DoD reforming relocation service

Members of the military services and civilian Defense Department employees who must relocate usually groan when they think about moving their belongings. In a recent survey, 77 percent of military personnel said they were dissatisfied with DoD's moving services. But help is on the way for some of them in the form of a new pilot project.

Moves paid for by the Defense Department result in damage claims 25 percent of the time-a figure that probably understates the severity of the problem, since filing a damage claim is an arduous process. Damage claims cost DoD $100 million in 1997.

DoD described its problem in the Defense Reform Initiative, the 1997 document that laid out a series of business reforms for the department:

"Horror stories abound throughout the services: the serviceman who had his furniture sawed in half on his front lawn to make it fit into the moving van; the Army family on vacation in between postings who discovered their household effects for sale in a flea market; the Army colonel whose sofa was supposed to be in storage while he was posted overseas, but instead was in the motorpool drivers' lounge for two years."

Now the Military Traffic Management Command is testing a program to try to address the problem by leveraging the purchasing power of DoD-which accounts for nearly 15 percent of the U.S. moving industry's total revenues-to get better service from moving companies.

Under the program, last month the command awarded 32 contracts to moving companies in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina. Officials used past performance as a major criteria, rather than simply choosing the lowest bidders. The new contracts also require direct claims settlement at full value of damaged goods. In the past, employees had to work through the department and only received a reimbursement worth 60 percent of the value of damaged goods.

The command spent four years developing the new contracts, and met with industry representatives for more than two years to hash out their concerns. Still, moving companies in 12 different areas protested the contracts when the final solicitation was published in March 1997. The General Accounting Office denied all the protests, allowing the command to proceed with the contract awards this summer.

But an amendment to the House version of the 1999 Defense Authorization bill threatens the pilot program. Spurred by moving companies who complained the program hurts small businesses, Rep. Jim Talent, R-Mo., sponsored a measure blocking the effort. The measure is not included in the Senate version of the bill.

"We're hoping the Talent amendment will not go forward," said Phyllis Broz, the pilot program's coordinator. "We want to make the system easier for the service member and also make the process simpler for the movers."

If the amendment fails, personnel in the three pilot program states will test the new system beginning in December. The U.S. Transportation Command will then review the program, along with other similar efforts, to determine how moving services should be managed nationwide.

The other efforts include an Army initiative at Hunter Army Air Field in Savannah, Ga., to outsource the entire household goods shipment program to a commercial company, and a Navy is program at the Fleet Industrial Supply Center in Puget Sound, Wash., under which sailors pick a mover from a list of companies the Navy has certified.