendix III: Supplemental Data from Sample 

of Families Using DOD-Subsidized OffInstallation Care 

Page 40 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Table 6: Number of Families and Children in Sample, by Service and Component

Service/component Number of families Number of children

Total 338 499

Air Force 95 147

Active Duty 50 66

National Guard and Reserve 45 81

Army 83 121

Active Duty 29 42

National Guard and Reserve 54 79

Marines Corps 60 88

Active Duty 35 50

Reserve 25 38

Navy 100 143

Active Duty 52 67

Reserve 48 76

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA.

Table 7: Average, 10th Percentile, and 90th Percentile Annual Total Family Incomes 

of Families Using Off-Installation Care in Fiscal Year 2010, by Service

Service Average income 10th percentile income a 90th percentile income b

All services

c

$84,860 $47,539 $130,497

Air Force 100,615 48,350 174,476

Army 85,485 48,659 130,559

Marine Corps 77,627 42,747 117,538

Navy 77,319 46,548 99,109

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA.

a

95% margins of sampling error for these estimates range from +/- $5,197 to +/- $14,928. 

b

95% confidence intervals for these estimates do not exceed $33,155 to $59,947. 

c

Appendix III: Supplemental Data from 

Sample of Families Using DOD-Subsidized 

Off-Installation Care

95% confidence intervals for these estimates do not exceed $93,432 to $183,538. 
Appendix III: Supplemental Data from Sample 

of Families Using DOD-Subsidized OffInstallation Care 

Page 41 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Table 8: Percent of Families Using Off-Installation Care with a Servicemember Who 

Was Deployed in Fiscal Year 2010, by Service

Service Percent deployed

All services 26

Air Force 15

Army 30

Marine Corps 16

Navy 19

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA.

Note: 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates range from +/- 6% to +/- 11%.

Table 9: Average Monthly Costs per Child for Off-Installation Care in School Year 

2010, by Service

Service

Average cost for 

off-installation care

Average difference 

between cost for offinstallation care and 

estimated oninstallation fee a

Average cost for offinstallation care as a 

percentage of 

estimated oninstallation fee b

All

c

$387 -$27 91.5%

Air Force 542 33 107.7

Army 345 -43 87.1

Marine Corps 388 -42 88.6

Navy 562 66 113.9

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA.

a

95% margins of sampling error for these estimates do not exceed +/- $48. 

b

95% margins of sampling error for these estimates do not exceed +/- $42. 

c

95% margins of sampling error for these estimates range from +/- 5.7% to +/- 10.5%. 

Table 10: Percent of Air Force and Navy Families Using Off-Installation Care 

Affected by Subsidy Cap in School Year 2010

Service Percent capped

Air Force 66

Navy 63

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA.

Note: 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates do not exceed +/- 12%.
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 42 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Department of Defense

Note: GAO received 

DOD’s letter on 

January 6, 2012.
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 43 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 44 GAO-12-21 Military Child Care 

Kay E. Brown, (202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov

Janet Mascia, Assistant Director, and Julianne Hartman Cutts, Analyst-inCharge, managed this assignment. Caitlin Croake, Lauren Gilbertson, 

Hayley Landes, and Suzanne Rubins made significant contributions to all 

aspects of this report. Kate Van Gelder, Holly Dye, and James Bennett 

provided writing and graphics assistance. In addition, Kirsten Lauber, 

Terry Richardson, Jeff M. Tessin, and Cynthia Grant provided design and 

methodological assistance. James Rebbe provided legal assistance.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Acknowledgments

(131003)
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