After spending $1 billion and 12 years of effort, defense officials have pulled the plug on a hapless plan to bring the four military branches under a single payroll and personnel system.
“This program has been a disaster,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month. He said he applauded the decision to kill what proponents said would be the largest, fully integrated human resource system in the world.
“Many of the programs that I have made decisions to cut have been controversial within the Department of Defense,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explained to senators. “I will tell you this one was not.”
The object of so much disaffection is the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System.
Gates clearly wasn’t a fan of the title or program, which at its peak employed 600 military, federal civilians and private contractors who tried to use off-the-shelf technology to meld up to 90 automated systems that continue to run across the Defense Department.
“I would say that what we’ve gotten for a half-billion dollars is an unpronounceable acronym,” Gates said, though his cost estimate was short by a half-million. The Government Accountability Office says a billion dollars had been spent on DIMHRS through 2009.
Its demise leaves the Army, Navy and Air Force still reliant on archaic, problem-plagued systems. Required upgrades had been postponed again and again over the years, always in anticipation that all services would be moving to and satisfied with the single system.
It was to start in the Army in April 2006. But this and four other initial deployments dates were set and cancelled. Last spring Defense officials finally and quietly advised the Army, Navy and Air Force they could pursue their own personnel and payroll system upgrades.
More than time and money has been lost, however. Military personnel, particularly Guard and Reserve members, increasingly have been frustrated by pay and personnel record errors. The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves urged two years ago that a single, integrated pay and personnel system was needed “as soon as possible” to rectify inadequacies in fragile legacy systems.
More than 90 percent of Army Reserve and Guard soldiers activated to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq through 2003 reported significant pay errors. Aggressive actions were taken to lower that error rate but without the benefit of what was needed — a modern integrated payroll system that no longer treated active and reserve component members differently.
The systems use programming software from the late-1960s that are unable to handle complex changes. When new pay rates are adopted, it was taking the Army on average 12 to 18 months to automate. Some payments, such as medical bonuses, can’t be programmed and must be calculated manually.
The new system was to relieve all of that, but nearly everyone involved now believes it was a waste of money. No Army, Navy or defense official was made available to comment on what will happen now.
Jeff Farrand, functionality manager for Air Force Personnel and Pay Integration, said his service was moving forward with an integrated personnel and pay system that will leverage capabilities developed in the earlier work.
Neither Mullen nor Gates spoke of the services salvaging parts of the failed system to use for their own system upgrades, though that seems to be the intent.
To comment, send e-mail to milupdate@aol.com or write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
