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The combatant command charged with managing army personnel strikes did not adequately oversee the efficiency of a contractor it employed to deal with tens of 1000’s of shipments of service members’ family items, which contributed to the failure of the contract and a depressing shifting expertise for a lot of troops and their households, a authorities watchdog discovered.
In 2021, U.S. Transportation Command awarded a International Family Items Contract price $17.9 billion over 9 years to a industrial transfer supervisor referred to as HomeSafe Alliance. As a part of the deal, HomeSafe was anticipated to supervise a community of subcontractors to pack, retailer, and transport the family items of Energetic-Responsibility service members and their households.
The objective was to enhance service members’ transfer expertise and maintain movers accountable for poor efficiency. As a substitute, TRANSCOM terminated about 7,400 shipments out of 20,000 initiated with HomeSafe “as a result of contractor’s failure to fulfill efficiency necessities or lack of capability to handle the shipments,” the Authorities Accountability Workplace wrote in a report printed Sept. 11.
The GHC went operational in April 2024, however by Could 2025, advocates and lawmakers mentioned greater than 1,000 army households reported family transfer failures akin to missed pickups and supply points.
“[We attempted] to coordinate for over three weeks, no resolution was offered, and nobody was accessible to select up our items,” one service member informed GAO. “This delay compelled us to increase our lease, leading to further out-of-pocket bills and inserting pressure on our relationship with our landlord.”
In June, the providers started shifting strikes again to the outdated system, earlier than ultimately terminating the GHC altogether that very same month. However the implementation might have gone higher if TRANSCOM and the broader Protection Division had finished a greater job gathering details about and overseeing HomeSafe, GAO wrote.
Particularly, TRANSCOM officers didn’t gauge if HomeSafe had the capability to handle organizing so many strikes directly. It additionally had incomplete info concerning the prices of the transition, resulting in value overruns. The Protection Division additionally lacked complete suggestions on service members’ expertise with HomeSafe, which restricted its evaluation of contractor efficiency, GAO mentioned.
Earlier than GHC, some 800 personal shifting contractors labored instantly with the army service transport places of work. After GHC, these contractors would work as potential subcontractors for HomeSafe, which TRANSCOM hoped would supply service members a single level of contact, in addition to the power to handle and observe their shipments on-line.
The Protection Division arranges about 300,000 private property shipments for troops and households yearly, a determine TRANSCOM knew for years could be so much to tackle for whoever gained the GHC contract. In 2020, a consulting firm referred to as the Logistics Administration Institute advisable TRANSCOM conduct follow-on analyses for capability danger for whoever gained the GHC contract, however the command by no means did so, and the Protection Division by no means addressed how TRANSCOM would oversee capability danger, GAO wrote.
“Regardless of figuring out capability as a danger to profitable contract implementation, TRANSCOM didn’t gather ample info to conduct efficient oversight of contractor capability throughout GHC implementation,” the watchdog mentioned.
The important thing downside was that HomeSafe set compensation charges that had been a lot decrease than market charges for shifting providers, which meant fewer firms might make a revenue. That led to fewer firms taking part, and never sufficient capability to deal with the demand. TRANSCOM officers informed GAO “they didn’t have visibility into the charges the GHC contractor paid subcontractors,” the watchdog mentioned.
That left army households with shoddy contractors.
“I referred to as [the contractor] two days earlier than the transfer as I didn’t obtain any coordination for the transfer,” one service member informed GAO. “After I referred to as, the agent informed me they forgot to schedule me.”
The GHC additionally didn’t require HomeSafe to constantly ship TRANSCOM detailed details about its capability, and the data it did present “misrepresented the contractor’s capability to handle shipments,” GAO mentioned. Between February and April 2025, TRANSCOM moved about 6,700 shipments again into the outdated system at HomeSafe’s request, inflicting “substantial further work” for the army’s private property transport places of work.
“With out correct info concerning capability to handle the danger to contract implementation, the quantity of shipments TRANSCOM ordered from the contractor exceeded the contractor’s real looking capability, leading to efficiency failures and impacts on army households,” the watchdog mentioned.
The army additionally did not correctly gauge HomeSafe’s efficiency. Particularly, when the GHC course of botched a transfer and the transfer was transferred to the outdated system, the household acquired a survey from TRANSCOM for the outdated system however not for the GHC contractor’s shoddy pickup providers, which restricted TRANSCOM’s consciousness of GHC efficiency. The army transport places of work additionally had much less authority to intervene instantly on high quality points than they used to, since all points now had undergo TRANSCOM and HomeSafe on their technique to the subcontractor.
On prime of all that, the completely different info know-how methods utilized by the federal government and the contractor led to information inconsistencies which made it powerful to schedule inspections and ensure strikes went as deliberate.
Lack of complete info meant prices saved going up because the Protection Division paid for a rising listing of administrative bills and IT improvement and integration issues. And regardless of GHC being meant to offer extra accountability, TRANSCOM wound up paying about $3.2 million for about 7,400 terminated activity orders, with no reimbursement anticipated as of June 2025, GAO mentioned.
What occurs subsequent for PCS reform is unclear. In Could, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth stood up a PCS activity pressure to handle troops’ considerations, and a June press launch mentioned the duty pressure would develop to greater than 50 members with a 24/7 name middle to assist troops and households resolve points.
“On the finish of the day, there have been numerous good issues about GHC as a metamorphosis initiative that actually made the system higher,” activity pressure head Military Maj. Gen. Lance G. Curtis mentioned within the launch. “The issue was the contractor was not assembly our expectations.”
Due to the termination, the overwhelming majority of PCS strikes this yr are being run via the outdated system, which needed to scale up on the final minute to fulfill an surprising surge in demand.
Curtis mentioned future contracts “must have oversight duties and there must be penalties tied to the accountability,” including that he would search suggestions from service members and households as he comes up with choices for Hegseth to enhance the method later this yr.
In August, the duty pressure hosted an business day, the place authorities and business representatives warned towards future single-source options, in accordance with DefenseScoop.
Because the Protection Division figures out what to do subsequent, the GAO advisable that the protection secretary make sure that his workplace and TRANSCOM receive the great info on capability, efficiency, and prices that they failed to collect underneath GHC.
Curtis wrote in response that the Protection Division agreed with the advice.
Audio of this text is delivered to you by the Air & Area Forces Affiliation, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their households. Discover out extra at afa.org