Military Family Housing O&M Costs: Differences Among Services

The four military services own about a quarter of a million family housing quarters in CONUS. Within age and size categories, most of this housing is similar or identical in design. The annual operations and maintenance costs, however, vary dramatically among the services. In FY98, the costs ranged from $4,979 per unit for the Marine Corps to $9,745 per unit for the Navy. This report identifies eight factors that explain 62 percent of the O&M spending differences: area maintenance cost factors, maintenance surcharges, incidental alterations and additions, backlog reduction, utility rates, headquarters and base staffing, headquarters management charges, and fire and police services. For each of these, the report presents a cost adjustment factor that can be applied to the appropriate budget category of a service's O&M spending to remove the effect of that factor. It also presents an aggregate CAF that each service can apply to total O&M spending to remove the total effects of the policy, environmental, and procedural factors causing some of the spending disparities. In addition to the factors that can be quantified and notionally eliminated by applying a CAF, the report identifies several other factors that contribute to the disparity but cannot be quantified. --Original contains color plates: All DTIC reproductions will be in black and white.