In January 2013, Congress enacted the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013. Section 955 of the act (section 955) outlines statutory requirements for the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan to achieve savings in the civilian personnel and service contractor workforces of DOD. The act required the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement a plan to achieve savings in the total funding for civilian and contractor workforces that are not less, as a percentage, than savings in funding for basic military personnel pay resulting from reductions in military end strengths from fiscal years 2012 through 2017; ensure that the plan is consistent with policies and procedures required by 10 U.S.C. § 129a, and to ensure that the savings are not achieved through unjustified transfers of functions between or among the military, civilian, and service contractor personnel workforces of DOD, consistent with authorities available to the department under sections 129a, 2330a, 2461, and 2463 of title 10 of the United States Code; provide an initial report including a comprehensive description of the plan to achieve savings no later than 120 days after enactment of the NDAA; provide status reports describing the implementation of the plan in the prior year as part of the budget submitted by the President to Congress for each of fiscal years 2015 through 2018; in each status report, provide a summary of savings achieved through personnel reductions and the number of military, civilian, and contractor personnel reduced; and in each status report include an explanation where any savings fall short of the annual target. DOD has submitted two reports to Congress in response to section 955. In September 2014, DOD issued its first report in response to section 955. DOD refers to the September 2014 report as its initial report. In February 2015, DOD provided a status report in budget justification materials that accompanied the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2016. Both reports were developed by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) (OUSD Comptroller), which is the department’s principal advisor on budgetary and financial matters and has responsibilities for developing and executing DOD’s annual budget. Section 955 also requires that DOD’s plan be consistent with policies and procedures required under section 129a of title 10 of the United States Code. According to 10 U.S.C. § 129a, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD P&R) has overall responsibility for the development of guidance on the implementation of policies and procedures for determining the most appropriate and cost-efficient mix of military, civilian, and contractor personnel to perform the mission of DOD. In addition, USD P&R is, among other things, to provide oversight policy, assess the size and shaping of the civilian workforce, and develop policies, plans, and programs to ensure the readiness of the total force. DOD’s September 2014 report outlined reductions achieved in civilian personnel for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and planned reductions for fiscal years 2014 through 2019. The reductions in civilian personnel are further grouped by military component and civilian hiring status of direct, reimbursable, or foreign. The report also outlines reductions achieved in military personnel using military average strength by active, reserve, and National Guard status for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and planned reductions for these personnel for fiscal years 2014 through 2019. Additionally, the report outlines reductions achieved in funding for contracted services for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and planned reductions for contracted services for fiscal year 2014 and 2015. Section 955 gave DOD authority to exempt certain civilian and contractor functions from reductions. Most of the September 2014 report provides details on these exclusions—for fiscal years 2012 through 2017. As a result, about 70 percent of the civilian workforce was excluded from the savings goals over the period. The exclusions are categorized by personnel functions such as depots, medical, and shipyards as well as by military component and the department’s defense-wide agencies such as the Defense Commissary Agency and Defense Contract Audit Agency. Similar to the September 2014 report, the February 2015 report that was included in budget justification materials accompanying the President’s budget for fiscal year 2016 outlines achieved and proposed civilian personnel reductions for fiscal years 2014 through 2020 and reductions to contractor personnel spending through fiscal year 2016. In addition, the proposed reductions in civilian personnel are further categorized by hiring status, as in the initial report provided in September 2014. Further the February 2015 report details exclusions taken by the department based on the categories identified in the initial report—personnel functions, military components, and DOD’s defense-wide agencies. See table 1 for an overall summary of the reductions reported by DOD for each workforce. DOD’s September 2014 and February 2015 reports did not fully address most statutory requirements related to the civilian and contractor workforces. Specifically, of the six statutory requirements, DOD partially addressed three statutory requirements and did not address three statutory requirements. Table 1 summarizes the statutory requirements and our assessment of the extent to which DOD’s reports addressed these requirements. During our discussions with OUSD Comptroller officials, they acknowledged that both reports did not fully address the requirements of section 955. Specifically, these officials stated that the reports did not include a comprehensive description of the implementation plan for the reductions, that they did not include savings achieved in total funding for civilian and contractor personnel, and that no specific actions were taken to ensure implementation would be consistent with workforce management laws. These officials explained that they did not fully address all of the requirements because they had to balance meeting the section 955 requirements with other competing priorities including completing the President’s budget requests for fiscal year 2015 and 2016. While DOD developed a plan for reductions in the civilian workforce, it did not provide details to understand how these reductions would be achieved or any information demonstrating that the goals were being achieved. As a result, one of the deadlines for the requirements— providing an initial report, including a comprehensive description of the plan, no later than 120 days after enactment of Act—has passed, and Congress does not have information on how the department will achieve required savings, and whether the savings will be achieved in a manner that is consistent with workforce-management laws. According to its section 955 reports, DOD has made civilian personnel reductions; however, our analysis shows that the reductions may not achieve the savings required by section 955. Section 955 requires DOD to achieve savings in the cost of the civilian and contractor workforces between fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2017 not less than the savings in military basic pay, in percentage terms, resulting from reductions in military end strength over the same period, and also requires DOD to report on the savings achieved in each of its annual status reports. In its reports, however, DOD provides information on reductions to civilian full- time equivalents (FTE), but does not report the civilian personnel costs associated with the reductions, and as a result it is not clear whether its reductions will achieve the savings required under section 955. According to its September 2014 report, DOD does not project either military pay or civilian personnel costs beyond the budget year. As a result, DOD did not provide the information required by section 955. According to OUSD Comptroller officials, DOD does develop 5-year plans for civilian FTEs as a part of the process for both the annual budget and Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). In addition, according to these officials, FTEs are typically the primary measure they use in managing and reporting on DOD’s civilian workforce. For example, Office of Management and Budget Circular A-11, which provides guidance on the preparation of the President’s budget, uses FTEs as the main measure for the size of an agency’s civilian workforce in certain contexts. As a result, OUSD Comptroller chose to use civilian FTEs and military average strength—which is the closest approximation to FTEs for military personnel—for the purpose of assessing compliance with section 955’s savings requirement, rather than reporting savings in the cost of the civilian workforce compared to savings in military basic pay resulting from reductions in military end strength over the same period, as section 955 requires. According to DOD’s reports, it set a goal for achieving compliance with section 955 of reducing civilian FTEs less exclusions from fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2017 by the same amount, in percentage terms, as military average strength over the same period. As of DOD’s February 2015 report, this goal amounts to approximately a 7.0 percent reduction in the civilian workforce from fiscal years 2012 through 2017. As discussed above, under section 955, DOD is permitted to exclude spending on certain portions of the civilian and contractor workforces from the required reductions. In its February 2015 report, DOD reported that of its approximately 776,000 civilian FTEs in fiscal year 2012, approximately 538,000 civilian FTEs, or about 69 percent, are covered by an exclusion. The approximately 7.0 percent reduction needed to match the reduction in military average strength applies to the remaining 238,000 civilian FTEs. In its February 2015 report, DOD reported that it had reduced civilian FTEs by 15,448 through fiscal year 2014, and has planned for an additional reduction of about 789 FTEs through fiscal year 2017. Together, these actual and planned FTE reductions represent a reduction of 6.8 percent from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2017, compared to the 7.0 percent reduction in military average strength over the same period DOD set as its goal for achieving compliance with section 955. Civilian FTEs and military average strength by themselves, however, may not be reliable measures of the cost of the civilian personnel workforce and military personnel basic pay, which section 955 requires DOD to use in measuring the savings it is to achieve.