Active Duty Military Personnel Accounts Were Generally Valid and Secure, but DoD May Have Made Improper Payments

摘要

The objective of the Inspector General, Department of Defense (IG/DoD) was to determine whether DoD made payments to valid active duty military personnel accounts. Specifically, the IG/DoD validated selected military personnel accounts and determined whether account information was adequately secured. We did not verify the accuracy of the payments. To address our objective, we reviewed nearly 2.1 million active duty military personnel accounts, with basic pay totaling more than $232 billion, to identify potentially invalid accounts. We identified 1,159 potentially invalid active duty military personnel accounts, with basic pay totaling more than $76.5 million. We defined potentially invalid accounts as those that contained invalid Social Security numbers, deceased military personnel who were paid after their reported date of death, military personnel who were never issued Common Access Cards, and multiple military personnel who shared the same bank account. DoD generally made payments to valid active duty military personnel accounts and adequately secured accounts by restricting access to classified information. However, DoD did not ensure that the Defense Joint Military Pay System-Active Component contained only valid active duty military personnel accounts. This occurred because the Military Services' personnel offices and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) Military Pay did not maintain personnel file documentation to substantiate the potentially invalid accounts reviewed. As a result, DFAS made potentially improper payments of $4.2 million from January 2005 through December 2009.