In a presentation on the potential for converting military positions to civilian, the CBO said that after taking into account pay and benefits (including educational and veterans benefits for military personnel) and tax revenue back to the government, the average uniformed member costs $135,200 a year versus $96,000 for the average civilian federal employee.
It said that swapping federal employees for military personnel in positions suitable for such conversions would produce savings of about $3 billion a year if done on a one-for-one basis. That amount would increase to about $5 billion by having four federal employees replace every five service members and to about $6 billion by having two replace every three.
“Civilians have advantages beyond lower costs, such as greater stability or familiarity with technological advances for which military personnel would require additional training,” it said. “However, there are disadvantages to shedding military positions.
“Achieving the savings would depend on cutting military end strength–an action that would reduce DoD’s ability to surge troops in a protracted conflict. Also, reducing commercial positions could have adverse effects on the services’ workforce management goals or unique needs,” it said.
