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A civilian Defense Department employee will not be reimbursed for the money she spent traveling from her temporary telework site to her permanent work location, according to the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals.

In March 2002, Rebecca Sanford, a civilian employee of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., got permission to work remotely from Columbus, Miss. for two months. Under the agreement and in all subsequent paperwork, Mississippi was considered a temporary location and Colorado remained her permanent work location.

Sanford informally extended her telework agreement to October and in September she was issued a travel authorization covering two days of per diem expenses and mileage for driving her car back to Colorado. The travel authorization listed Mississippi as her permanent duty station.

When Sanford submitted her reimbursement forms, she was denied. Sanford asked the board to review the decision.

According to the board, the Defense Department's travel policy allows reimbursement of travel costs from a telework location to another work location if the telework location is the employee's permanent work location. However, personnel records consistently identified Colorado as Sanford's permanent work location and identified Mississippi as a temporary work location, even though the telework assignment was extended beyond the initial two months.

"Both Ms. Sanford and DoD treated the arrangement as temporary, not permanent," the board said in its decision. "DoD's guidelines do not permit DoD to pay for Ms. Sanford to travel from Mississippi to Colorado, because Mississippi was not her official duty station."

The board decided that the travel authorization was issued in error and that the department did not have the authority to pay Sanford for her travel expenses.

Rebecca M. Sanford v. Defense Department, General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals (16137-TRAV), July 2, 2003

Car Trouble

When Carl Willecke's supervisor told him to stop using his personal car for work-related trips, Willecke ignored him.

Willecke, a manager at an Army Corps of Engineers district office in Chicago, not only continued to use his car to conduct business for the next five months, but demanded reimbursement for the expenses he incurred during his trips. When his supervisor refused to consider Willecke's reimbursement requests, Willecke turned to the Board of Contract Appeals.

Willecke's supervisor claimed he had good reason for telling Willecke to stop driving the personal car on work errands. The supervisor alleged that Willecke had designated the car as an "official" Army Corps car by attaching a license plate assigned to an Army Corps vehicle and a magnetic Corps identification tag.

The supervisor also claimed that Willecke used his car for trips that he could have taken by cab for less money than he ended up spending on gas and parking in downtown Chicago. Also, Willecke allegedly submitted incorrect mileage claims.

The Defense Department's Joint Travel Regulations allow supervisors to reimburse employees for local travel, as long as the supervisor has approved the mode of transportation and authorized the trip in general. In Willecke's case, the supervisor "clearly and directly informed [him] that he would not approve reimbursement for mileage traveled in his personal vehicle," the board wrote in a June 11 decision.

Willecke had claimed that he should be in charge of authorizing his own travel plans and reimbursement since he is a manager. But the board noted that the Army Corps of Engineers designated Willecke's supervisor with the authority to reimburse him for travel. The district Corps office could have allowed Willecke to authorize his own travel, but chose not to, the board said. "While a different determination may have been better policy, we express no thoughts on this matter," the board wrote.

The board sided with the supervisor, upholding his decision to ignore Willecke's claims for mileage reimbursement.

Carl A. Willecke v. Army Corps of Engineers, General Services Board of Contract Appeals (16083-TRAV), June 11, 2003