This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-12-21 
entitled 'Military Child Care: DOD Is Taking Actions to Address 
Awareness and Availability Barriers' which was released on February 3, 
2012. 

This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as 
part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. 
Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data 
integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features, 
such as text descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes 
placed at the end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, 
are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format 
of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an 
exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your 
feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or 
accessibility features of this document to Webmaster@gao.gov. 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright 
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed 
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work 
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the 
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this 
material separately. 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Committees: 

February 2012: 

Military Child Care: 

DOD Is Taking Actions to Address Awareness and Availability Barriers: 

GAO-12-21: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-12-21, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

About a million military servicemembers serve the United States while 
raising a family, and many need reliable, affordable child care. 
Paying for high-quality child care can be challenging for these 
families, so the Department of Defense (DOD) offsets costs by 
subsidizing on-installation child care centers and offering subsidies 
for approved off-installation care providers. Deployments related to 
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan increased the demand for child care. 
The extent of military families’ out-of-pocket child care costs for 
those using subsidized care are not known, and families may face 
barriers to obtaining DOD-subsidized care. GAO was mandated to examine: 
(1) the out-of-pocket child care costs paid by military families who 
use DOD-subsidized care; and (2) the barriers, if any, to obtaining 
DOD-subsidized care, and what has DOD done in response. 

To address these objectives, GAO reviewed DOD policies and guidance; 
interviewed officials from DOD, its contractor that administers DOD’s 
off-installation child care subsidies, and organizations that support 
military families; reviewed DOD fee data for school year 2009-2010 
(school year 2010) and school year 2010-2011 (school year 2011); and 
analyzed child care costs for a random probability sample of 338 
families using off-installation care in school year 2010. GAO 
conducted nongeneralizable discussion groups with military parents at 
two large military installations. 

GAO is not making recommendations in this report.DOD generally agreed 
with the report’s findings and also provided additional information on 
several specific points in the report. 

What GAO Found: 

Out-of-pocket costs for military families who use DOD-subsidized child 
care are largely driven by policies that vary by service. DOD 
establishes income-based fee ranges for on-installation child care, 
but each service sets its own fees and discounts within these 
parameters. As a result, in school year 2010 the per-child costs that 
families from the same income categories paid for on-installation care 
varied by service and installation. For example, the monthly per-child 
cost for a family with an income of $50,000 could have ranged from 
$335 to $518. Families’ costs for off-installation child care through 
private providers are also affected by policy differences among the 
services. All services offer subsidies for off-installation care that 
are intended to make families’ costs comparable to those for on-
installation care. In an effort to offer benefits to more families, 
some services use a fixed cap to limit the subsidy amount. In school 
year 2010, the Air Force and Navy capped their subsidies at $200 per 
child per month, and families in these services had higher average 
monthly costs for off-installation care than Army and Marine Corps 
families, and also had higher costs than what they would have paid for 
on-installation care. For example, on average, Navy families using off-
installation care paid $87 more per month than they would have paid 
for on-installation care, while Army families paid $63 less. Other 
factors, such as the number of children in care, also contributed to 
families’ costs for off-installation care. DOD and the services’ 
recent policy changes reduced differences among and within services in 
families’ costs for on-installation care, and DOD plans to further 
reduce these differences in the next 3 to 5 years. While the effects 
of these policy changes on individual families’ costs for off-
installation care vary by family, families in services with fixed 
subsidy caps will likely continue to have higher average costs than 
families in services that do not. 

Military families face two main barriers to obtaining DOD-subsidized 
child care: lack of awareness and insufficient availability. According 
to DOD officials and based on GAO’s group discussions, some families 
remain unaware of subsidized child care, particularly off-installation 
care, despite DOD’s efforts to provide information at pre-deployment 
briefings, and through other outreach efforts. Families who are 
geographically isolated from an installation, such as reservists and 
recruiters, may be less likely to be aware of subsidized care. The 
individual services have taken steps to increase awareness of DOD-
subsidized child care, such as establishing positions for 
professionals who educate families about child care options. However, 
even families who are informed about DOD-subsidized child care may 
face barriers obtaining it due to a lack of available space at on-
installation centers and a scarcity of eligible child care providers 
off installation. The shortage of on-installation child care spaces 
resulted, in part, from heavy deployment demands, and DOD has 
responded by approving construction projects that it anticipates will 
provide over 21,000 new child care spaces using fiscal year 2008 
through 2010 funding. DOD and the services have initiatives under way 
to increase the availability of eligible off-installation providers. 
In addition, DOD is developing an agencywide system that will provide 
servicemembers a central place to request both on-installation and off-
installation child care. DOD plans to pilot the system in the spring 
of 2012 and intends to market it DOD-wide to servicemembers once it is 
fully implemented. The agency is in the process of contracting for the 
development of a marketing plan. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-21] or key 
components. For more information, contact Kay E. Brown at (202) 512-
7215 or brownke@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Military Families' Child Care Costs Are Largely Driven by Policies, 
Including Subsidy Caps, Which Vary by Service: 

Limited Awareness of DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs and 
Availability of Care Pose Barriers for Military Families: 

Concluding Observations: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: On-Installation Fee Ranges in School Year 2011: 

Appendix III: Supplemental Data from Sample of Families Using DOD-
Subsidized Off-Installation Care: 

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Primary DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs: 

Table 2: Average Monthly Costs per Family for Off-Installation Care in 
School Year 2010, by Service: 

Table 3: Subsidy Caps and Minimum Subsidies for Off-Installation Care 
in School Year 2010, by Service: 

Table 4: OSD Income Categories and Fee Ranges for On-Installation Care 
in School Year 2011: 

Table 5: Changes to Services' Subsidy Policies for Off-Installation 
Care in School Year 2011: 

Table 6: Number of Families and Children in Sample, by Service and 
Component: 

Table 7: Average, 10th Percentile, and 90th Percentile Annual Total 
Family Incomes of Families Using Off-Installation Care in Fiscal Year 
2010, by Service: 

Table 8: Percent of Families Using Off-Installation Care with a 
Servicemember Who Was Deployed in Fiscal Year 2010, by Service: 

Table 9: Average Monthly Costs per Child for Off-Installation Care in 
School Year 2010, by Service: 

Table 10: Percent of Air Force and Navy Families Using Off-
Installation Care Affected by Subsidy Cap in School Year 2010: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: OSD Allowable Monthly Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual 
Fees Charged by Services for On-Installation Care in School Year 2010, 
by Income Category: 

Figure 2: Common Sources of DOD Child Care Information: 

Figure 3: Determining Eligibility for DOD-Subsidized Off-Installation 
Child Care: 

Figure 4: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Allowable Monthly 
Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual Fees Charged by Services for On-
Installation Care in School Year 2011, by Income Category: 

Abbreviations: 

CDC: Child Development Center: 

DOD: Department of Defense: 

NACCRRA: National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral 
Agencies: 

OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

February 3, 2012: 

The Honorable Carl Levin:
Chairman:
The Honorable John McCain:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Howard P. "Buck" McKeon:
Chairman:
The Honorable Adam Smith:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
House of Representatives: 

About a million members of the United States' armed services[Footnote 
1] are balancing the demands of serving our country and raising a 
family, and many need reliable, affordable child care. Deployments 
related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased the demand 
for child care. Paying for high-quality child care can be challenging, 
so the Department of Defense (DOD) subsidizes some child care costs 
for military families. Families using DOD-subsidized care may pay less 
than they would pay for similar child care in the private market. 
Specifically, DOD subsidizes the cost of operating Child Development 
Centers (CDC) that provide child care on most military installations, 
allowing these centers to charge fees that are the same or lower than 
similar privately operated centers off-installation. However, if on-
installation care is unavailable, DOD provides subsidies to reduce the 
fees that military families pay for care of comparable quality in the 
community (off-installation care). For example, such subsidies allow 
servicemembers geographically isolated from an installation, including 
members of the National Guard and Reserves and some active duty 
personnel such as recruiters or educators, to obtain DOD-subsidized 
child care. Although DOD subsidizes a portion of military families' 
child care costs, the extent of out-of-pocket costs are not known, and 
families may face barriers obtaining DOD-subsidized care. 

The Congress, interested in learning more about DOD's financial 
assistance for child care, mandated in the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 that GAO report on a number of 
questions related to this assistance.[Footnote 2] As agreed with your 
offices, we assessed out-of-pocket child care costs for military 
families and barriers associated with obtaining subsidized child care. 
In April 2011 we briefed your committees on our preliminary findings 
related to these questions, which are covered more fully in this 
report: 

1. What are the out-of-pocket child care costs paid by military 
families who use DOD-subsidized child care? 

2. What are the barriers, if any, to obtaining DOD-subsidized care, 
and what has DOD done in response? 

To address our objectives, we reviewed the child care fee policies set 
by DOD and the services for school years 2009-2010 (school year 2010) 
and 2010-2011 (school year 2011),[Footnote 3] including the ranges of 
allowable fees charged to families for on-installation care. Some 
aspects of the services' fee policies, such as their methods of 
calculating subsidies for off-installation care, were not contained in 
written policies. We obtained this information through interviews with 
DOD and service officials. We also obtained data from the services on 
the actual fees charged per child using on-installation care in school 
years 2010 and 2011. In addition, we analyzed these costs for families 
using off-installation care for a random probability sample of 338 
families from all four services in school year 2010 based on family 
files maintained by the contractor that administers DOD's off-
installation child care subsidies, the National Association of Child 
Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA).[Footnote 4] Because we 
conducted our sample data collection in the spring of 2011, school 
year 2010 was the most recent school year for which data for a full 
school year were available. This analysis allowed us to generalize our 
findings to all families receiving DOD subsidies for off-installation 
child care in school year 2010.[Footnote 5] In order to present data 
on costs for on-installation care that covered the same time period as 
our off-installation care cost data, we analyzed on-installation fee 
data for school year 2010. We also analyzed changes to the on-
installation fee ranges in school year 2011. We conducted semi-
structured discussion groups with military parents, including parents 
who did and did not have their children enrolled in DOD-subsidized 
child care, during site visits to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. 
(Army/Air Force), and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., in order 
to identify barriers to obtaining DOD-subsidized child care. The 
information obtained during these visits is illustrative and not 
representative of each service or of DOD programs as a whole. We 
selected large installations that had a Guard and/or Reserve presence 
and had significant deployment activity. We provided DOD with criteria 
that they used to select parents for our structured discussion groups. 
We reviewed relevant policies and guidance, studies, and surveys of 
military parents, and interviewed child and youth program officials 
with DOD and each of the four services, including officials at service 
headquarters and installations.[Footnote 6] We also interviewed 
NACCRRA officials, researchers knowledgeable about DOD child care 
programs, and officials from national organizations that represent 
military families. 

We conducted this performance audit from June 2010 through February 
2012 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. These standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. For more 
information on our scope and methodology, see appendix I. 

Background: 

DOD has provided subsidized child care to military members and 
civilian military employees for decades.[Footnote 7] Today, DOD-
subsidized child care is widely considered to be a high-quality model 
for the nation. A recent DOD report said that the Military Child Care 
Act of 1989,[Footnote 8] which created DOD's current child care 
structure and was enacted in response to concerns at the time about 
quality and availability of services, focused on assuring high-quality 
services and expanding access through subsidies.[Footnote 9] DOD-
subsidized care assists military families in balancing the competing 
demands of family life, accomplishing the DOD mission, and improving 
the financial health of military families. However, DOD-subsidized 
child care is not guaranteed to all who need it, and the availability 
of such care depends on demand and the services' budgetary resources. 
DOD's goal is to meet 80 percent of the demand for child care. 
[Footnote 10] Table 1 shows the primary DOD-subsidized child care 
programs that are available to families in all four services, although 
a few other service-specific programs exist. Most military families 
who receive child care assistance do so by using CDCs or other forms 
of on-installation care. 

Table 1: Primary DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs: 

Program: Child Development Center; 
Setting: On-installation child care centers certified, inspected, and 
operated by DOD and the services; 
Purpose: Provides high-quality full-or part-time child care. 

Program: Family Child Care; 
Setting: On-and off-installation care in military housing. Providers--
usually military spouses--are trained and certified by the services, 
and the homes are inspected according to DOD and service requirements; 
Purpose: Provides an alternative to CDC care if CDCs are full or if 
families' needs are not met by CDCs. Some Family Child Care may offer 
overnight, emergency, or infant care, for example. 

Program: School Age Care; 
Setting: On-or off-installation providers including CDCs, Family Child 
Care, youth centers, community-based nonprofit entities, or schools. 
Providers must be certified or licensed, and inspected, by DOD or the 
state; 
Purpose: Provides before-and after-school care and summer/holiday care. 

Program: Operation Military Child Care; Military Child Care in Your 
Neighborhood; 
Setting: Off-installation child care providers licensed and inspected 
by the state including child care centers and family child care homes. 
Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood providers are required to be 
accredited[A] to ensure quality comparable to a CDC. In practice, 
services may waive this requirement if no accredited provider is 
available; 
Purpose: Subsidizes the cost of off-installation care if on-
installation facilities are full or there is no installation nearby. 
Operation Military Child Care is intended for short-term care, 
primarily during deployment. 

Sources: Interviews with DOD officials and NACCRRA, DOD guidance on 
child development programs, DOD's Military HOMEFRONT website 
[hyperlink, http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/tf/childcare], and 
NACCRRA's Military Programs website [hyperlink, 
http://www.naccrra.org/MilitaryPrograms] and brochures. 

[A] Accreditation is designed to improve the quality of early and 
school-age care programs. Accreditation systems require programs to 
meet standards that exceed minimum state regulatory requirements. 
Achieving accreditation involves extensive self-study and validation 
by professionals outside the child care program to verify that quality 
standards are met. Other eligible providers include family child care 
homes with a Child Development Associate-credentialed provider or a 
family child care home provider with an Associate's degree or higher 
in Early Childhood Education or Child Development. The Child 
Development Associate credential is a widely recognized credential in 
early childhood education. 

[End of table] 

Several additional subsidized child care programs have been adopted 
DOD-wide, such as programs specifically for injured servicemembers' 
families,[Footnote 11] and respite[Footnote 12] and hourly care--both 
of which are intended to offer sporadic, rather than regularly 
scheduled care. In addition, services offer several service-specific 
subsidized child care programs. For example, Army Child Care in Your 
Neighborhood, available only at specified installations, aims to 
increase the availability of eligible community-based child care 
providers and Air Force's Extended Duty Care offers child care during 
nontraditional hours to support servicemembers working extended or 
additional shifts to support the military mission. The services 
acknowledge that some families may also use youth development 
programs--programs outside of School Age Care, such as recreation 
programs--as child care, although these are not required to meet the 
DOD's standards for child care[Footnote 13] and they are not intended 
to be used as such. 

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) establishes eligibility 
criteria for subsidized child care and provides oversight and guidance 
to the services, which each administer their own child care programs. 
For example, OSD defines the following groups as eligible for military 
child care programs: active duty military personnel, DOD civilian 
personnel, reservists on active duty or during inactive duty personnel 
training, and DOD contractors.[Footnote 14] In fiscal year 2010, there 
were approximately 1 million servicemembers with 1.8 million children 
ages 13 and under, according to our analysis of data from the Defense 
Manpower Data Center.[Footnote 15] According to DOD, its child care 
system is serving about 200,000 children from birth to age 12, and 
NACCRRA records indicate that in fiscal year 2010, about 25,000 of 
these children were served in subsidized off-installation care. OSD 
specifies that first priority be given to active duty military and DOD 
civilian personnel who are either single parents or whose spouse is 
employed on a full-time basis outside the home or is a military member 
on active duty.[Footnote 16] However, OSD officials told us that they 
are in the process of revising this policy. The revision under 
consideration broadens the range of those in first priority status, 
adding surviving spouses of servicemembers deceased while on active 
duty, among other groups. 

OSD also sets standards for provider eligibility for DOD's off-
installation child care subsidies. DOD requires that providers under 
Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood, intended for longer-term 
care periods, be nationally accredited, to help ensure they are 
comparable in quality to DOD's Child Development Programs, such as 
CDCs. According to DOD officials, child care can be considered 
accredited under a number of different national accreditation and 
state child care quality programs, which help ensure that child care 
providers meet quality standards. Operation Military Child Care is 
intended for families of deployed servicemembers, and DOD requires 
that, at a minimum, providers be licensed and inspected annually. 

OSD sets allowable ranges for the fees that families pay for on-
installation child care at CDCs, within which the services must set 
their fees. In contrast to private providers, who generally set fees 
based on a child's age, OSD sets fee ranges based on total family 
income.[Footnote 17] OSD sets two fee ranges--one for standard-cost 
areas, and one for high-cost areas, or areas with high market rates 
for child care. Installations in high-cost areas must pay higher 
salaries to retain qualified child care staff, and are allowed to 
charge higher fees to help cover these additional personnel costs. The 
services have some flexibility in how they set their fees for on-
installation child care within the ranges set by OSD. For on-
installation care, a family's cost is the fee that the service or 
installation sets minus any fee reductions, such as discounts for 
multiple children in care.[Footnote 18] Other factors affect family-
level costs, such as family size and the number of hours that children 
are in care. 

The subsidies services offer providers for off-installation child care 
are intended to provide benefits comparable to those that families 
would receive for on-installation care. As with fees for on-
installation care, however, the services have the ability to determine 
the extent to which they subsidize the cost of off-installation care. 
The services contract with NACCRRA to administer these subsidies, 
which NACCRRA pays directly to DOD-approved child care providers. A 
family's cost for off-installation care is the portion of their 
provider's fee not covered by the subsidy. 

Military Families' Child Care Costs Are Largely Driven by Policies, 
Including Subsidy Caps, Which Vary by Service: 

For On-Installation Care, Services' Policies Resulted in Variations in 
Per-Child Costs: 

As a result of services' policies, the per-child monthly cost of on-
installation care at a CDC for families within the same income 
category varied by as much as $230 in school year 2010, depending on 
their service and installation (see figure 1). However, the per-child 
monthly costs for most families in the same income category varied 
within a smaller range. For example, the per-child monthly cost for on-
installation care for a family with an annual income of $50,000 could 
have ranged from $335 to $518 in school year 2010; however, for 
families in this income category at most military installations with 
CDCs,[Footnote 19] the per-child monthly cost was within the OSD 
standard fee range of $335 and $413.[Footnote 20] 

Figure 1: OSD Allowable Monthly Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual 
Fees Charged by Services for On-Installation Care in School Year 2010, 
by Income Category: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated horizontal bar graph] 

Category I: No income to $28,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $187-$256; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $269; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $206-$269; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $13; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $182[A]-$193; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $187-$261; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $37; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $243-$261. 

Category II: $28,001 to $34,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $230-$304; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $330; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $267-$330; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $26; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $232-$332; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $38; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $230-$307; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $69; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $300-$317. 

Category III: $34,001 to $44,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $278-$365; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $387; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $322-$387; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $43; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $280-$387; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $52; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $278-$374; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $76; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $356-$382. 

Category IV: $44,001 to $55,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $335-$413; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $443; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $369-$443; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $44; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $335-$445; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $73; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $335-$435; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $73; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $413-$430. 

Category V: $55,001 to $70,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $400-$482; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $504; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $421-$504; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $61; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $401-$504; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $88; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $400-$495; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $88; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $469-$495. 

Category VI: More than $70,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $465-$548; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $561; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $482-$561; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $86; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $466-$562; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $120; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $465-$556; 
Extent to which fees charged by small number of installations fell 
outside of the OSD fee ranges: $104; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $526-$548. 

Source: GAO analysis od DOD, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy 
data. 

Note: Fees are for full-time child care at CDCs, and do not include 
any fee reductions that individual families may receive. Because high-
cost installations were allowed to calculate their fees by increasing 
the standard fee by the percentage of their cost-of-living allowance, 
two Air Force installations, three Army installations, and one Marine 
Corps installation with very high cost-of-living allowances charged 
fees that were above the OSD high-cost range. All other installations 
charged fees within the OSD ranges. OSD fee policy sets ranges for 
weekly fees, and all of the services except the Army set and charge 
fees on a weekly basis. Fee ranges for all services except the Army 
have been converted to monthly terms using calculations that assume a 
365-day year and an equal number of days per month. Families' actual 
monthly costs will vary slightly depending on the length of the month. 
In addition, all Army installations allow families 2 weeks of vacation 
per year, during which they do not pay child care fees if their 
children are not in care. Army families' monthly fees are calculated 
such that families pay more during the other weeks of the year to make 
up for the two weeks of vacation. We recalculated Army fees without 
this vacation credit to make them comparable to other services' fees, 
which are generally not reported in this form. Due to rounding, in a 
few instances the services' fee ranges appear slightly lower or higher 
than the OSD fee ranges. 

[A] One Army installation charged Category I families $182 per month 
and one charged $193. All other Army installations charged families in 
this income category $188 per month. 

[End of figure] 

The services have different policies for setting fees within the 
ranges set by OSD. In school year 2010, the Air Force, Army, and 
Marine Corps all allowed installation commanders to set fees for on-
installation child care, based on factors such as local market rates 
for child care. Most installations set their fees within the OSD 
standard fee ranges. Installations in high-cost areas, however, could 
set their fees using the OSD high-cost fee range, or by increasing the 
standard fee by the percentage of their cost-of-living allowance, 
which sometimes resulted in fees that were above the OSD high-cost 
range.[Footnote 21] In contrast to the other services, the Navy set 
one fee per income category for all of their standard-cost 
installations and another fee per category for high-cost 
installations. In addition, the services have the discretion, within 
DOD-prescribed policy, to set their own policies regarding the fee 
reductions they offer to families, which generally apply only to on-
installation care.[Footnote 22] For example, services may offer fee 
reductions for families with multiple children in care, families with 
a deployed servicemember, families with injured servicemembers, and 
families experiencing financial hardship. 

For Off-Installation Care, Families in Services with Fixed Subsidy 
Caps Had Higher Average Costs in School Year 2010 than Families in 
Other Services: 

In school year 2010[Footnote 23], families using off-installation care 
[Footnote 24] in the Air Force and Navy, which capped the monthly 
amount of subsidy a family could receive at $200 per child, had higher 
average monthly child care costs than did families in the Army and 
Marine Corps, which did not have fixed subsidy caps.[Footnote 25] 
Across all services, on average, military families paid about $556 per 
month for DOD-subsidized off-installation care (see table[Footnote 26] 
2). However, the average monthly costs for Air Force and Navy families 
were $787 and $734, respectively, compared to $501 and $556, 
respectively, for Army and Marine Corps families. In addition to fixed 
subsidy caps, several other factors affected families' costs for off-
installation care, including fee rates charged by private providers. 

Table 2: Average Monthly Costs per Family for Off-Installation Care in 
School Year 2010, by Service: 

Service: All[F]; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $556; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: -$38; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 93.9%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of family 
income[D]: 8.7%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of private 
provider fee (fee before subsidy reduction)[E]: 69.6%. 

Service: Air Force; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $787; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: +$48; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 110.9%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of family 
income[D]: 11.4%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of private 
provider fee (fee before subsidy reduction)[E]: 78.1%. 

Service: Army; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $501; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: -$63; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 88.9%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of family 
income[D]: 7.7%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of private 
provider fee (fee before subsidy reduction)[E]: 69.2%. 

Service: Marine Corps; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $556; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: -$59; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 92.2%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of family 
income[D]: 9.3%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of private 
provider fee (fee before subsidy reduction)[E]: 60.3%. 

Service: Navy; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $734; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: +$87; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 116.0%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of family 
income[D]: 12.3%; 
Average cost for off-installation care as percentage of private 
provider fee (fee before subsidy reduction)[E]: 77.7%. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA. 

Note: GAO's sample of family files included families of activated 
members of the National Guard and Reserves who were receiving DOD 
subsidies for off-installation care. These families were categorized 
with their respective services for the purpose of our analysis. 

[A] The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/-$45 to 
$93. 

[B] The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/-$28 to 
$57. 

[C] The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/-3.9 to 
8.6 percentage points. 

[D] The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/-0.6 to 
1.5 percentage points. 

[E] The 95% margins of error for these estimates range from +/-1.3 to 
5.2 percentage points. 

[F] The averages are weighted to adjust for unequal probabilities of 
sample selection across services. As a result, the average for all 
families should not equal the unweighted average across services. 

[End of table] 

Air Force and Navy families had higher average costs by other measures 
as well. For instance, families in these services using off-
installation care paid more, on average, than the estimated amount 
they would have paid for on-installation care (by 11 percent and 16 
percent, respectively).[Footnote 27] In addition, on average, Navy 
families' costs for off-installation care were 12 percent of their 
family income, while the average Army family's costs were 8 percent of 
their family income. Air Force and Navy families also paid a higher 
percentage of their private providers' fees (the fee before being 
reduced by the subsidy), on average, than Army or Marine Corps 
families.[Footnote 28] 

Families' costs for off-installation care are affected not only by 
subsidy caps, but also by the fees services charge for on-installation 
care. Generally, the subsidy amount is the fee charged by the private 
provider minus the estimated amount that a family would have paid for 
on-installation care at a CDC.[Footnote 29] For example, if an off-
installation provider charges $1,000 per month, and a family would 
have paid $600 per month on installation, the subsidy amount would be 
$400 (if there is no subsidy cap), and the family would pay the same 
amount they would have paid on installation: $600. However, in school 
year 2010, the Air Force and Navy set subsidy caps, or limits, on the 
per-child subsidy for off-installation care in order to offer benefits 
to more families. As a result, some families in these services paid 
more for off-installation care than they would have paid on 
installation. In the example above, if the family was in the Air Force 
or Navy, which both had fixed subsidy caps of $200 per month in school 
year 2010, the family would have paid $800 per month (the provider 
rate of $1,000 minus the subsidy of $200), which is $200 more than 
they would have paid on installation. The Army also used subsidy caps 
in school year 2010. However, in contrast with the Air Force and Navy, 
the Army's intention was that a family's subsidy would only be capped 
if they used private providers who charged rates above what the Army 
considered reasonable for high-quality care in their local market. The 
Army caps varied from $153 to $2,576, depending on a number of family 
factors, such as total family income. The vast majority of these caps 
were above $200, and over half were above $500. Thus, Army families 
were likely less affected by their service's caps than were Navy and 
Air Force families, as suggested by the lower average costs of Army 
families in our sample.[Footnote 30] 

In addition to fixed caps, other factors also affect families' costs 
for off-installation care, including minimum subsidies, family 
factors, and provider rates. Three of the four services offered 
minimum subsidies in school year 2010,[Footnote 31] which families 
received even if their off-installation providers charged less than 
they would have paid on installation (see table 3). Army officials 
said that they offered minimum subsidies to encourage families living 
off installation to participate in DOD-subsidized child care programs. 
Other factors that affect off-installation costs include family 
income, which is a factor in the services' subsidy 
calculations,[Footnote 32] and other family factors such as the number 
and ages of children in care and the amount of time that they are in 
care, which may affect how much a family pays in fees to a given 
provider. The fee rates charged by private providers, which are 
influenced by child care supply and demand as well as the geographic 
location of the local community, affect costs for some, but not all 
families. In the absence of subsidy caps, provider rates do not affect 
costs, since the family's subsidy covers the full difference between 
their provider rate and estimated on-base fee. For families in 
services with subsidy caps, however, the subsidy may not cover the 
full difference, in which case families with higher provider rates 
will have higher costs. 

Table 3: Subsidy Caps and Minimum Subsidies for Off-Installation Care 
in School Year 2010, by Service: 

Service: Air Force; 
Subsidy cap (per month): $200; 
Minimum subsidy (per month): $50. 

Service: Army; 
Subsidy cap (per month): Variable[A]; 
Minimum subsidy (per month): $50 for part-time care; 
$100 for full-time care. 

Service: Marine Corps; 
Subsidy cap (per month): None; 
Minimum subsidy (per month): None. 

Service: Navy; 
Subsidy cap (per month): $200; 
Minimum subsidy (per month): $50. 

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by the Air Force, Army, 
Marine Corps, and Navy. 

[A] Ranged from $153 to $2,576, depending on geographic location, 
family income, child's age, and type of care. 

[End of table] 

Policy Changes Will Likely Reduce Differences among Services in 
Families' Costs for On-Installation Care, but Effects on Off-
Installation Costs Will Vary: 

Recent and planned changes to OSD and the Army's fee policies will 
continue to reduce variation in the amount families in the same income 
category pay for on-installation care. In school year 2011, OSD 
revised the fee ranges for the first time since school year 2005 to 
account for inflation and increases in servicemembers' incomes and to 
achieve a more equitable distribution of fees for military families. 
Specifically, OSD divided the top income category into four 
categories, increased the maximum income for each category, and 
increased both the minimum and maximum fees for all categories except 
Category I (see table 4). Under the new fee structure, OSD set a 
single fee per income category for high-cost installations, which all 
high-cost installations are now required to charge. 

Table 4: OSD Income Categories and Fee Ranges for On-Installation Care 
in School Year 2011: 

Category: I; 
Family income: $0-$29,400; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $191-256; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $269. 

Category: II; 
Family income: $29,401-$35,700; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $261-322; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $339. 

Category: III; 
Family income: $35,701-$46,200; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $326-391; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $413. 

Category: IV; 
Family income: $46,201-$57,750; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $395-456; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $478. 

Category: V; 
Family income: $57,751-$73,500; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $461-526; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $552. 

Category: VI; 
Family income: $73,501-$85,000; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $530-565; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $595. 

Category: VII; 
Family income: $85,001-$100,000; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $569-578; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $608. 

Category: VIII; 
Family income: $100,001-$125,000; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $582-591; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $621. 

Category: IX; 
Family income: $125,001+; 
OSD fee range (standard cost areas): $595-604; 
OSD fee (high-cost areas): $634. 

Source: GAO analysis of data provided by OSD. 

Note: Fee ranges have been converted to monthly terms using 
calculations that assume a 365-day year and an equal number of days 
per month. Families' actual monthly costs will vary slightly depending 
on the length of the month. 

[End of table] 

The impact of these revisions on military families' costs for on-
installation care varied depending on families' service, installation, 
and income. In general, however, the new OSD fee policy reduced the 
variation in the per-child monthly cost for families in the same 
income category using on-installation care among and within services. 
For example, while in school year 2010 the per-child monthly cost for 
on-installation care for a family with an annual income of $50,000 
could have varied from $335 to $518 (see figure 1), in school year 
2011 the per-child monthly cost for families with the same income 
could have varied from $358 to $478[Footnote 33] (see appendix II, 
figure 4 for the full range of fees charged by the services in school 
year 2011). Costs for families with this income at most installations 
were within the OSD standard fee range of $395 to $456 (see table 4). 

OSD officials said that they are working with the services to 
transition in the next 3 to 5 years toward a DOD-wide fee policy like 
the one currently used by the Navy, with one fee per income category 
for standard-cost installations, and another fee per category for high-
cost installations. According to these officials, the new fee policy 
implemented in school year 2011 is the first step in this transition. 

OSD's changes to its fee policy and additional changes the services 
have made to fee policies for off-installation care affect costs for 
some families using off-installation care, but the extent of these 
effects is largely unknown. The new OSD fee ranges affect costs for 
families using off-installation care, as well as on-installation care, 
since the on-installation fee rates are used to calculate subsidies 
for off-installation care. In addition, all of the services have 
recently made changes to their off-installation fee policies that make 
these policies more consistent in some, but not all, respects. See 
table 5 for a summary of these changes. Subsidy minimums are one area 
where the services' subsidy policies for off-installation care are not 
consistent, since Navy and Air Force families receive a minimum of $10 
per child per month, all Marine Corps families eligible for full-time 
care receive $250 per child per month, and Army families no longer 
receive a minimum subsidy. Given that the average costs for families 
in our sample in services with $200 subsidy caps were higher than 
those for other families, the average costs of Marine Corps families 
using off-installation care are likely to rise with the implementation 
of the Marine Corps' $250 subsidy cap. Some Marine Corps families, 
however, will see a decrease in their costs if they previously 
received a subsidy of less than $250 per child per month. In general, 
the effects of these subsidy policy changes will vary by family. In 
particular, the effects will vary for families in services with 
subsidy caps, because costs for these families are driven partly by 
private provider fees, which vary considerably regardless of the 
services' policies. 

Table 5: Changes to Services' Subsidy Policies for Off-Installation 
Care in School Year 2011: 

Type of policy: Subsidy minimums (per month); 
Policy change: 
Air Force and Navy: Reduced minimum subsidy from $50 to $10 per child; 
Army: Discontinued minimum subsidy[A]; 
Marine Corps: Began providing all eligible families with the same 
subsidy amount of $250 per child[B]. 

Type of policy: Subsidy caps (per month); 
Policy change: 
Air Force and Navy: Increased subsidy cap to $225 per child; 
Army: Replaced variable subsidy caps with caps on provider rates[C]; 
Marine Corps: Began providing all eligible families with the same 
subsidy amount of $250 per child (i.e., cap of $250 per child). 

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by the Air Force, Army, 
Marine Corps, and Navy. 

[A] Under the new Army policy, families whose per-child subsidy amount 
is less than $10 do not receive a monthly subsidy. Instead, the Army 
subsidizes these families' registration fees (up to $150 per child) 
and pays the provider rate for up to 2 weeks a year while the family 
is on vacation. 

[B] Families with monthly provider rates less than $250 per child 
receive the actual child care fee amount paid, and those with children 
in part-time care receive a prorated subsidy amount per child. 

[C] Under the provider rate cap, the Army will only subsidize provider 
rates of up to $1,800 per child per month. If a servicemember can 
justify that there is no other child care available, and his or her 
only option is to use a provider who charges a fee above this cap, the 
Army will make an exception in these cases. 

[End of table] 

Limited Awareness of DOD-Subsidized Child Care Programs and 
Availability of Care Pose Barriers for Military Families: 

Even with Outreach Initiatives, DOD Faces Challenges Educating 
Military Families about Child Care Programs: 

Although DOD provides information about subsidized child care programs 
through a number of sources, DOD officials and military parents cited 
limited awareness of these programs as a key barrier to their use. DOD 
uses many outreach methods, such as deployment briefings and other 
events, brochures and ads, e-mails to servicemembers, staff assigned 
to provide child care information, and Internet avenues, including 
websites and social media. Figure 2 shows common sources of DOD child 
care information. 

Figure 2: Common Sources of DOD Child Care Information: 

[Refer to PDF for image: 3 interlocking circles of information] 

On-installation resources: 
Military families living on or near an installation: 
* Newcomer briefings; 
* Marquees and posters; 
* Installation website; 
* CDC building, signs, and playgrounds; 
* Resource and referral offices; 
* Military clinics and hospitals; 
* Pregnancy/postpartum physical training; 
* Virtual resources; 
* Unit website. 

Off-installation resources: 
Military families living far from an installation: 
* Resource and referral staff; 
* Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program[A]; 
* Joint Family Support Assistance program[B]; 
* Guard/Reserve website; 
* Virtual resources; 
* Unit website. 

Unit commands: 
* First Sergeant; 
* Briefings; 
* Family readiness professional;  
* Volunteer network; 
* Unit website. 

Virtual resources include: 
* Military OneSource, which provides resources and support to 
servicemembers and their families over the phone or on the web; 
* NACCRRA information provided by website and toll free phone number.  

Source: GAO analysis of DOD information. 

[A] The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program was established by the 
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. No. 
110-181, § 582, 122 Stat. 3, 122. The purpose of the program is to 
provide the National Guard and Reserve members and their families 
information and activities to facilitate access to services supporting 
their health and well-being during the entire deployment cycle. These 
services include services for children, which can include child care. 

[B] The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2007, Pub. L. No. 109-364, § 675, 120 Stat. 2083, 2273, authorized the 
Joint Family Support Assistance Program. The purpose of this program 
is to provide various types of assistance to families of 
servicemembers, including financial and material assistance and mobile 
support services. DOD funded Joint Family Support Assistance Program 
teams at National Guard Joint Force Headquarters in 15 pilot states in 
November 2007, and expanded to all states and territories in September 
2008. 

[End of figure] 

DOD officials stated that while military families living on or near an 
installation likely know about child care available through CDCs and 
Family Child Care, they may not know about other on-installation child 
care programs, such as respite care. Furthermore, both those living on 
or near an installation and those living far from an installation may 
not know about off-installation programs. For example, many 
servicemembers we spoke with did not know about DOD-subsidized off-
installation child care. In addition, those who knew about the DOD-
subsidized off-installation programs had not always learned about them 
when they needed child care. For example, two servicemembers we spoke 
with said that they had learned about off-installation programs, but 
only through the community-based provider they were using without 
benefit of DOD subsidies. One of these servicemembers said that he had 
used a community-based provider for a number of months before the 
provider told him about the DOD subsidy program, and this was only 
when he notified the provider that he no longer planned to use its 
services because he could not afford the child care fees charged. 
Also, families that learn about DOD-subsidized off-installation child 
care programs may not be aware of the eligibility requirements of the 
programs. For example, officials at the National Military Families 
Association told us that many military families that heard about DOD 
off-installation subsidized child care believed that the programs are 
needs-based, and thus assumed that they were not eligible for them 
because their income was too high, even though the programs are not 
limited to low-income families. Similarly, two military spouses we 
spoke with incorrectly assumed that only those with low incomes were 
eligible for such subsidies. 

DOD faces a number of challenges to educating military families about 
DOD-subsidized child care, particularly off-installation care. These 
challenges include the large quantity of information servicemembers 
receive during briefings, the timing of information provided, fewer 
opportunities off installation to educate servicemembers about DOD-
subsidized programs for those geographically isolated from an 
installation, and fragmented child care application procedures. DOD 
and the services have taken a number of steps to address these 
challenges. 

* Quantity of information received. DOD officials and an organization 
representing military families told us that information on DOD-
subsidized child care programs is frequently provided at pre-
deployment or other briefings, but because these briefings are often 
lengthy and cover multiple topics, servicemembers often do not retain 
information about child care. In 2007, we reported that DOD had a 
similar concern regarding briefings provided at mobilization sites and 
demobilization sites, which DOD considers to be primary educational 
tools. DOD officials said then that these briefings are often so full 
of critical information that it is difficult for reservists to absorb 
all of the details of its health care insurance program.[Footnote 34] 
In fact, several servicemembers we met with noted that they tune out 
or become overwhelmed by long briefings and therefore do not retain 
much of the information, such as on child care. 

DOD officials recognize this concern and said that they try to ensure 
that military families learn about DOD-subsidized child care by 
providing them with many opportunities, beyond briefings, to learn 
about these programs. For example, because DOD considers command unit 
leadership to be key to ensuring readiness, including supporting 
spouses and families, DOD has taken steps to help units provide child 
care information to their servicemembers and families through unit 
contacts. Officials from all four services told us that they provide 
information on these programs to these contacts, including the unit 
commander and other unit staff designated to provide this type of 
information to families. Two services--the Army and Marine Corps--
created professional positions[Footnote 35] within military units that 
are responsible for supporting family readiness by providing 
assistance to families, such as child care information. These 
positions also support formal volunteer organizations tasked with 
communicating information and providing education and support to 
military families.[Footnote 36] Although the Air Force and Navy have 
not designated such professionals within units, they have family 
services professionals outside of units who are assigned to serve 
servicemembers in units. For example, the Air Force has community 
readiness consultants and family child care coordinators assigned to 
serve specific units and provide the same type of support to families 
as do Army and Marine Corps unit-based professionals. Both Air Force 
and Navy also support similar volunteer organizations and efforts, 
such as Navy's Family Ombudsman Program. Many servicemembers we spoke 
with stated that these family readiness professionals and volunteer 
organizations are helpful in learning about DOD-subsidized child care 
programs, while others noted that the level of assistance varies. 

Each of the four services has taken additional steps to increase 
outreach for these programs. For example, the Marine Corps prepared a 
fact sheet on DOD-subsidized off-installation child care programs, 
which includes answers to frequently asked questions including updated 
information on program policy changes. The Navy hired an outreach 
coordinator for installation and community-based child care programs. 
Also, the Army and Marine Corps provided resource and referral staff a 
"script" to ensure that staff members provide consistent, specific 
information on DOD-subsidized off-installation child care programs. 
The Air Force developed a marketing strategy including materials such 
as pamphlets and an implementation guide for program staff, intended 
to provide information on family child care programs to servicemembers. 

* Timing of information provided. Officials from DOD and groups 
representing military families told us that information on DOD-
subsidized child care is more likely to be absorbed if it is provided 
when military families need it. Some servicemembers we spoke with 
mentioned that they ignored information on DOD-subsidized child care 
programs when they did not need child care, but were interested in 
such information when they later needed this service, such as when 
they became parents and had to return to work. One servicemember said 
briefings targeted to parents-to-be or those with children of similar 
ages would help overcome the problem of not getting information at the 
right time. For example, without targeted briefings about child care, 
not all parents-to-be learn about the need for getting on waiting 
lists for on-installation care. On one installation we visited, not 
all of the military mothers we spoke with had been advised that they 
needed to get on the CDC waiting list, which was about 9 months, as 
soon as they learned they were pregnant. Those who were not alerted 
said that they had to take leave to care for their infants until they 
could find child care. 

Services recognize the need for targeted information on child care and 
have implemented education programs, such as those for expectant and 
new military parents, and mandatory physical training for postpartum 
servicemembers, both of which offer the opportunity to educate 
participants about the need to get on CDC wait lists. Services target 
child care information to military families in other ways, as well. 
For example, the Air Force offers a sponsorship program aimed at 
facilitating permanent change of station moves. Under this program, 
Air Force servicemembers trained as sponsors welcome and assist 
colleagues and their families who are new to an installation by 
providing information on local services, which can include information 
on DOD-subsidized child care options. One Air Force servicemember we 
spoke with had a sponsor that had helped her find housing and child 
care when she moved to a new installation. Other examples include the 
Navy and Air Force's new programs to market DOD-subsidized child care 
programs to military families, such as to reservists who have children 
and have recently deployed. 

* Fewer opportunities off installation to educate servicemembers. DOD 
estimates that two-thirds of those stationed in the United States do 
not live on an installation and many of these families live long 
distances from an installation. However, because DOD child care 
programs have traditionally been focused on installations, more 
information about DOD-subsidized child care, including daily exposure 
to sources of child care information, is available to those living on 
or near an installation. For example, installation outreach can 
include a walk-in information and referral center and ongoing child 
care publicity, such as on marquees on the installation promoting 
child care programs. Also, military families that are geographically 
isolated from installations are likely isolated from military peers 
that DOD officials and several parents we spoke with cited as a source 
of child care information. As a result, families of servicemembers who 
do not live or work on an installation, such as recruiters and Guard 
and Reserve members, may be less aware of DOD-subsidized child care 
programs, including those that become available when they deploy. For 
example, results from a 2010 Army Guard survey showed that many Army 
Guard members were unaware of DOD-subsidized child care, while most 
military families living on or near an installation are likely 
knowledgeable about the availability of on-installation care. 

Limited exposure to on-installation information about DOD-subsidized 
child care may affect Guard and Reserve families to a greater extent 
than active duty families that live remote from an installation. These 
military families may often identify with the civilian, rather than 
the military world, and thus may be less likely to look to the 
military as a source of support. One reservist told us that reservists 
generally assume that if they do not live near a military 
installation, military services will not be available. Thus, many 
reservists might not even think to ask about DOD-subsidized child care 
when they are activated. 

DOD and NACCRRA have both taken steps to address the need to provide 
more opportunities to educate servicemembers about DOD-subsidized off-
installation child care. DOD implemented the Joint Family Support 
Assistance Program to supplement and coordinate family services 
provided by the services, including child care, target military 
families geographically dispersed from a military installation, and 
collaborate with community organizations to enhance the availability 
of high-quality family services.[Footnote 37] The services have also 
taken such steps. For example, the Air Force implemented an Air Force 
Reserve web page on the Family Members programs, which includes 
information on child care available to reservists. Marine Corps 
officials stated that in light of the subsidy cap they implemented in 
school year 2011 that will make subsidies available to more Marine 
Corps families, they have taken additional steps to contact reservists 
to educate them about off-installation program information, including 
program changes and how to obtain access to programs. In addition to 
hiring an outreach coordinator for installation and community-based 
child care programs, the Navy is developing marketing and 
communication strategies and webinar training specific to the Navy 
Reserves in order to better educate reservists about DOD-subsidized 
child care programs. The Army makes phone calls to families of 
deployed reservists to ask what services they need, including child 
care, and provides information and contacts for DOD-offered services. 
Also, because Reserve and Guard members may turn to civilian sources 
of assistance, NACCRRA officials stated that they asked their members 
to inform those who identify themselves as military families about DOD 
off-installation child care subsidy programs. 

In addition to learning about DOD-subsidized child care, obtaining 
information about applying for this care has also been a challenge 
families face, because servicemembers must apply for on-installation 
child care at different places than for off-installation child care. 
Also, for off-installation programs there are a number of eligibility 
requirements for the military family and standards for the community-
based provider that differ depending upon the program. Generally, in 
order to apply for on-installation child care, including CDCs and 
Family Child Care, parents must contact the on-installation child care 
resource and referral office. However, if on-installation care 
programs have waiting lists and the family needs child care 
immediately, they must contact another entity, generally NACCRRA, if 
they choose to pursue DOD-subsidized off-installation care. For the 
most part, this process is separate from the installation's resource 
and referral office and the installation generally does not follow up 
on each family's success in finding off-installation care. Although 
NACCRRA assists families in finding an eligible community-based 
provider, if available, and applying for DOD-subsidized care, some 
servicemembers' spouses and Guard officials found applying for the 
programs difficult. For example, several servicemembers' spouses 
stated that the website did not provide clear steps on how to apply 
for DOD-subsidized child care. Further, several regional Guard 
officials stated that applying for off-installation DOD-subsidized 
child care is complex because requirements vary among programs, making 
it difficult to determine the programs for which a military family may 
be eligible. Also, they noted that providers that meet DOD's 
requirements, which vary by program, are often not available, 
especially for programs with more stringent standards and in areas far 
from military installations. Additionally, several military parents we 
spoke with said that because there is no one place to find child care 
options available to them, particularly for off-installation child 
care, they had to research these options themselves in order to find 
alternatives to on-installation care. 

DOD is developing a central system intended to enable eligible 
military families worldwide, regardless of their service branch, to 
request military Child and Youth Program services that meet individual 
child and family needs. DOD officials told us that the system is aimed 
at helping educate military families about DOD-subsidized child care 
by identifying programs the family is eligible for based on 
information they enter into the system. Such a system may help 
alleviate the problem of unclear information on how to apply for 
programs and difficulties determining eligibility. DOD intends to 
market the system DOD-wide to servicemembers once it is fully 
implemented. The agency is in the process of contracting for the 
development of a marketing plan which will include assessing marketing 
needs and a strategy to market the system to users, in coordination 
with the services, among other things. DOD plans to pilot the system 
in the spring of 2012, and to begin full implementation of the system 
in the late summer or fall of 2012. 

Availability of On-Installation Care Is Limited but Increasing, and 
Eligible Off-Installation Providers Are Scarce: 

In response to limited availability of on-installation child care and 
eligible off-installation providers, DOD and the services are 
increasing capacity at on-installation facilities and in the community 
as part of their commitment to family readiness. According to DOD 
officials, the increased demand, due to high deployments and increased 
operational tempo, puts pressure on the services, the Army and Marine 
Corps in particular. DOD officials stated that CDC waiting lists are 
common and DOD officials told us that Family Child Care home capacity 
is not increasing. As a result, many military families may not be able 
to obtain on-installation care when they need it. This is particularly 
an issue for families with children under the age of 3, especially 
infants. To meet this demand, DOD is increasing on-installation child 
care capacity by constructing new CDCs that it expects will result in 
meeting 80 percent of the estimated demand for military child care by 
2012. DOD anticipates that construction projects approved in fiscal 
years 2008 through 2010 will add over 21,000 additional child care 
spaces. 

Military families that cannot obtain on-installation care due to wait 
lists and those that are geographically isolated from an installation 
may be eligible for DOD-subsidized off-installation care, but 
community-based providers who meet DOD's quality standards are in 
short supply. Figure 3 shows the circumstances under which 
servicemembers may be eligible for DOD-subsidized off-installation 
care. 

Figure 3: Determining Eligibility for DOD-Subsidized Off-Installation 
Child Care: 

[Refer to PDF for image: chart] 

Military family eligible for child care: 

Available on installation: 
* Use of on-installation child care is required for families who live 
within a reasonable commuting distance; 
- Family pays weekly fee set by DOD policy. 

Not available on installation: 
Family uses an off-installation child care provider: 
* Provider eligible for DOD subsidy: 
- DOD and family each pay a portion of the providers monthly fee; 
* Provider not eligible for DOD subsidy: 
- Family pays all of provider's monthly fee. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD information. 

[End of figure] 

Providers under Operation Military Child Care must be, at a minimum, 
licensed and annually inspected by their states, but according to 
NACCRRA not all states have requirements to regularly inspect licensed 
child care providers. Standards for providers under Military Child 
Care in Your Neighborhood are even more stringent. Under this program 
DOD requires eligible providers to be nationally accredited, but 
relatively few child care providers in the United States are 
accredited. According to a NACCRRA review,[Footnote 38] in 2008 only 
about 10 percent of child care centers and 1 percent of family child 
care homes in the United States were nationally accredited. 
Additionally, the percent of child care centers with national 
accreditation varied from 2 to 47 percent among states. 

DOD is taking steps to increase the number of community-based 
providers eligible for DOD subsidies. In the near term, Army Child 
Care in Your Neighborhood and Army School-Age Programs in Your 
Neighborhood subsidize nonaccredited providers who are participating 
in an Army quality improvement program. To help increase providers 
participating in these and other off-installation programs the Army 
established a full-time position to coordinate and manage community-
based child care at selected installations, such as Joint Base Lewis-
McChord in Washington.[Footnote 39] In addition, DOD is making more 
community-based providers available to military families who qualify 
for Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood by allowing the services 
to waive the accreditation requirement if it is determined that no 
accredited provider is available to the applicant. Further, according 
to NACCRRA it obtained agreements from all but three states to inspect 
licensed providers annually on a case-by-case basis so that military 
parents using these providers can receive subsidized care. Even with 
these efforts, DOD officials told us that some military families 
potentially eligible for DOD-subsidized child care assistance, 
including many who pay for child care, do not use subsidized care 
because they are not willing to switch to an eligible provider, or 
because they have no providers nearby who meet DOD's standards. In the 
long term, DOD is piloting a 13-state initiative working with other 
federal agencies and state officials to increase the quality of child 
care programs by improving state-level child care oversight and 
licensing practices. The pilot's intended purpose is to increase the 
number of providers who meet DOD quality standards. DOD selected these 
states, in part, because they have large military populations. 

Concluding Observations: 

The flexibility DOD has given the services to set their own child care 
fee policies, including subsidy caps for off-installation care, allows 
the services to adjust fees and subsidy amounts to meet their 
budgetary needs and respond to local cost-of-living variations. 
However, this flexibility has also contributed to differences in the 
out-of-pocket costs paid by families with similar incomes, both among 
and within services. DOD's efforts to reduce its on-installation fee 
ranges for families with similar incomes and its plan to require all 
services to charge one fee per income category in a few years may help 
provide increased financial consistency for families moving among 
installations. It is difficult to determine the degree to which policy 
changes, such as those related to subsidy caps, will affect costs for 
off-installation care for individual families, because these costs are 
driven to some extent by private provider fees, which vary 
considerably regardless of the services' policies. However, it is 
likely that families in the three services with subsidy caps will, on 
average, have higher costs than families in the Army, which does not. 
Thus, DOD and the services face a policy trade-off in determining the 
extent to which they will shoulder child care costs for military 
families who cannot obtain on-installation care. For instance, 
differences among the services in families' costs for off-installation 
care could be minimized if all services offered subsidies that made up 
the full difference between a family's private provider rate and what 
they would have paid for on-installation care, with no subsidy caps. 
However, such a policy change would require increased spending on 
child care for most of the services, likely requiring them to divert 
budgetary resources from other family programs to provide these higher 
subsidy amounts. In addition, eliminating the caps could require 
greater oversight from the services to ensure that providers did not 
raise their fee rates in response to subsidy increases. On the other 
hand, some services use subsidy caps to avoid having to limit the 
number of families who can benefit from subsidies for off-installation 
care, so that all eligible families can have at least some of their 
child care costs covered. As DOD and the services move forward with 
their new fee policies, balancing these competing priorities will be 
critical to supporting military families as they serve their country, 
while also using resources carefully in an austere fiscal environment. 

DOD has taken some important steps to make military families aware of 
DOD-subsidized child care programs, particularly off-installation 
subsidies, and to make eligible child care available. Additional steps 
that DOD is taking, such as waiving accreditation requirements and 
piloting a 13-state initiative designed to help states increase the 
quality of private providers are important in helping families living 
off installation obtain safe, reliable child care. As DOD increases 
the number of eligible child care providers for off-installation 
programs and moves toward centralizing access to DOD-subsidized child 
care programs through its planned agencywide system for requesting 
both on-and off-installation care, outreach will need to keep pace, 
with particular attention to families who live off installation. DOD 
anticipates that its proposed marketing plan will help better ensure 
that servicemembers are aware of this system once it is fully 
implemented. Such a plan also provides an opportunity for services to 
identify and share communication strategies with the most potential. 
How well DOD executes both its marketing plan and communication 
strategies will be crucial to ensuring that all families learn about 
DOD-subsidized child care, including families that are geographically 
isolated from installations and have few opportunities to benefit from 
ongoing contact with installation resources, such as walk-in 
information centers, on-installation child care publicity, and contact 
with other military families who could tell them about military child 
care options. Otherwise, the barriers families face in learning about 
and accessing DOD-subsidized child care programs will likely persist. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a copy of this draft report to DOD for comment and review. 
DOD provided written comments, which are reproduced in appendix IV of 
this report, and technical comments, which we incorporated as 
appropriate. In its comments, DOD said that, in general, the report 
correctly addresses the issues of providing fee assistance to military 
members and assisting with access to child care. DOD also provided 
clarification about the following issues: variations in on-
installation child care costs, fee caps, changes in policies to reduce 
out-of pocket costs, and family support assistance. DOD also suggested 
caution in drawing conclusions based on our random sample. 

Regarding variations in per-child, on-installation child care costs, 
DOD stated that in practice the fee variations are smaller than those 
we reported due to the limited number of programs utilizing the high-
cost fee option. We believe that the report is very specific about not 
only the actual fee ranges but also the percentage of installations 
that are charging these fees. As stated in the report, we found that 
64 percent of military installations with CDCs charged fees within 
OSD's standard fee range in school year 2010, which means that over a 
third of the installations charged fees within OSD's high-cost range. 
The high-cost exceptions to this were a few installations--a total of 
six and, again, specifically noted in the report--that had very high 
cost-of-living allowances and charged fees that were above OSD's high-
cost range. We recognize that in school year 2011 the number of 
military installations with CDCs that charged fees within OSD's high-
cost range declined to about 11 percent and we noted this in our final 
report in response to DOD's comment. 

DOD commented that eliminating the caps that three of the services 
have placed on off-installation care fee assistance may not require 
increased spending on child care for those services. DOD provided an 
Army analysis that concludes that the average amount of child care fee 
assistance the Army paid per child in recent fiscal years was less 
than the capped rate currently paid by the other services. However, 
the Army's analysis does not take into consideration the effect of 
removing subsidy caps for those services that have such caps. Based on 
our analysis, over 60 percent of Air Force and Navy families receiving 
subsidies for off-installation care were affected by these services' 
subsidy caps in school year 2010. Thus, if the Air Force and Navy were 
to eliminate their subsidy caps, they would incur paying higher 
subsidy amounts to over 60 percent of families using this type of 
care, which would increase their total spending on child care. 

DOD stated that in addition to the recent and planned changes to DOD 
and the Army's fee policies that will likely reduce the differences 
among the services, the Air Force also implemented fee policy changes 
reducing out-of-pocket expenses for families. The Air Force change 
eliminates additional fees if a child is in care more than 10 hours 
per day. However, our analysis of the child care fees charged by the 
services did not include any additional fees they may have charged 
beyond the base fees for regularly scheduled care, such as fees for 
care beyond 10 hours per day. Thus, eliminating those additional fees 
would not change the fee differences among the services that we 
include in this report. 

DOD also commented that in regard to the family support assistance 
provided by professional positions, it believes that the Air Force and 
Navy provide the same level of service as the Army and Marine Corps, 
but in a different manner. We did not assess the level of family 
support assistance provided by each service. Instead, we reported the 
various ways these services provide such assistance through 
professionals within and outside the units and through the services' 
support of volunteer organizations. That said, we recognize the 
importance of the Navy's Family Ombudsman Program and have added it as 
an example of a volunteer effort in the report. 

In addition to these clarifications, DOD also commented that the GAO 
random probability sample of 338 families relative to the total number 
of families accessing the system of care indicates the need for 
caution in drawing conclusions about accessibility of information and 
child care options. We agree that this sample does not represent the 
total number of families accessing DOD's child care system. The 
sample's analysis, which is outlined in appendix I, provides findings 
related to families' off-installation child care costs at the family 
and child level, in conjunction with other variables such as family 
income, private provider fees, and the estimated fee the family would 
have paid for on-installation care. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, 
appropriate congressional committees, and other interested parties. 
The report also is available at no charge on the GAO website at 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, 
please contact me at (202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov. Contact points 
for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be 
found on the last page of this report. GAO staff members who made key 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix V. 

Signed by: 

Kay E. Brown: 
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Objectives: 

Our review focused on the following questions: (1) What are the out-of-
pocket child care costs paid by military families who use Department 
of Defense (DOD) subsidized child care? (2) What are the barriers, if 
any, to obtaining DOD-subsidized care, and what has DOD done in 
response? 

Sample of Family Files: 

To determine the out-of-pocket costs for families using DOD-subsidized 
off-installation care, we analyzed these costs for a random 
probability sample of 338 families from all four services in school 
year 2010.[Footnote 40],[Footnote 41] Specifically, we collected and 
analyzed data from family files maintained by the contractor that 
administers DOD's off-installation child care subsidies, the National 
Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA). 
Our sample included families that participated in regularly scheduled 
child care through Operation Military Child Care and Military Child 
Care in Your Neighborhood, the two DOD-wide subsidy programs for off-
installation care, as well as smaller service-specific programs: Army 
Child Care in Your Neighborhood, Army School-Age Program in Your 
Neighborhood, the Army's Warriors in Transition program, and the 
Marine Corps' San Diego Quality Improvement Program. This analysis 
allowed us to generalize our findings to all families receiving DOD 
subsidies for off-installation child care in school year 2010. 

NACCRRA maintains an electronic database with information that allowed 
us to identify all the military families it served in school year 
2010. We used this database to generate our sampling frame of 
families. However, since this database does not include the 
information needed to calculate families' out-of-pocket costs, we 
collected our data variables from the information contained in paper 
files NACCRRA maintains for each family. To create our sampling frame, 
NACCRRA used the database to generate a list of all families and 
children who received DOD subsidies for off-installation care in 
school year 2010. In selecting our sample, we stratified families by 
service (Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy) and either Active 
Duty or National Guard and Reserves (combined group) component. No 
prior data existed on the out-of-pocket child care costs of military 
families receiving subsidies that would allow us to calculate the 
variance in these costs, which we needed to determine our sample size. 
Thus, we collected a presample of 157 files (at least 36 from each 
service), calculated the out-of-pocket costs for those families, and 
then calculated the variance in costs for each service. We used the 
variance to determine the number of family files we would need to 
collect for the final sample in order to calculate the margin of error 
for each stratum to be no more than plus or minus $90. 

To obtain the family files for both the presample and the final 
sample, we provided NACCRRA with the family identification numbers for 
the files we had randomly selected. When NACCRRA staff had pulled the 
paper files for these families, we went to their offices in person to 
verify the files they had pulled. NACCRRA staff then scanned the 
documentation we needed and sent it to us in PDF form. We requested 
only documentation pertaining to school year 2010 (October 1, 2009 
through September 30, 2010). We requested and received the following 
documentation from each file: 

* Each child's schedule of care, 

* all provider rate sheets, 

* all fee calculator(s) used to calculate the subsidy rate, and: 

* servicemember's deployment orders, if applicable. 

Using this documentation, we input data for each family and child in 
Excel spreadsheets. We ensured the reliability of these hand-entered 
data by having two analysts enter all data, then reconciling any 
discrepancies between the two data spreadsheets. 

Data Analysis: 

For the first objective, to determine the out-of-pocket costs for 
families using on-installation care, we obtained data from DOD and the 
services on the range of fees charged per child at installations in 
school years 2010 and 2011. Family-level cost data for on-installation 
care were not available. Our analysis on families' out-of-pocket costs 
is limited to their weekly or monthly child care fees, although 
families may pay additional costs, such as fees for special events and 
activities. In addition, our analysis of these fee data focused on 
school year 2010, so that we could present data on costs for on-
installation care that covered the same time period as our data on off-
installation care costs. We also analyzed changes to the on-
installation fee ranges in school year 2011. DOD and three of the four 
services provided data on weekly fees, while the fourth service (Army) 
provided monthly fees. We converted DOD and the other services' weekly 
fees to monthly fees using the same calculation used by the Army to 
obtain monthly fees. Specifically, we multiplied the weekly fees by 
365/7 (the number of weeks in a year) to get the yearly fee amount, 
and then divided by 12 to obtain the monthly fee amount. This 
calculation assumes a 365-day year, as well as an equal number of days 
in each month. Since months vary slightly in length, the monthly 
amount paid by families in services that charge fees on a weekly basis 
will also vary slightly. In addition, all Army installations allow 
families 2 weeks of vacation per year, during which they do not pay 
child care fees if their children are not in care. Army families' 
monthly fees are calculated such that families pay more during the 
other 50 weeks of the year to make up for the 2 weeks of vacation. We 
recalculated Army fees without this vacation credit to make them 
comparable to other services' fees, which are generally not reported 
in this form. 

To determine families' costs for off-installation care, we collected 
data from a sample of 338 NACCRRA family files, as described above. We 
analyzed these data to determine families' off-installation child care 
costs at the family and child level, in conjunction with other 
variables such as family income, private provider fees, and the 
estimated fee the family would have paid for on-installation care. We 
compared the averages of these variables across services. In this 
analysis, we weighted family and child data based on the family's 
probability of being selected for the sample, which varied due to 
differences in the population size of each stratum (e.g., families of 
active duty Army servicemembers). Because we followed a probability 
procedure based on random selections, our sample was only one of a 
large number of samples that we might have drawn. Since each sample 
could have provided different estimates, we express our confidence in 
the precision of our particular sample's results as a 95 percent 
confidence interval (e.g., plus or minus $100). This is the interval 
that would contain the actual population value for 95 percent of the 
samples we could have drawn. 

For this objective, we also reviewed the child care fee policies set 
by DOD and the services for school years 2010 and 2011, including the 
fees charged to families for on-installation care, any discounts 
offered to families, and how subsidies are calculated for off-
installation care. Some aspects of the services' fee policies, such as 
their methods of calculating subsidies for off-installation care, were 
not contained in written policies. We obtained this information 
through interviews with DOD and service officials. We also interviewed 
these officials regarding the implementation of these policies. 

Data Reliability: 

Because external data were significant to our research objectives, we 
assessed the reliability of the data obtained from DOD and NACCRRA. To 
assess the reliability of the data on the range of fees charged by 
each service in school years 2010 and 2011, we interviewed officials 
from each service on their annual process for collecting and reviewing 
data on the fees charged by their installations.[Footnote 42] To 
assess the reliability of the NACCRRA data that we used as the 
sampling frame for our sample of families using off-installation care, 
we interviewed NACCRRA officials about their database and how they 
maintain it. To assess the reliability of the Defense Manpower Data 
Center data that we used to determine the number of servicemembers and 
their children who were eligible for DOD child care assistance in 
fiscal year 2011, we interviewed Defense Manpower Data Center 
officials about the reliability of the relevant data fields and also 
conducted electronic testing of the data. We found the data we 
assessed to be sufficiently reliable for the purposes of reporting the 
range of on-installation fees per child by service in school years 
2010 and 2011, and out-of-pocket costs for families using DOD-
subsidized off-installation child care in school year 2010. We found 
that the Defense Manpower Data Center data may not capture 100 percent 
of the children of servicemembers who are eligible for child care, 
because Guard and Reserve members are not required to report their 
children in the data system that populates the Defense Manpower Data 
Center data fields on servicemembers' children. In addition, we found 
that, because the Defense Manpower Data Center data we received 
included members of all reserve categories, these data included some 
servicemembers and children who were not eligible for child care. We 
determined that these limitations were minor enough to allow us to 
report the approximate number of servicemembers eligible for DOD child 
care in the background of the report. 

Installation Site Visits and Structured Discussion Groups: 

To address the second objective, we reviewed relevant federal laws, 
policies and guidance, studies and surveys of military parents, and 
interviewed child and youth program officials with DOD and each of the 
four services, including officials at service headquarters and 
installations. We also interviewed representatives of NACCRRA, 
nonprofit organizations that support military families, and 
researchers knowledgeable about DOD child care programs. In addition, 
we visited two large military installations (Joint Base Lewis-McChord, 
Wash.--Army/Air Force), and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C.) and 
conducted phone interviews with officials at two additional large 
military installations (Naval Station Norfolk, Va., and Nellis Air 
Force Base, Nev.) to learn how each implements child care programs and 
discuss barriers faced by families in obtaining access to these 
programs. To obtain examples of child care programs and barriers faced 
by military parents at installations with no on-installation child 
care facilities, we also conducted telephone interviews with officials 
at two small installations affiliated with two services (Army's Yakima 
Training Center, Wash., and Creech Air Force Base, Nev.), for a total 
of four phone interviews with installations. For our site visits, we 
selected large installations that had a Guard and/or Reserve presence 
and had significant deployment activity. Visiting two large 
installations--one each representing the Army and Marines--provided 
examples of a large and a small service's approaches to child care 
programs. We also selected one installation that is a joint base--
having two military services on base--the Army, the lead service, and 
the Air Force. 

During our site visits we also conducted six semi-structured 
discussion groups with military parents at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, 
and five at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, including parents who did 
and who did not have their children enrolled in DOD-subsidized child 
care. We also held two additional semi-structured discussions with 
reserve servicemembers at Camp Lejeune. During these semi-structured 
discussions we inquired into how parents learned about DOD-subsidized 
child care and any barriers they may have encountered obtaining this 
care. In addition, we conducted phone interviews with child care 
officials and military parents at two additional large military 
installations--Naval Station Norfolk, Va., and Nellis Air Force Base, 
Nev. The information obtained during these visits and through phone 
calls is illustrative and not representative of each service or of DOD 
programs as a whole. 

In order to select servicemembers for our small discussion groups at 
the two sites we visited, we provided DOD with selection criteria that 
they used to identify servicemembers to invite to these groups. 
Because we held separate discussions with officers and enlisted 
servicemembers, we used the same criteria for each. Our criteria were 
officers and enlisted servicemembers with children 12 and under who 
were using DOD child care--including both on-installation facilities 
and off-installation community care subsidies--and those not using 
such care. In addition, at each site we visited we also met with a 
small group of spouses of servicemembers with children 12 and under. 
Many of these spouses worked for a DOD family support office or were 
members of military organizations that serve spouses, such as the 
Marine Corps L.I.N.K.S program, which is a volunteer, mentoring 
program, designed by Marine Corps spouses to help family members 
understand and adapt to the unique challenges of military life. 

Review of NACCRRA Studies: 

To assess the methodological quality of a NACCRRA study we used to 
support the scarcity of providers eligible to receive DOD child care 
subsidies,[Footnote 43] we reviewed the study's methodology and also 
obtained responses from NACCRRA to questions we had about this 
methodology. We used a different NACCRRA study to identify differences 
in how states oversee and regulate private child care 
providers.[Footnote 44] Since this study did not include a 
methodology, we obtained information from NACCRRA about the 
methodology it used to prepare this report. We also confirmed certain 
information NACCRRA included in the study for the two states where we 
performed site visits at installations in order to help verify the 
accuracy of this information and found no relevant discrepancies 
between the study and state-provided information. We found these 
reports to be sufficiently reliable for the purposes described above. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: On-Installation Fee Ranges in School Year 2011: 

Figure 4: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Allowable Monthly 
Fee Ranges and Ranges in the Actual Fees Charged by Services for On-
Installation Care in School Year 2011, by Income Category: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated horizontal bar graph] 

Category I: No income to $29,400; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $191-$256; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $269; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $191-$269; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $192-$245; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $191-$269; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $243-$269. 

Category II: $29,401 to $35,700; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $261-$322; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $339; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $261-$339; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $240-$339; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $261-$339; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $304-$339. 

Category III: $35,701 to $46,200; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $326-$391; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $413; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $326-$413; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $299-$412; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $326-$413; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $361-$413. 

Category IV: $46,201 to $57,750; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $395-$456; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $478; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $395-$478; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $358-$477; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $395-$478; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $417-$478. 

Category V: $57,751 to $73,500; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $461-$526; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $552; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $461-$550; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $416-$552; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $461-$552; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $474-$552. 

Category VI: $73,501 to $85,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $530-$560; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $595; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $530-$595; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $481-$596; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $529-$595; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $530-$595. 

New categories added in FY 2011: 
  
Category VII: $85,001 to $100,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $569-$578; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $608; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $569-$608; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $485-$608; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $569-$608; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $569-$608. 

Category VIII: $100,001 to $125,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $582-$591; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $621; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $582-$621; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $487-$621; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $582-$621; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $582-$621. 

Category IX: More than $125,000; 
Child care fee range set by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 
standard-cost installations: $595-$604; 
Maximum end of the OSD fee range in high-cost areas: $634; 
Air Force: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $595-$634; 
Army: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $491-$634; 
Marines: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $595-$634; 
Navy: 
Range of fees charged by most installations: $595-$634. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy 
data. 

Note: Fees are for full-time child care at Child Development Centers 
(CDC), and do not include any fee reductions that individual families 
may receive. OSD fee policy sets ranges for weekly fees, and all of 
the services except the Army set and charge fees on a weekly basis. 
Fee ranges have been converted to monthly terms using calculations 
that assume a 365-day year and an equal number of days per month. 
Families' actual monthly costs will vary slightly depending on the 
length of the month. In addition, all Army installations allow 
families 2 weeks of vacation per year, during which they do not pay 
child care fees if their children are not in care. Army families' 
monthly fees are calculated such that families pay more during the 
other weeks of the year to make up for the 2 weeks of vacation. We 
recalculated Army fees without this vacation credit to make them 
comparable to other services' fees, which are generally not reported 
in this form. The Army also obtained permission from OSD to allow some 
of its installations that had been charging rates at the lower end of 
the previous fee ranges to charge rates below the new fee ranges in 
school year 2011, to prevent families at these installations from 
experiencing large fee increases. Additionally, Army officials said 
that OSD officials granted permission for nearly all Army 
installations to charge fees below the OSD standard range for 
Categories VII through IX. Consequently, the lower end of the range of 
fees actually charged by the Army is lower than the minimum OSD fee 
for all but one fee category. Three Army installations--Fort Monroe, 
Fort Monmouth, and Fort McPherson--were in the process of closing due 
to Base Realignment and Closure in school year 2011, and were 
therefore not required to adopt the new school year 2011 fee policy. 
As a result, we did not include these installations in our fee range 
calculations. Due to rounding, in a few instances the services' fee 
ranges may appear slightly lower or higher than the OSD fee ranges. 

[End of figure] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Supplemental Data from Sample of Families Using DOD-
Subsidized Off-Installation Care: 

Table 6: Number of Families and Children in Sample, by Service and 
Component: 

Service/component: Total; 
Number of families: 338; 
Number of children: 499. 

Service/component: Air Force; 
Number of families: 95; 
Number of children: 147. 

Service/component: Air Force; Active Duty; 
Number of families: 50; 
Number of children: 66. 

Service/component: Air Force; National Guard and Reserve; 
Number of families: 45; 
Number of children: 81. 

Service/component: Army; 
Number of families: 83; 
Number of children: 121. 

Service/component: Army; Active Duty; 
Number of families: 29; 
Number of children: 42. 

Service/component: Army; National Guard and Reserve; 
Number of families: 54; 
Number of children: 79. 

Service/component: Marines Corps; 
Number of families: 60; 
Number of children: 88. 

Service/component: Marines Corps; Active Duty; 
Number of families: 35; 
Number of children: 50. 

Service/component: Marines Corps; Reserve; 
Number of families: 25; 
Number of children: 38. 

Service/component: Navy; 
Number of families: 100; 
Number of children: 143. 

Service/component: Navy; Active Duty; 
Number of families: 52; 
Number of children: 67. 

Service/component: Navy; Reserve; 
Number of families: 48; 
Number of children: 76. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA. 

[End of table] 

Table 7: Average, 10th Percentile, and 90th Percentile Annual Total 
Family Incomes of Families Using Off-Installation Care in Fiscal Year 
2010, by Service: 

Service: All services; 
Average income[A]: $84,860; 
10th percentile income[B]: $47,539; 
90th percentile income[C]: $130,497. 

Service: Air Force; 
Average income[A]: $100,615; 
10th percentile income[B]: $48,350; 
90th percentile income[C]: $174,476. 

Service: Army; 
Average income[A]: $85,485; 
10th percentile income[B]: $48,659; 
90th percentile income[C]: $130,559. 

Service: Marine Corps; 
Average income[A]: $77,627; 
10th percentile income[B]: $42,747; 
90th percentile income[C]: $117,538. 

Service: Navy; 
Average income[A]: $77,319; 
10th percentile income[B]: $46,548; 
90th percentile income[C]: $99,109. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA. 

[A] 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates range from +/-
$5,197 to +/-$14,928. 

[B] 95% confidence intervals for these estimates do not exceed $33,155 
to $59,947. 

[C] 95% confidence intervals for these estimates do not exceed $93,432 
to $183,538. 

[End of table] 

Table 8: Percent of Families Using Off-Installation Care with a 
Servicemember Who Was Deployed in Fiscal Year 2010, by Service: 

Service: All services; 
Percent deployed: 26%. 

Service: Air Force; 
Percent deployed: 15%. 

Service: Army; 
Percent deployed: 30%. 

Service: Marine Corps; 
Percent deployed: 16%. 

Service: Navy; 
Percent deployed: 19%. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA. 

Note: 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates range from +/-
6% to +/-11%. 

[End of table] 

Table 9: Average Monthly Costs per Child for Off-Installation Care in 
School Year 2010, by Service: 

Service: All; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $387; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: -$27; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 91.5%. 

Service: Air Force; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $542; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: $33; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 107.7%. 

Service: Army; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $345; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: -$43; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 87.1%. 

Service: Marine Corps; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $388; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: -$42; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 88.6%. 

Service: Navy; 
Average cost for off-installation care[A]: $562; 
Average difference between cost for off-installation care and 
estimated on-installation fee[B]: $66; 
Average cost for off-installation care as a percentage of estimated on-
installation fee[C]: 113.9%. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA. 

[A] 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates do not exceed 
+/-$48. 

[B] 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates do not exceed 
+/-$42. 

[C] 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates range from +/-
5.7% to +/-10.5%. 

[End of table] 

Table 10: Percent of Air Force and Navy Families Using Off-
Installation Care Affected by Subsidy Cap in School Year 2010: 

Service: Air Force; 
Percent capped: 66%. 

Service: Navy; 
Percent capped: 63%. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from NACCRRA. 

Note: 95% margins of sampling error for these estimates do not exceed 
+/-12%. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Note: GAO received DOD's letter on January 6, 2012. 

Office of The Under Secretary Of Defense: 
Personnel and Readiness: 
4000 Defense Pentagon: 
Washington, D.C. 20301-4000: 

Kay E. Brown: 
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 
United States Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Brown: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and provide comments on the 
report "Military Childcare: DoD is Taking Action to Address Awareness 
and Availability Barriers." The Department of Defense (DoD) is 
committed to helping our families access affordable, quality child 
care. We consider care for young children to be a workforce issue for 
military families with direct impact on the effectiveness and 
readiness of the force. 

The report tackles the challenging task of sorting through a system 
that includes broad overarching policy while allowing for flexibility 
among the military Services. In general, we believe that the report 
correctly addresses the issues of providing fee assistance to military
members and assisting with access to child care. DoD wishes to provide 
additional clarification for some of the content. 

With regards to the Service variations for installation child care per 
child costs, we believe that the text does not clearly differentiate 
the basis for variations in the fee ranges within categories. As 
reported, the range of allowable fees includes the high cost fee 
option exercised by a limited number of installations approved by DoD. 
In practice, the fee variations are smaller due to the limited number 
of programs utilizing the high cost fee option. 

The discussion of average costs per family for off-installation care 
notes the differences among the Services with regards to capping 
monthly fee assistance. The Services demonstrate a philosophical 
difference in choosing to cap the fee assistance versus choosing to 
provide greater fee assistance to families living in high cost areas. 
While the report concludes that a policy change that does not cap the 
fee assistance would require increased spending on child care for most 
of the Services, Army analysis concludes that the average amount of 
child care fee assistance paid per child is, on average, less than or 
equal to, the capped rate currently paid by the other Services. 

In addition to the recent and planned changes to DoD and the Army's 
fee policies that will likely reduce the differences among the 
Services, Air Force also implemented fee policy changes reducing out 
of pocket expenses for families by eliminating the 10 hour care rule. 
This allows parents to utilize care beyond 10 hours a day without 
additional cost. 

The report references actions taken to address awareness and 
availability barriers. With regards to the family support assistance 
provided by paid professional positions, we believe that the Air Force 
and Navy provide the same level of service utilizing volunteers and 
other professional staff. The Navy's Family Ombudsman Program, created 
to improve communication between commands and the families of Sailors 
who served in them, is a key component of volunteer support. 

Finally, the random probability sample of 338 families relative to the 
total number of families accessing the system of care indicates the 
need for caution in drawing conclusions about accessibility of 
information and child care options. It is important for policy makers 
to understand the limitations of the data set when making decisions 
about the availability and accessibility of child care for military 
families. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Robert L. Gordon, III: 
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Military Community & Family 
Policy): 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Kay E. Brown, (202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov: 

Acknowledgments: 

Janet Mascia, Assistant Director, and Julianne Hartman Cutts, Analyst-
in-Charge, managed this assignment. Caitlin Croake, Lauren Gilbertson, 
Hayley Landes, and Suzanne Rubins made significant contributions to 
all aspects of this report. Kate Van Gelder, Holly Dye, and James 
Bennett provided writing and graphics assistance. In addition, Kirsten 
Lauber, Terry Richardson, Jeff M. Tessin, and Cynthia Grant provided 
design and methodological assistance. James Rebbe provided legal 
assistance. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] In this report "armed services" refers to the Departments of the 
Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. For the remainder of the 
report we refer to the armed services as "services." 

[2] Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 573, 123 Stat. 2190, 2318. 

[3] According to DOD officials, the school year may begin in August or 
September, depending on the local school schedule. However, DOD 
normally requires that child care policies for the new school year be 
implemented no later than September 30. 

[4] Our sample included active duty servicemembers and members of the 
National Guard and Reserves. 

[5] See appendix I for our sampling methodology. 

[6] DOD defines an installation as a base, camp, post, station, yard, 
center, homeport facility for any ship, or other activity under the 
jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, including any leased 
facility. We use the term "installation" in this report to refer to 
any DOD locations included in this definition that have on-site child 
care facilities. Similar to DOD and the services, we use the terms "on-
installation" and "off-installation" to distinguish between child care 
facilities on and off of installations, respectively. 

[7] GAO, Child Care: How Do Military and Civilian Center Costs 
Compare?, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/HEHS-00-7] 
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 14, 1999). 

[8] Pub. L. No. 101-189, Div. A, Title XV, 103 Stat. 1352, 1589, as 
amended. 

[9] Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense, 
Report of the Tenth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, 
Volume II: Deferred and Noncash Compensation (Washington, D.C.: July 
2008). In a 1982 report, we highlighted several problems with DOD 
child care, including unsafe child care facilities and other issues, 
which led to a new DOD child care policy prior to the enactment of the 
Military Child Care Act of 1989. See GAO, Military Child Care 
Programs: Progress Made, More Needed, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/FPCD-82-30] (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 
1982). 

[10] Based on a demand formula calculation, DOD estimates the 
approximate number of military children that will need child care; 
DOD's goal is to meet 80 percent of that demand. The calculation is 
based on data DOD collects about military families and children such 
as the number of servicemembers' children who are 12 and under, and 
related assumptions, such as the percentage of children living in 
different family types (e.g., single-parent families, and families in 
which both parents are servicemembers). 

[11] This report discusses costs for families using regularly 
scheduled DOD-subsidized child care programs, and therefore does not 
include discussion of families' costs for respite and hourly care. 

[12] DOD offers 16 hours per month of free respite child care to the 
families of active duty and Reserve and Guard servicemembers who are 
deployed or meet other criteria, such as those undergoing a temporary 
change of station. DOD also offers care for family members with 
special needs as part of its Exceptional Family Member Program. We did 
not include this program in this review because it was not 
specifically child care. 

[13] Youth development programs must meet a separate set of standards. 

[14] DOD Instruction 6060.2(4.3). Reservists include members of the 
Reserves and the National Guard. 

[15] These counts include members of all reserve categories, including 
those who were not on active duty or in personnel training. Therefore, 
not all of these servicemembers and their children were eligible for 
DOD child care programs. 

[16] DOD Instruction 6060.2(4.2 and 4.3). Some DOD child care programs 
have other eligibility requirements. For example, Operation Military 
Child Care and Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood are primarily 
for servicemembers, rather than civilians. 

[17] Total family income includes both the income of the servicemember 
and the servicemember's spouse, if applicable. 

[18] In school year 2011, all four services offered a multiple child 
discount of up to 20 percent for additional children in care as well 
as discounts for families experiencing financial hardship. The Army 
also offered a 20 percent deployment discount, and both the Army and 
Navy offered discounts for families with injured servicemembers. 

[19] In school year 2010, 64 percent of military installations with 
CDCs charged fees within OSD's standard fee range, while over a third 
charged fees within OSD's high-cost range. In school year 2011, the 
number of military installations with CDCs that charged fees within 
OSD's high-cost range declined to about 11 percent. 

[20] Because these data are at the child level, they cannot be used to 
draw conclusions about costs at the family level for on-installation 
care in school year 2010, since individual families may have had more 
than one child in care. In addition, these fee data do not include any 
fee reductions offered by the services. 

[21] The services are allowed to charge higher fees at high-cost 
installations under DOD Instruction 6060.2, section E3.6.3.5. 
According to OSD, in addition to standard fee ranges, in school year 
2010 it set high-cost fee ranges for installations in high-cost areas, 
but also allowed installations to adjust the standard fee by the 
percentage of their cost-of-living allowance, post differential, or 
locality pay. OSD officials said that, beginning in school year 2011, 
they set a single set of high-cost fees, which all high-cost 
installations are now required to charge. 

[22] The Army offers fee reductions for both on-installation and off-
installation care. 

[23] We drew our sample from families using off-installation care at 
some point from October 1, 2009, through September 30, 2010. Because 
we conducted our sample data collection in the spring of 2011, school 
year 2010 was the most recent school year for which we could collect a 
full school year of data. 

[24] When we refer to "off-installation care," we are referring to off-
installation, private child care providers who receive DOD child care 
subsidies to serve military families. 

[25] Our data on these families' costs only include the fees families 
paid to providers (minus the subsidy amount paid by DOD on their 
behalf). Families may have additional child care costs such as 
registration fees. 

[26] GAO's sample of families receiving subsidies for off-installation 
care in school year 2010 provides data on their monthly child care 
costs at the family level. Because families may have had more than one 
child in care, these costs are not directly comparable to the costs 
per child for on-installation care. 

[27] Because we estimate the average difference for Air Force families 
to have ranged from -$9 to $104 in 95 percent of the samples we might 
have drawn, there is a small chance that the estimated higher amount 
paid for on-installation care is caused by sampling error. 

[28] All of the differences between families in the Navy and Air Force 
and Army and Marine Corps discussed in this paragraph are 
significantly different from zero at the = .05 confidence level. 

[29] Beginning in July 2011, rather than calculating the subsidy 
amount in this manner, the Marine Corps began providing a subsidy of 
$250 per month to all eligible families using full-time, off-
installation child care. 

[30] Army officials said they replaced the subsidy caps with provider 
rate caps beginning in school year 2011 because these caps are much 
easier to administer and this type of cap helps ensure that funds 
support families who need assistance. They said that, in contrast, 
their subsidy caps were difficult to manage and, as a result, were not 
accurate or comprehensive enough to ensure fee equity for all families 
or to provide sufficient fee assistance for all who needed it. 

[31] The Marine Corps did not have an official minimum subsidy policy 
in school year 2010. However, a NACCRRA official said that they 
offered a minimum subsidy of $100 to Marine Corps families. 

[32] The subsidy calculation takes into account an estimate of what 
the family would have paid for on-installation care, and fees for on-
installation care are based on family income. Because the Marine Corps 
began offering $250 a month to all eligible families in July 2011, 
family income is no longer a factor in Marine Corps families' costs 
for off-base care. 

[33] The Army obtained permission from OSD to allow certain 
installations that had been charging rates at the lower end of the 
previous fee ranges to charge rates below the new fee ranges in school 
year 2011, to prevent families at these installations from 
experiencing large fee increases. Consequently, the lower end of the 
range of fees actually charged by the services is lower than the 
minimum OSD fee for this, and other, fee categories. 

[34] GAO, Military Health: Increased TRICARE Eligibility for 
Reservists Presents Educational Challenges, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-195] (Washington D.C.: Feb 12, 
2007). 

[35] Within the Marines this position is the Family Readiness Officer 
and within the Army it is the Family Readiness Support Assistant. 

[36] These volunteer organizations typically include military members 
and their spouses. 

[37] DOD partnered with the University of Georgia to formally evaluate 
the Joint Family Support Assistance Program in fiscal year 2011. OSD 
expects the evaluation to be completed in November 2012. 

[38] Linda K. Smith and Mousumi Sarkar, Making Quality Child Care 
Possible: Lessons Learned from NACCRRA's Military Partnerships, 
NACCRRA (September 2008). According to the NACCRRA review, in 2008 
only about 6 percent of family child care homes had a Child 
Development Associate-credentialed provider. 

[39] In the past, the Army had a contractor perform this work. 

[40] Our sample included active duty servicemembers and members of the 
National Guard and Reserves. 

[41] According to DOD officials, the school year may begin in August 
or September, depending on the local school schedule. However, DOD 
normally requires that child care policies for the new school year be 
implemented no later than September 30. For the purposes of our 
sample, we used fiscal year 2010 (October 1, 2009 through September 
30, 2010) as a proxy for school year 2010. Because we conducted our 
sample data collection in the spring of 2011, school year 2010 was the 
most recent school year for which we could collect a full school year 
of data. 

[42] Because Navy fee policy requires that all standard cost 
installations charge one fee for each income category and all high-
cost installations charge a different set of fees for each income 
category, we reported the standard-and high-cost fees set in Navy fee 
policy, and did not need to assess the reliability of these fee data. 

[43] Linda K. Smith and Mousumi Sarkar, Making Quality Child Care 
Possible: Lessons Learned from NACCRRA's Military Partnerships, 
NACCRRA (September 2008). 

[44] Unpublished NACCRRA study done at the request of DOD. 

[End of section] 

GAO’s Mission: 

The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation, and 
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting 
its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the 
performance and accountability of the federal government for the 
American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates 
federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, 
and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, 
and funding decisions. GAO’s commitment to good government is 
reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and 
reliability. 

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony: 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no 
cost is through GAO’s website [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. Each 
weekday afternoon, GAO posts on its website newly released reports, 
testimony, and correspondence. To have GAO e-mail you a list of newly 
posted products, go to [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov] and select “E-
mail Updates.” 

Order by Phone: 

The price of each GAO publication reflects GAO’s actual cost of 
production and distribution and depends on the number of pages in the 
publication and whether the publication is printed in color or black 
and white. Pricing and ordering information is posted on GAO’s 
website, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/ordering.htm]. 

Place orders by calling (202) 512-6000, toll free (866) 801-7077, or 
TDD (202) 512-2537. 

Orders may be paid for using American Express, Discover Card, 
MasterCard, Visa, check, or money order. Call for additional 
information. 

Connect with GAO: 

Connect with GAO on facebook, flickr, twitter, and YouTube.
Subscribe to our RSS Feeds or E mail Updates. Listen to our Podcasts.
Visit GAO on the web at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs: 

Contact: 
Website: [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm]; 
E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov; 
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470. 

Congressional Relations: 

Katherine Siggerud, Managing Director, siggerudk@gao.gov, (202) 512-4400
U.S. Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7125
Washington, DC 20548. 

Public Affairs: 
Chuck Young, Managing Director, youngc1@gao.gov, (202) 512-4800
U.S. Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7149 
Washington, DC 20548.