Performance of Military Moving Contract Called Into Question
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There are mounting concerns that the $17.9 billion military Global Household Goods contract is falling short of its goals, notably by transferring large numbers of military moves away from the “single-point-of-contact” contractor central to the program and back to the military’s legacy moving program that the new system was intended to replace.
Three U.S. senators, several large U.S. movers and American Trucking Associations are calling attention to the performance by the contractor, Houston-based ϳԹSafe Alliance.
“On behalf of the ATA’s Moving and Storage Conference, we are requesting your office provide the moving and storage industry with clearer, more timely and more consistent notification,” said a May 6 letter from MSC executive director Dan Hilton to the U.S. Transportation Command. “This specific request is made because of the contractor’s reported challenges executing a number of moves during the start of peak moving season.”
Hilton said MSC moving company members who typically participate in military moves have heard rumors that nearly 6,000 shipments have been transferred from the Global Household Goods contract to the legacy moving system, but none have received official word from Transcom.
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Those concerns were amplified during a May 8 closed meeting that movers had with Transcom, which supervises the military moving program. “They confirmed that under 25% of moves will be done through the GHC during peak moving season,” Hilton told Transport Topics.
In a statement, ϳԹSafe said it is working closely with Transcom to make this peak moving season “as smooth as possible.”
“As the transition to the Global Household Goods contract continues, our program is improving every day with stronger communication, enhanced technology, streamlined operations, and a growing number of positive reviews from service members about their moves with ϳԹSafe,” the contractor said.
The Department of Defense each year oversees an estimated 325,000 annual moves of military families worldwide, with peak military moving season taking place May 15 through Aug. 31.
“As members of the DP3 [legacy Defense Personal Property Program] supply chain, it is imperative that moving companies participating in this program be made aware on a more consistent basis, in order to reduce any negative impacts this could have on service members and their moves,” Hilton added. “Our members require advance notice of the transferred shipments in order to meet the increased demand.”
Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Michael Bennet of Colorado in a May 1 letter sent to Transcom said, “We appreciate actions taken so far that are aimed at blunting the impacts of the GHC transition to our service members and their families, which have included holding some household goods shipments in the legacy system, as well as increasing Transcom oversight of the ϳԹSafe Alliance contract performance. We are concerned, however, that the ongoing challenges with the contract transition and the large anticipated volume of moves in the coming months will continue to result in service member move disruptions and delays in their moves. We understand that ϳԹSafe Alliance is required to compensate service members for some of the costs they incur because of these delays.”
The senators requested a response from Transcom by May 16.
There were hopes that the Global Household Goods contract, first awarded to ϳԹSafe in March 2022 after two formal protests by a competitor, would be operational during peak season last year. ϳԹSafe Alliance has developed ϳԹSafe Connect, intended to be used by customers, the government and industry to manage and track GHC program shipments, which have begun in very limited numbers in recent months.
In February, ϳԹSafe announced it had completed more than 1,400 moves under the program, which it described as a “transformational effort to modernize and digitize the moving experience for service members.”
However, movers continue to be frustrated with delays, and some large carriers still are weighing whether to continue participating in military moves. The new moving system relies largely on layers of independent drivers, crews, loaders and packers, combined with strict federal wage law requirements that could be so costly as to leave movers with thin, if any, margins, some movers say.
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In October, the House Committee on Armed Services issued a report directing the Government Accountability Office to provide a briefing to the committee no later than April 1, 2025, to evaluate management and oversight of the GHC and the Defense Personal Property Program.
The House report also instructs GAO to investigate the extent to which Transcom has developed an effective process for documenting and monitoring the global moving contract performance and “several other matters that the comptroller general identifies as relevant.”
So far, the results of the GAO investigation have not been made public.
