The Veterans Affairs Department's travel policies are a little too loose for auditors' comfort.
The General Accounting Office Tuesday released a report, "VA Travel: Better Budgeting and Stronger Controls Needed" (GGD-99-137), criticizing the VA for allowing some officials to approve their own travel expenses and for letting employees exceed per diem caps without authorization from above.
"VA's travel policy provides for many of its top officials to be delegated authority to authorize and approve their own travel," GAO said. "We found that this policy was being implemented in the field without compensating controls, which increases the likelihood that errors and abuses may occur and not be detected."
Keeping with Vice President Al Gore's advice that agencies give field offices more power over their operations, the VA in recent years has decentralized decision-making authority, including authority over employee travel.
VA has gone too far, according to GAO. For example, two veterans hospital network directors exceeded per diem caps by more than 150 percent without receiving the required approval from VA's central travel policy office, GAO found. One director claimed hotel expenses of $260 per night in Washington in 1998; the per diem rate was $126 a night. Another director paid $174 a night in New Orleans in 1998; the lodging allowance was $88 a night.
In another case, a network director authorized all employees traveling to a particular county to exceed the per diem rate by up to 200 percent. But the director didn't get the required approval for that decision from headquarters.
Many of VA's field facilities also granted some employees open travel authorizations, which allow them to go on business travel without first obtaining specific spending authorizations for each trip. But such open authorizations should only be given to employees who travel frequently, GAO said, and numerous employees who traveled less than once per month were given open authorizations.
GAO also questioned VA's annual travel budget estimates. A provision in the annual VA appropriations bill restricts travel spending to the amount specifically requested for travel, so each year VA requests millions of dollars more than it needs for travel to make sure the agency doesn't run out of money for necessary trips. VA has then taken money that went unused from the designated travel funds for other expenses, like salaries and equipment. GAO said this is not a good budgeting practice.
VA disagreed with GAO on the budgeting issue, arguing that the agency's current practice ensures that there are enough travel funds available for its employees to provide services to veterans.
The department agreed with GAO's conclusion that monitoring of travel policy could be improved.
"Both the Veterans Health Administration and the Veterans Benefits Administration are working to create more effective oversight of open travel authorities and self-approved travel," the VA said in a written response to GAO. VA stressed, however, that in keeping with decentralization, "individual offices are responsible for ensuring that their field facilities and travelers are adhering to VA travel policy."