Government Executive - Authors - Lauren R. Taylor

Setting the Bar High

Lauren R. Taylor — Sun, 01 Jun 2003 00:00:00 -0400

n the complex world of federal travel and travel management, a few programs stand out. The Travel Manager of the Year awards program, now in its sixth year, recognizes those who exemplify the best in federal travel. In these pages we highlight diverse and groundbreaking projects at the Postal Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs departments.

This month we also shine a spotlight on a man who has shaped federal travel in varied and surprising ways for more than 20 years-the Office of Management and Budget's Jack Kelly.

Finally, I'd like to thank those who have made my six years as travel editor so rewarding and fun. I've been impressed with the passion and dedication federal employees and travel managers bring to their work. A special thanks to those who have shared their travel stories, explained the esoterica of federal travel rules, or just given me an encouraging word.

Soon, Government Executive reporter Tanya Ballard will step into these shoes. After covering federal travel for our online partner, GovExec.com, she is savvy about the issues. She will want to know what's up in your federal travel world, so feel free to contact her at tballard@govexec.com or Travel Editor, Government Executive, 1501 M St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005.

Happy trails!
Travel Editor

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Ask the Experts

Lauren R. Taylor — Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 -0400

ederal travelers have a lot on their minds, given the constant changes in rules about trip details ranging from official time and charge cards to household moves. So we asked federal travel experts to answer some questions from our mailbag.

RECOVERY TIME

Q: I thought the Joint Travel Regulations said that if you travel through four or more time zones, you are allowed 24 hours recuperation time after your trip.

Take the case of a traveler flying from Washington to Hawaii. Theoretically, you would try to return on a Thursday in the afternoon after your normal workday has ended. This means you could recuperate on Friday, enjoy the weekend, and return to work on Monday. Is this right?

-Civilian,
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard,
Hawaii

A: For Defense Department civilians, the Joint Travel Regulations say, "A reasonable rest period at the TDY point (not to exceed 24 hours) is recommended before the traveler reports for duty" in certain circumstances (JTR, vol. 2, paragraph C1059-C). Several reasons follow, including "when the scheduled flight time, including stopovers and change of planes, exceeds14 hours by a direct or usually traveled route. Scheduled flight time is the time between the scheduled airline departure time from the PDS/TDY until the scheduled airline arrival point at the TDY point/PDS. Note: If the 'stopover' is an overnight stay, that disqualifies the traveler from using business class."

There's nothing mandatory in the regulations about a 24-hour recuperation time. The "four or more time zones" criterion disappeared years ago. To read the rules, go to www.dtic.mil/ perdiem.

I travel on official business to Hawaii almost annually. My authorizing official permits me to arrive in Hawaii the day before the temporary duty begins (for that day of rest and time zone acclimation). However, he isn't required to do so.

I usually take a red-eye back because it allows me to get a good connection to the East Coast. I'm not required to take the red-eye. But doing so allows me to use GSA's city-pair fares in most instances. Also, it allows me, as a prudent traveler, to conserve the command's-and more importantly the taxpayers'-money by not staying an extra day. My trips generally get me back home in the afternoon, and I go to work the next day or, if it's a Friday return, on Monday.

-Bill Tirrell,
Travel and Transportation Branch Chief,
Per Diem, Travel and Transportation Committee,
Defense Department

SEAMLESS VOUCHERING

Q: I traveled from Baltimore to Hartford, Conn., with a government-purchased airline ticket. I returned with no ticket stub thanks to electronic tickets and electronic reservations. Why couldn't such a process be extended to hotels as well? Our travel agency makes reservations electronically, but uses a government charge card to hold them. The same could be done for rental cars.

This would eliminate almost all of the items in the voucher process. All that would be left would be food and miscellaneous expenses. Those also could be set up for electronic processing. Since we are reimbursed through electronic funds transfer, the agency could send us our per diem two to three days after the trip ends. For routine trips that don't involve canceled flights, changes in itinerary or other problems, this would streamline the processing of travel orders and take a load off weary travel clerks.

I believe a large number of trips fall into this category. Agencies with a lot of frequent travelers would net substantial savings with such a change.

-Civilian,
Naval Air Systems Command

A: Many agencies use both centrally billed and individually billed travel card accounts. Typically, centrally billed accounts cover transportation only, an expense that the agency's travel management center normally processes in advance of travel. Each agency decides whether to use centrally billed accounts to cover additional charges, such as lodging or car rental.

Additionally, agency policies regarding travel voucher/claim reimbursement may require that receipts be submitted as part of the reconciliation process, thereby limiting the use of centrally billed accounts.

-John Ziu, Acting Director,
Support Services Division, GSA SmartPay,
Federal Supply Service

OVERWEIGHT

Q: An Indian Health Service commissioned officer moving to a new duty station was told her household goods shipment could not exceed 18,000 pounds, based on her rank. Her shipment was 22,940 pounds, which exceed her entitlement by 4,940 pounds. The Secretarial Process, the appeal process for uniformed personnel, does not cover this issue. Any advice?

-Travel Management Specialist,
Indian Health Service

A: Commissioned officers of the U.S. Public Health Service are covered by the Joint Federal Travel Regulations (JFTR), which are basically the same for all uniformed services. These regulations are enforced by the Military Advisory Panel, which includes a representative from each service.

The JFTR spells out clearly what weight is authorized for each rank and dependent status. These allocations are based in law, which allows the government to pay for a maximum of 18,000 pounds for a permanent change of station.

If the officer you mentioned is an O-6, she is entitled to the maximum 18,000-pound shipment. This weight should include only household goods, not shipping and packing material. There is no process in the JFTR to waive that weight allowance. Any weight exceeding the authorized limit is the officer's financial responsibility.

-Lt. Cmdr. Ron Keats,
Travel/Per Diem Specialist,
Division of Commissioned Personnel,
Health and Human Services Department

CLAIMING MILES

Q: I worked for an Army command that "banked" our frequent flier miles, before Congress allowed federal travelers to keep these benefits. I understand from others in similar situations that their agencies/commands have a process for getting those banked miles back.Do you know if there is such a process and how it works at the Army?

-A former Army civilian

A: Frequent flier accounts are essentially contracts between a traveler and a vendor (in this case, the airline). Even when the government redeems the miles for official use, the accounts are in the traveler's name.

If you requested that your miles be credited to your account when you earned them, all you have to do now is contact the airline. It doesn't matter to the airline whether you accrued the miles on personal travel or on business travel.

If you didn't keep an account when you earned the miles, the airline might be able to credit them to you if you have proof of travel, such as receipts or ticket stubs. Contact the airline for more information.

-Government and industry officials

CHARGE IT

Q: I have read Public Law 105-264, which requires travelers who take three or more trips a year to use the government travel card for lodging, rental car, and airfare expenses.

If the traveler, civilian or military, wants to pay for the travel out of his or her own funds, what would be the advantage of using a government charge card? Sometimes, vouchers filed with the local travel office aren't paid in a timely manner, which causes delays in payments to the government travel card. If travelers were to use their own funds, they could minimize delays and delinquent payments.

I know the government gets discounted prices and other benefits when government travelers use the card. But where's the logic in forcing people to use a charge card, which, in our society, often causes financial problems? Should we really encourage the use of plastic? Can travelers use their personal funds if they want to?

-Air Force Staff Sergeant/Contracting Specialist,
Lackland Air Force Base, Texas

A: The law requires federal travelers to use their government-issued travel charge cards when traveling on official business. However, under the Federal Travel Regulation (301-70.704), the General Services Administration can exempt mandatory use for the following:

Charges from a vendor that does not accept the government contractor-issued travel charge card.
Laundry/dry cleaning.
Parking.
Local transportation system.
Taxi.
Tips.
Meals (only when use of the card is impractical, as in group meals, or when the government travel card is not accepted).
Phone calls (when a government calling card is available).
An employee with a pending application for a travel charge card.
An employee traveling by invitation.
A new appointee.

Agencies also have the authority to exempt certain employees. Check with your agency travel contact.

-GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy

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On the Move

Lauren R. Taylor — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 -0500

ost federal employees never have to think about relocation allowances. But for approximately 18,000 people a year who go the distance to take federal jobs, travel rules affect every aspect of their moves-right down to the kitchen sink.

The General Services Administration's Federal Travel Regulation details expenses that are covered when moving for a federal job. Need to bring along your small boat or ultra-light vehicle? Want to transport some ammunition for personal use? What about those live animals? And will Uncle Sam pay to have your carpets or drapes cut to fit the new house-or even have the piano tuned? It's all there.

The big-ticket items are temporary quarters, transportation and per diem, shipping and storing household goods, house-hunting trips, and for some, assistance with selling and buying a new home. The bottom line is the bottom line: What will the government pay for, and how much will it pay?

ONE WAY

Companies are smaller than the government and thus more able to tailor their policies to variations in industry, the job market and the types of positions they are trying to fill, says Jan Hatfield-Goldman, vice president for research and education at the Employee Relocation Council, an association of corporate and government members concerned with workforce mobility. This flexibility allows corporations to use relocation as part of an overall recruitment strategy and to be competitive in hot markets.

That's exactly what's missing from the government's one-size-fits-almost-all approach, says one federal travel expert. Federal relocation policies are cast in stone. Instead, he says, agencies should be able to adapt benefits to their needs.

Corporations "can turn on a dime if personnel needs change," the expert says. "They think nothing of having various sets of rules. They'll do what they need to do to get the talent they are looking for. We-the government-are very egalitarian. The biggest thing missing is the link to the human capital issue."

Jakob Evans, a traffic manager for the FBI, sees the need for such adaptability. The agency moves some 1,200 employees a year. Recruiters could be more effective if they could offer cafeteria-style benefits, especially for hard-to-fill positions. It's not uncommon, says Evans, "to hire someone, and they find out what their benefits are not, and they back out."

BIG BUCKS

Some think agencies may be exercising too much flexibility. In fact, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, received a tip that the IRS was paying mucho money to move employees and asked agencies to provide data on their spending.

From fiscal 1999 through fiscal 2001, the IRS reported spending $18.8 million on relocation. More than one-third, $4.9 million, was spent on 40 moves that exceeded $100,000 each. The FBI reported even heftier price tags. In those three years, the agency spent $115.9 million moving 3,364 workers. More than $16 million went to 133 transfers that topped $100,000 each.

No agency came close to the FBI, but a handful paid for more than 10 moves topping $100,000 each, including the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments, the Bureau of Prisons, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, and Social Security.

"It's not reasonable to pay six figures to move one government employee," says Grassley. Several agencies spend tens of thousands of dollars apiece on temporary housing in the new job location, he says. "In a lot of parts of the country, $40,000 toward temporary housing would go a long way toward buying an actual house. It's hard to see how anyone could justify spending that much.

"It's also hard to imagine," Grassley says, "how dozens of employees at multiple agencies could spend $30,000 or more just to move their household goods. That's more than a lot of people's annual salary."

"These expenditures worry me, and the poor management that allow those expenditures worries me even more," the senator says. "I don't expect government employees to pay for their moves out of pocket. The government should provide reasonable compensation for employer-directed relocation, just as private companies do for their employees."

Actually, $100,000 is close to what the private sector spends, says Julie Blanford, a government services consultant at Runzheimer International, a Rochester, Wis.-based relocation consulting firm. But data collected by Grassley's office, while not comprehensive, indicates that the average federal move costs only about $30,000.

TRACKING COSTS

Even more worrisome than the big spenders, says Blanford, are the agencies that don't know how much they spend moving their people, or how many they move. "The folks who can identify their costs can at least begin to manage them," she points out.

The federal government as a whole doesn't track relocation expenses or related data. GSA did not respond to repeated calls seeking relocation data. The agency has attempted to collect that information for the past couple of years, but got no answers from many agencies, and poor data from others. "The government has no idea what they are actually spending, so how can they control those costs?" Blanford says.

Last fall, GSA formed a committee to look at best practices in the private sector and research "every entitlement under the sun," as Richard Trent, travel and relocation chief at ATF, put it. The committee was due to release guidance for agencies at the end of February. The committee's next task is to examine possible legislative and regulatory changes, and it plans to make its recommendations public this spring.

The committee's guidelines had not been released by press time. Issues on the table include spousal assistance and lump-sum relocation payments.

FAMILY AFFAIRS

Federal workers get some expenses reimbursed for family members when they move for a job. But their spouses don't get any financial help in their job search. Some employees find that an obstacle to making a move. It costs the government money, says ATF's Trent, because the loss of family income can make it harder to find a place to live, which in turn increases spending on temporary quarters, storage of household goods, and the like.

The private sector is ahead of government on this issue. About half the companies surveyed in a 2001 study by the Employee Relocation Council reported they have formal employment assistance programs for "trailing spouses," as they're known. Another 20 percent have informal programs. The most common benefits include covering the costs of job placement firms and of printing resumes. The companies that do provide benefits spend an average of $1,203 for a spouse of a relocating employee.

The federal government has a strict definition of "family" when determining eligibility for benefits, which puts some workers in a bind-including those with unmarried partners, adult children or, in some cases, elderly parents at home. "Some companies are very broad with their definitions. Your family is whoever lives with you," says the relocation council's Hatfield-Goldman "Companies can define these things according to their own culture," she says, and for many, "their culture is to be inclusive."

LUMP SUM AND LIABILITY

Another private sector strategy is to pay a fixed amount for moving costs, especially for temporary quarters. This approach reduces the administrative burden for both employers and employees, sparing them the hassle of tracking receipts, filling out expense sheets and processing reimbursements. Lump-sum payments allow employees flexibility in managing their moves. Because the amount a worker will get is clear, the result is less discussion and fewer requests for exceptions, says Hatfield-Goldman.

"Employees have been happy with it," she says, especially if they can save themselves money.

The Employee Relocation Council reported that 26 percent of companies surveyed used a lump-sum method for every relocation in 2001, up from 4 percent in 1988.

GSA's committee might consider revamping the government's lump-sum allowance scheme. An employee can get a fixed-amount reimbursement for temporary living expenses, but the maximum time allowance and per diem for family members are significantly more restricted than they are under the traditional reimbursement scheme. The goal would be to make the lump sum a more attractive option for employees.

If lump sums were used more often, they would alleviate another problem for the government: its open-ended time frame to file for reimbursement.

According to the travel regulation, employees have two years in which to incur move-related costs, and they can request an additional two years. "We are still on the hook financially for all that time," says ATF's Trent, whose agency moves about 225 workers a year. "Why do they need two years?" he says. Add on the two-year extension, and "that's insane," he says. "No one in private industry would keep an open obligation on the books that long."

SMOOTHER MOVES

Everyone agrees that moving is stressful, ranking right up there with death and divorce. And stress on employees and their families can cost an employer money. If you have relocated an employee, and he is not happy, you risk losing him, says Trent, which means hiring and training someone new. "The cost of that is so high-it is five to 10 times what the relocation ran." So it behooves everyone to make the process go smoothly.

So, stay tuned for changes in relocation rules and policy.

MORE INFORMATION
For details on relocation rules, go to www.gsa.gov. Click on "Key Information-Travel on Government Business"; then "Resources in this Category-Federal Travel Regulation"; then "Table of Contents."

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Defense Project Down to the Wire

Lauren R. Taylor — Sat, 01 Feb 2003 00:00:00 -0500

he Defense Travel System is five years behind schedule and has cost the government $190 million, but the majority of Defense Department travelers have yet to see any benefit.

The project, launched in 1995, promised to bring the best in travel management technology and business practices to Defense's 3.5 million active duty service members, reservists and civilian employees. They file an estimated 5 million vouchers for $5.5 billion in travel costs a year. The entire Defense Department was supposed to be using the system by 2001.

As of November, a test version of DTS was processing roughly 1,300 trips a month at 18 of Defense's 11,105 sites worldwide.

TRAIL OF WOES

Defense's project to reengineer travel processing got off to a good start. It began with changes in business practices, which cut travel costs and processing time in half at 27 pilot sites. Then-comptroller John Hamre predicted the paperless, end-to-end system would save the Defense Department a million dollars a day. In the summer of 1997, Navy Cmdr. Bill Schworer, then-deputy program manager, told Government Executive, "In a year or so down the road, users will say, 'this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.'"

Then the initial wave of success lost momentum. In 1998, the DTS software contract was awarded. The project's primary contractor-TRW, now Northrop Grumman Mission Systems-was supposed to make its money by collecting fees for processing travel transactions. Because that money hasn't materialized, the contract was restructured, and Northrop Grumman is being paid through appropriations. DTS' Project Management Office is funded the same way. Appropriations are expected to reach $486.4 million before the project is fully up and running, now slated for 2006.

Delays have cost the project its place on the cutting edge. Critics in government and industry, some of whom spoke to Government Executive on condition of anonymity, say the system is out of date. An industry expert says the Defense Department is piloting 5-year-old technology and paying Northrop Grumman to modify it. "It's an antique, and that's a shame," says a government travel expert. "It had so many bells and whistles that it sank." A trade group representative agrees, "A lot better stuff is available now. It has failed to keep pace."

Behind the money and schedule problems are the technical troubles that slowed things down. For example, the system was scheduled to be tested at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri from Oct. 23 to Dec. 22, 2000. After only two weeks, the tests were canceled because errors and glitches were so common.

DTS security features weren't compatible with firewalls at the test sites and at many other installations worldwide. "Working out the solution set back deployment in the Midwest by almost two years," Col. Al Arnold, then Project Management Office director, told Government Executive in March 2000. The system was supposed to be up and running in 11 Midwest states by May 1998.

At a Dec. 6, 2002, meeting with travel industry representatives, a member of the DTS staff reported on problems with the software, including missing data (such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers and seat preferences), failures in a feature designed to book hotel rooms and rental cars, inconsistent ticketing dates, and incorrect flight information, one meeting participant says.

The biggest stumbling blocks for DTS probably are the entrenched culture and business practices of an enterprise as huge and diverse as the Defense Department.

"There are not too many other applications that will potentially touch every single DoD employee," says Air Force Col. Larry Schaefer, DTS' program director. "DTS is one of them. God love the Department of Defense, but a lot of them are stubborn and like doing business the way they have for 20 years."

ANOTHER LOOK

Responding to complaints made to its hot line, the Defense inspector general's office investigated management of the DTS program. "The Defense Travel System remains a program at high risk of not being an effective solution in streamlining the DoD travel management process," the IG reported in July.

Among other things, the investigation found that:

Immediately after testing began in 1998, project management officials said the travel system they envisioned was more cumbersome than anticipated.
In 1999, officials could see that commercial off-the-shelf software would require "major development and modifications" to meet Defense's requirements.
The DTS timeline was unrealistic.

The inspector general's draft report recommended suspending funding until the program could be evaluated. Defense Comptroller Dov Zakheim objected, saying that pulling the plug would "create significant termination costs for DoD." He directed the Defense secretary's office to do a study on the program's cost-effectiveness.

The report was due in October, but as of mid-December, results had not been released. A travel industry representative who has been closely associated with DTS says, "The word on the street is that the study recommended the project be canceled."

SIGNS OF REBOUND

Schaefer is more upbeat."There are not going to be any surprises," in the report, he says. In fact, he says, as part of the review, an independent company assessed the software development processes and said they're "some of the best they've seen."

Schaefer and Northrop Grumman's DTS program manager, Rich Fabbre, are touting their next software release, called Jefferson (DTS' software versions are named after presidents). Earlier software wasn't user-friendly or intuitive, but Schaefer and Fabbre say Jefferson, which is due out in February, solves those problems.

Jefferson will be "much, much, much easier to use," says Fabbre. Older versions of DTS software had to function in three environments. Now it is based on the Web, simplifying the project's technical task. DTS will look "more like you're used to seeing on Travelocity or Orbitz," says Fabbre, adding that it will be so easy to use that travelers may not even need training.

DTS officials say many of the inspector general's findings were moot before the report was released. In particular, DTS already had been reclassified as an acquisition project and as a result is now required to play by different rules and meet performance milestones. Furthermore, the program office said in its response to the IG's report, if the project were terminated, "Thousands of existing DTS users would be forced to revert to the old, inefficient travel processes."

Schaefer boasts that the 18 sites now using DTS include all four service branches and three Defense agencies. The number of users, he says, doubles each month. Some 260 locations account for 80 percent of the department's travel, and the plan is to get those sites on board by 2006.

The program is on schedule to release Jefferson, Schaefer says. "We know what we're doing. . . . It wasn't always this way, but we've got it under control now," he says. "Jefferson will meet the users' expectations. The Defense Travel System is on the right track. We are uncovering problems, but it is not out of control."

A LONG WAY TO GO

That doesn't help the millions of Defense travelers who still haven't seen even a hint of change in their travel management processes. At many sites and installations, travelers are still filling out vouchers by hand and waiting weeks for reimbursement.

In fact, as they wait for DTS, things have gotten worse, not better. Accounting positions have been cut. Software acquisitions have been delayed. Sites that have travel software have been discouraged from linking it to their finance and accounting departments or integrating it with their travel offices, because DTS program officials don't want to have to undo multitudes of customized solutions in order to plug in the departmentwide system.

To keep some of the masses happy, two years ago the project team made available DTS Limited, which is basically Gelco's Travel Manager software right out of the box. It automates expense management and vouchering, but isn't hooked up to reservations or other travel functions.

No one knows how this all will turn out. At press time, the comptroller's evaluation was expected to be made public within weeks. Acquisition rules require milestone measures-the next one due in the spring-that could kill the program or keep it alive. This year, the Defense Department must decide whether to renew its contract with Northrop Grumman. Some observers suggest that Defense has been biding its time so it can get out of the contract without enormous costs and legal hassles.

Many observers say the E-travel Initiative, an effort led by the General Services Administration to improve and standardize travel processing, may overtake DTS and become the governmentwide solution of choice.

"It's not over till the fat lady sings," says one federal travel expert. "She's been muttering for years, but no real coherent songs have been happening yet." Only time will tell whether she can carry a tune.

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Don’t Leave Home Without It

Lauren R. Taylor — Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Federal workers have learned to travel smart. Here are some of their tips for savvy packing and minimizing stress in this era of heightened security.

ON THE ROAD

"A co-worker told me to drink bottled water while traveling instead of my customary diet soda, and to stay away from salty foods. Through trial and error-mostly my errors-I found her advice to be important for my health while on travel."
-Reggie Monroe, Federal Aviation Administration

Carry food. "Airport food is expensive and you never know when your flight will be delayed and you will be stuck in an airport."
-Leslie Kelley, NASA

Ear plugs and eye shades help "if you want to sleep on the plane and your neighbor wants to read or talk."
-Steve Oshiro, Navy

"If your organization doesn't provide [a laptop] and a cell phone, bite the bullet and provide your own. They are essential."
-Larry Burns, Army

"I have list of what I carry in my wallet. I keep it separately from my purse, to make contacts in case my wallet is lost or stolen. Information on that list will assist me in contacting credit card companies, the driver's license bureau, etc. I haven't had to put the list to the test, but with all details of what could be missing, I should be able to advert possible fraud that could be committed if my credentials fall into the wrong hands."
-Nancy Carper, Air Force

"I have developed a 'Travel Points of Contact' card to be carried in the wallet or purse. It's the size of a credit card. It contains numbers for:

The agency's staff duty officer
The agency's toll-free number
Contracting officer's representative
Contract travel office emergency and fax numbers
Travel card issuing bank's customer service number
Agency travel card program coordinator
Our local help desk (to assist traveler with laptop/computer problems while on TDY)"

-Celeste Simbler, Defense

WHEN YOU GET THERE

"Once I flew into a city where all the power was out. Luckily I had a couple of candles to get me by until morning."
-Wanda Adams, Forest Service

"The flashlight is placed on my nightstand every evening in a hotel."
-Tracie Carpenter

"I put [a night light] in the bathroom of the hotel/motel and can get up in the night without blinding myself with an overhead light."
-Reggie Monroe, FAA

Bring medicine along. "It never fails that I catch a cold while on travel, with the temperature changes, stale plane air, and exposure to new and different germs.
-Darlene Shaw, Navy

NO SURPRISES

"I toss a bandanna on the dashboard of my rental car and write down the license plate number. It helps in the morning when you don't remember which of those rental cars out there is yours-the bandanna is easy to spot."
-Tracie Carpenter

"I give our travelers information on the hotel, nearby restaurants, the airport, shuttles, and any other things that will make their trip easier."
-Barbara Guest, Bureau of Land Management

"Hotel floors and rugs are not clean. [Wearing flip-flops] beats putting on shoes if you're just going down the hall for ice or vending."
-Tracie Carpenter

"Check the weather for the destination prior to departure. Do you need a coat or sweater? Is rain/snow expected? I live in a warm climate and frequently travel to colder ones and have forgotten a coat too many times when it's 90 degrees at home and 35 degrees at my destination."
-Tracie Carpenter

Turn off the hotel alarm clock. "Nothing like an unexpected wake up call at 3 a.m."
-Tracie Carpenter

"Travel layovers are not unpleasant when I have a good book to keep me occupied."
-Don Riding, Immigration and Naturalization Service

PACK SMART

"I don't leave home without a variety of large Ziploc bags. They're good for wet or dirty items, possible leaking items such as shampoo and toothpaste, and for any half-eaten edibles to keep them fresh.
"They also help keep items organized: I keep all medicine I am taking in one bag, and have separate bags for all possible illness items-such as Imodium or Pepto Bismol, aspirin and Alka-Seltzer; contact lens supplies; all shampoo and conditioners; soap and toothpaste.
"I also put a bag with a razor in my checked luggage so that it is easy to find once I've arrived and I don't have to worry about cutting myself when opening my luggage. I also pack my shoes in plastic newspaper bags to keep the shoes from getting dirt on clean clothes."
-Leslie Kelley, NASA

"Keep a separate toiletries bag full at all times. All I have to throw in is prescription meds (in my carry-on) and glasses, and I'm set."
-Patti Foncree, Federal Supply Service

LEAVE IT BEHIND

"I try to leave my laptop behind. I've lugged that stupid thing all over the country to find that it sits, relatively unused, in its case or on the desk in my room most of the time. After a full day of meetings, does anyone really want to come back to the room and check e-mail?"
-Drew Jack, General Services Administration

"Never pack more than you can carry through the airport at one time. This is important because I usually travel with a laptop and a camera or two. I hand-carry the computer and cameras and check everything else."
-John E.Peters, Navy

"Find out in advance what amenities, like hair dryers, are provided by the hotel, and leave yours at home."
-Linda Mahoney, Agriculture

"I can't take my lucky little pocketknife on the plane anymore."
-Dennis LeFevre, Veterans Affairs

SECURITY TIPS

"Take laptop out [a security requirement]. Put purse inside laptop case to run through machine. Put my coat in the bag I check, so I don't have to take it through security. Use passport instead of license for ID. My ticket fits inside it so it's easier to hold them together. I leave my IDs in my wallet."
-Diane Herz, Bureau of Labor Statistics

"I always minimize what I carry in my pockets and put all the metal stuff in the tray before going through the metal detector, but still something would set it off and I would be undressed and patted down in front of everyone.
"Recently, a screener asked what brand of shoes I was wearing. He said a couple popular brands have a metal shank built into the shoe. He suggested I take the shoes off and put them through the X-ray, then walk through the metal detector. I did. No problem."
-John E. Peters, Navy

"To reduce the possibility of getting it stolen, don't let your laptop computer go through the X-ray machine until you do."
-Patrick George, NASA

"Wear shoes that are easy to take off and put on."
-Linda Mahoney, Agriculture

CHECKING BAGS

"Airport security has affected how I pack. I check everything that I can and have minimum carry-on luggage-simply too much hassle. I also avoid carrying a laptop PC when possible because of the security checks."
-Darlene Shaw, Navy

"Unless I am traveling for more than four days, I try to carry everything on board. I carry a flight bag and my computer case. I fold my dress shirts; they fit nicely in the computer case and actually give it a little more cushion. I can usually iron them at the hotel; if not, hanging them in the shower and steaming the room works pretty well. I wear my jeans on the plane with a navy blazer and white polo shirt. I pack a second jacket and two or three pairs of dress pants. At least one pair of pants matches both jackets, so I can vary my dress over three or four days. The big advantage of this plan is, with an e-ticket, I can [just get a boarding pass] and go right to the gate."
-Robert Diamond, Defense

"I only carry on a small bag and check the rest. Less hassle. If they would do away with the carry-ons their biggest problems would go away."
-Barbra Bronsberg, NASA

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Shipping News

Lauren R. Taylor — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 00:00:00 -0500

emo to service members: Your next move probably won't go any better than your last one did. But there's hope for the one after that.

After almost a decade of testing, studying and negotiating a new way of getting service members and their families from duty station to duty station, Defense says it is ready to change the way it does relocations.

A June report from the U.S. Transportation Command summarized the lessons learned from more than three pilot programs. It pulled the best of those programs and the best from the private sector to design a new system for moving service members and civilian employees. Defense is setting up a program management office to put it all in place, and plans to launch the new procedures in two years.

LONG TIME COMING

Defense has known for years that the current program, which is three decades old, is broken. The department has been trying to fix it since 1993. By April 2000, even Maj. Gen. Kenneth Privratsky, then commander of the Army's Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC), which oversees relocations, was growing impatient: "Military service members can benefit now from changes to the existing personal property move program," he said. "We cannot wait."

Each year, the department moves more than 600,000 service members and Defense civilians, with their families, at a cost of $1.7 billion.

Problems with the program are abundant-and infamous. Vendors are selected primarily based on price, not on quality or performance. About half of all moves take place over the summer, so moving companies hire temporary workers to staff up for the huge surge in demand. Loss or damage occurs in 65 percent of moves, a 1997 survey found, and claims cost the government about $100 million a year. The rate of loss and damage is probably much higher, because many people don't file claims because they are discouraged with the system.

Horror stories abound: Movers that show up days or weeks late, or not at all. Movers who show up drunk. Families' belongings dumped out on the highway, set on fire, delivered soaking wet or covered with mold. Whole loads lost.

Despite the dysfunction, and after almost a decade of efforts to improve the program, it remains essentially unchanged. Why? Paul Taibl, defense policy analyst at Business Executives for National Security (BENS) sums it up this way: "The wheels of government turn exceedingly slowly." He points to universal truths-change is tough, somebody's job is "at the bottom of this," and leadership turns over too often for people to see projects to fruition-as the hurdles to improvement.

Moreover, the moving industry fought change in a big way. Associations representing moving companies said firms were already being asked to do more for a bare-bones fee, and said that reengineering would squeeze out small businesses-the bulk of their members.

Another reason the old way has hung on so long is that doing a better job would cost more. One pilot, the Full Service Moving Project, cost about 50 percent more than the current system, and MTMC's pilot cost about 30 percent more.

WHO MOVED MY STUFF?

Barriers to change aside, all the pilot programs improved quality of life for service members and their families. Hot buttons for service members, according to a Defense Department survey, are the condition of their property and fair and timely payment for damaged or lost goods. For example, it now takes an average of almost five months to get a claim settled; in the pilots, claims were settled in an average of one month. In evaluating the pilots, Defense also took into account each program's cost and small business participation.

With the lessons learned, the long-awaited new program, dubbed "Families First," has started to take shape. Some of its basic features, drawn from the pilots' successes and from what works in the private sector, have been agreed on, including:

Service members will be able to get full-replacement value for lost or damaged property.
Service members will be able to settle claims directly with a moving company rather than having to work through the Defense Department.
Movers must have toll-free numbers for members to call to ask questions, resolve problems, or check on the status of a move.
Carriers must meet stricter business and performance criteria to get business from Defense.

These services will, in fact, cost more: MTMC estimates 13 percent more than the current program. But the changes also will cut costs in other areas. Better communication between service members and movers will mean that more moves will go directly door to door rather than sit in storage. Defense now spends about $250 million a year on temporary storage. More direct moves mean less handling, which means less damage. And direct claims settlement will release government from a peripheral function.

So will it really happen this time? Most observers are optimistic. "They are close to having all the I's dotted and the T's crossed," says BENS' Taibl. "Details are being worked out-every day the program's content is clearer," says Linda Rothleder, director of the Military Mobility Coalition, a group of private sector relocation and move management companies. "I don't think there is any great disagreement anymore."

Col. Silvia Anderson, MTMC's deputy chief of staff for passenger and personal property, is among the "glass half full" crowd. "At this juncture, there does not appear to be any show stopper," she told Government Executive. "The hard part was getting everyone on the same sheet of music." Now that industry and the services are singing the same song, she expects the rest of the project to go smoothly.

Some are skeptical that Defense can find the money to make this happen. The services will have to go to Congress with their hands out, looking for appropriations to get the program off the ground. So once again, the department's 1.4 million active duty personnel and 700,000 civilian employees will have to wait and see.

For the USTRANSCOM evaluation of the personal property pilots, go to www.hhgfaa.org and click on "Transcom Evaluation Report." For information on the new household goods program, click on "DoD Future Personal Property Program."

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Where Credit Is Due

Lauren R. Taylor — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 00:00:00 -0500

eally, some of the things government workers and service members do with their travel cards boggle the mind. There's the Veterans Affairs employee who used it to pay for his daughter's wedding. There are charges for escort services and "gentlemen's clubs," and charges for casino and Internet gambling. Even closing costs for a new home. Army civilian and service members charged some $45,000 for cruises in fiscal 2001. And people use their cards to get cash advances even when they aren't traveling.

Then there are the travelers who use the cards for legitimate travel expenses, but don't pay their bills or pay them late. In the front of the pack is the Fort Jackson soldier who wrote 86 checks-all of which bounced-to pay the balance on a card. As of April, travelers at the largest agencies were collectively $22 million in arrears (meaning their payments were late by 61 days or more). That's the bottom line even though the government has spent more than a year aggressively trying to reduce late payments and defaults.

"The only things the cardholder is supposed to do are use the card only for official reasons and pay on time," says Gregory Kutz, author of General Accounting Office studies on travel card fraud and abuse in the Army (GAO-02-863T) and the Navy (GAO-03-148T).

Simple enough. And, as senior officials, including Defense Comptroller Dov Zakheim, like to point out-often-most travelers are good financial citizens. But those who aren't owed $31 million on their cards at the end of fiscal 2001.

Individual workers aren't the only problem. Some agencies and departments fail to pay their bills on time, too. Centrally billed accounts, the government's equivalent of corporate cards, were about $1 million in arrears as of April. The Defense Department has the worst record on all types of abuse and delinquencies: A task force set up to examine the problem and make recommendations found that more than 14 percent of the department's accounts were overdue in January 2001.

Last, but not at all least,the government owes money to its workers. The 1998 Travel and Transportation Reform Act, which made card use mandatory for travel expenses, also requires agencies to reimburse workers within 30 days after receiving a valid voucher. Some don't. By law, agencies are supposed to pay interest, late fees-or both-to travelers if they don't reimburse them on time. But no one knows how much agencies owe-or how far behind they are. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service told GAO, "We didn't pay interest or penalties."

True, DFAS probably didn't pay interest or penalties. But that's because the agency has no way of tracking its late payments. What's more, most of the delays occur earlier in the process, as a voucher makes its way from the traveler's desk, through the approving official, and then to DFAS. Defense offices have been told to hold on until the Defense Travel System is up and running; that it will automate the process and make it smoother. In the meantime, many installations have inadequate staffing levels and are "holding together the old systems with binding tape," says Kutz, financial management and assurance director at GAO. "There is some correlation between those who are paid late and those who are delinquent."

GAO's audits found, for example, that the California National Guard reimbursed 61 percent of its vouchers (59,000 in fiscal 2001) more than 30 days after submission, and 42 percent of its reimbursements either exceeded or fell short of the right amount.

Defense said that delays in processing "may be a factor in the department's high delinquent payment rates" and "may affect the ability of the traveler to receive payment before the monthly bill is due."

On the civilian side, the General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy reported to Congress in June that travelers are reimbursed an average of 10 days after submitting a voucher for temporary duty travel, and 18 days after submitting one for relocation. The report says that at the 26 agencies that spend more than $5 million a year on travel and transportation, travelers are reimbursed within 30 days for temporary duty travel expenses 98 percent of the time, and 93 percent of the time for relocation. But GSA also lacks figures on how much agencies are paying travelers in interest and penalties for failing to reimburse them on time-or whether they are paying them at all.

Agencies, not just banks, lose real money here. Some losses, such as delinquencies and write-offs, are deducted from the rebates agencies receive for accounting efficiencies, such as paying their card-issuing banks daily. Defense, for example, was entitled to a $2.1 million rebate in the first quarter of 2001, but ended up $60,000 in the hole. Such failures, says one Capitol Hill observer, result from antiquated financial systems, and "that's where the taxpayers are losing real money."

MAKING GOOD

All this bright light shining on the issue is putting the government under pressure to clean up the mess.

The biggest problems are in the military, where individual account delinquencies have surged as high as 25 percent. The Army is by far the worst. The GAO study found that improper personal use in the Army ranged from 15 percent to 45 percent of transactions at the four sites audited. The highest delinquency rates are among junior enlisted personnel. Service members in the lowest ranks account for 19.5 percent, while Defense's overall delinquency rate is 6.9 percent.

Defense's task force report was released in June, and many steps have been taken since then. Among those taken, in process or under consideration:

Reducing the number of accounts each manager oversees. Some now are responsible for as many as 1,000. The new maximum will be 300.
Dropping limits for charges to $2,500, from $5,000, and for cash advances to $250, from $500.
Increasing late fees to $29, from $20, and imposing them at 75 days instead of 120.
Increasing penalties to include loss or suspension of security clearance and prosecution.
Reducing the number of cards issued from 1.6 million to 1.2 million by eliminating unused cards and those reissued to people who are no longer authorized cardholders.
Reimbursing card expenses directly to the issuing bank.
Using salary and retirement benefit offsets (similar to garnishment) more widely to recoup overdue payments, including extending them to civilian retirees.

Vigilance is coming from other corners as well. The Bank of America, which issues the bulk of Defense's travel cards, has instituted a new "three strikes, you're out" policy. After three bounced checks, a card is canceled. GSA in September issued a rule amending the Federal Travel Regulations to exempt employees who travel five times or fewer each year from mandatory card use. This may solve some of the problems, but it will create other vouchering and payment ills, and it effectively guts the mandatory card use provisions of the Travel and Transportation Reform Act.

Defense and some civilian agencies also are working to ensure that workers give up their cards before they leave a job or government service. They are promoting legislation that would allow them to make mandatory the practice of making reimbursements directly to the card-issuing bank. Split disbursement, as it's known, is effective in the private sector, says Kutz, and will "take some of the temptation away from the traveler." He cites the case of a Fort McPherson, Ga., GS-12 who took a reimbursement of more than $8,000 for relocation expenses and, instead of paying the card bill, put a down payment on a house.

SETTING LIMITS

What's the secret of success at Health and Human Services, NASA, Social Security, and other agencies, large and small, with low delinquency rates?

John Walker, chief of the travel and accounts payable branch of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, credits his hands-on approach to the card program. With an admittedly small universe-2,351 cardholders-he checks every report as soon as it comes from the bank. If he suspects trouble, he contacts a high-level official in the traveler's chain of command, the inspector general's office and human resources. The consequences can be anything from verbal counseling to dismissal. In fiscal 2002, he's written only four letters suspending cards.

Walker also credits fast reimbursements at his agency-five days on average-for keeping delinquencies down.

Keeping 2,351 cardholders in line isn't that hard, you may say. How about 46,000? That's how many the Veterans Affairs Department has.

Donna Gentile, the VA's travel card program manager, has headed up an effort that shrunk the department's individual delinquencies (of 61 days late or more) from $260,000 in January to $120,000 in August. The VA first dropped card limits from $15,000 a month to $10,000 a month, and now the limit is $5,000 (unless cardholders have a legitimate reason to spend more). It put merchant code blocks in place, so travelers can no longer use cards at, say, Trak Auto, Six Flags or Payless Shoes. It has aggressively educated new hires about proper card use. The VA allows travelers to direct reimbursement to the bank issuing the card, and is piloting an e-travel program that would make that process more widespread. Employees who take cash advances when not on travel might find their cash limit reduced to $1-without notice. The VA deducts what workers owe from their pay. The department has canceled inactive cards and has fired some employees for misusing them.

The VA also pays its travelers on time, Gentile told those gathered at a Society of Government Travel Professionals meeting in September. Some medical centers still process on paper, and they may be slower to pay, but no one is near the 30-day limit. The department pays its banks daily, earning the maximum rebate.

CLEANING THE SLATE

Undoubtedly, Defense and other civilian agencies will adopt more of the practices that work well at the VA, NRC and elsewhere. There's "no one silver bullet" for this problem, says GAO's Kutz, but it can be brought under control in the short term. Agencies must examine training, infrastructure, policies and accountability. Most of all, he says, they must change the "tone at the top-the lack of management focus and attention."

Lauren R. Taylor can be reached at ltaylor@govexec.com ]]>

Federal Travel Guide 2003Bumpy Ride

Lauren R. Taylor — Tue, 01 Oct 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Changes in airline schedules and security procedures, not to mention a shift in attitudes about air travel in general, following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Revelations of travel card abuses.

The beginning of a shift from a traditional per diem lodging structure to the Federal Premier Lodging Program.

A law that allows workers to keep frequent flier miles.

The launching of the federal eTravel Initiative.

Many of these changes were intended to help things go more smoothly, but even change for the better can be a bumpy ride.

You'll find news, tips and wisdom from fellow travelers to help you navigate this rocky terrain every month in Government Executive and www.govexec.com. We'd like to extend our thanks to all the federal travelers who have shared their experiences-and their questions-this year.

We want to know what you think, what you wonder about, and what your trips are like. It's only by hearing from you that we can keep the column useful and relevant. Please send your comments to Travel Editor, Government Executive, 1501 M St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005, or contact ltaylor@govexec.com. Look for this logo throughout these pages for specific topics we'd like your thoughts about.

Happy Trails!

Lauren R. Taylor

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News From Nashville

Lauren R. Taylor — Sun, 01 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

ore than 1,100 feds with a stake in federal travel gathered in Nashville in June for four days of educational workshops, networking and information sharing, speeches and policy debates. Government workers in travel, finance, transportation, relocation, technology, meeting planning and administration came from agencies large and small. Defense, no surprise, sent the biggest delegation (310), followed by Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services. But even smaller agencies-such as the Federal Reserve Board and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-sent folks to improve the way federal travel and relocation are done. Here's a roundup of some of the hot topics at the gathering.

PLACES TO SLEEP

The General Services Administration is working on a new regulation that would "strongly encourage" government workers to stay in hotels that are part of the Federal Premier Lodging Program when on official travel.

The program is designed to solve the problems travelers have had finding safe, convenient lodging at or below per diem. Hotels promise to make a certain number of rooms available at a fixed rate. The government hopes to leverage some of its buying power-more than $1.7 billion a year for lodging-by contracting for rooms. GSA aims to have contracts in the 75 top federal travel destinations by the end of this year.

Becky Rhodes, deputy associate administrator of GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, compared the lodging program to the city pair air travel program, which started with less than 10 contracts and now numbers more than 5,000.

If the regulation is approved, hotels and motels participating in the lodging program would come up first on a list when a traveler or travel arranger seeks to make reservations, says Marty Wagner, GSA associate administrator. Now, travelers often have to submit for actual expenses above per diem, stay at properties far away from the work site, or reach into their own pockets to get a place to stay. It may seem prices are increasing with the lodging program, says Wagner, but "we are now getting real and better prices."

The program got mixed reviews from conference participants. Some critics say the same results could have been achieved simply by raising lodging rates. But the fact that the program improves access to properties that are "safe, clean, within per diem and fire-safety compliant," wins it high marks from some, including Jim Lucas, a Federal Emergency Management Agency policy adviser who is on the Interagency Travel Management Committee. Lucas is relieved that with the lodging program, his travelers won't have to jump through hoops to get actual expenses approved. And the program will save federal agencies some state and local tax dollars.

Speaking at the conference, OMB's Jack Kelly noted the challenges the federal government faces in designing a lodging program. Unlike any private corporation, he said, "We have to house a very diverse population anywhere in the country any time of the year." The test of the program, said Kelly, will be " 'Is it a good deal for the taxpayer?' And 'Is this helping federal travelers and agencies by providing them safe, close, quality hotels?'"

For more on the Federal Premier Lodging Program, see www.gsa.gov/fplp. In June, GSA added five southeastern cities and raised their per diem rates: Huntsville, Ala.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Savannah, Ga.; Biloxi, Miss.; and Charleston, S.C.

TRAVEL PLANNING ON AUTOPILOT

Imagine you could go out on the Web-from anywhere-to a single site and make all your travel arrangements. Imagine the site would remember what cities you usually go to, what hotels you like to stay in, what size car you prefer and the special airline meals you order. Imagine the reservations you put in would be automatically forwarded for supervisor approval, and the information on your trip would stay in the system to ease the reimbursement process when you return.

At the National Travel Conference in June, GSA's Marty Wagner launched the agency's eTravel Initiative: a governmentwide, Web-based, end-to-end travel management system.

The system aims to automate and consolidate travel processes from planning through reimbursement and reconciliation. Boosters say it will save money and be paperless and simpler.

This may sound familiar to federal travel-watchers: They have heard similar claims from the Defense Travel System since the mid-1990s, but that system is not yet off the ground. E-travel boosters say GSA's project will be successful in part because of lessons learned from DTS, which now is scheduled for worldwide deployment by 2006. The team of agencies working with GSA on the project includes Transportation, Treasury, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Navy, the Environmental Protection Agency and others.

GSA plans to have an online booking process available governmentwide in December and the entire system by the end of 2003.

Some companies already have developed products to meet the government's e-travel needs. In Nashville, Cendant and Gelco launched Travelport, an end-to-end, Web-based travel procurement and expense management tool that they developed for the federal government. The automated system lets travelers use a single portal to plan, authorize, book, fulfill and submit vouchers for reimbursement. The system ensures compliance with city pair contracts, fire safety rules and other federal mandates. A travel agency call center provides customer support with the system. Travelport "takes federal agencies out of having to be their own integrators of all the travel systems components," says Jon Klem, president of Gelco Expense Management. Zegato also entered this arena, with Zegato Travel Service, which is up and running at several federal workplaces.

Conference participants were wary about how a unified system would work at their agencies. Project leader Tim Burke warned those working on travel improvements against committing to other processes or systems in the next year or so. GSA ultimately plans to require agencies to use its system. A common approach, he said, will reduce costs, redundancy and inefficiency. For more information on GSA's initiative, contact etravel@gsa.gov.

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Online system seeks to improve federal travel

Lauren R. Taylor — Wed, 28 Aug 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Imagine you could go out on the Web-from anywhere-to a single site and make all your travel arrangements.

Imagine the site would remember what cities you usually go to, what hotels you like to stay in, what size car you prefer and the special airline meals you order. Imagine the reservations you put in would be automatically forwarded for supervisor approval, and the information on your trip would stay in the system to ease the reimbursement process when you return.

At the National Travel Conference in Nashville earlier this summer, the General Service Adminstration's Marty Wagner launched the agency's eTravel Initiative: a governmentwide, Web-based, end-to-end travel management system. The system aims to automate and consolidate travel processes from planning through reimbursement and reconciliation. Boosters say it will save money and be paperless and simpler.

The team of agencies working with GSA on the project includes Transportation, Treasury, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Navy, the Environmental Protection Agency and others. GSA plans to have an online booking process available governmentwide in December and the entire system by the end of 2003.

The automated system lets travelers use a single portal to plan, authorize, book, fulfill and submit vouchers for reimbursement. The system ensures compliance with city pair contracts, fire safety rules and other federal mandates. A travel agency call center provides customer support with the system.

Travelport "takes federal agencies out of having to be their own integrators of all the travel systems components," says Jon Klem, president of Gelco Expense Management. Zegato also entered this arena, with Zegato Travel Service, which is up and running at several federal workplaces.

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Agencies cut travel spending in 2001

Lauren R. Taylor — Mon, 19 Aug 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The Sept. 11 attacks brought federal business travel to a virtual standstill for weeks. But since the attacks came just before the end of the fiscal year, fiscal discipline, not terror, accounts for the overall decline in travel spending.

The reduction in spending comes after many predictions and plans went awry. In 2000, spending was up 6.3 percent from the year before and was 8.1 percent higher than planned. Previous years followed a similar pattern.

More than $5 billion of the money spent in 2001 flowed through federal travel cards, up from $4.7 billion the year before. Last year was the first full year in which card use was mandatory.

The overall federal travel savings came despite the fact that the Defense Department, the government's biggest travel spender-accounting for two-thirds of the federal travel budget-overspent its revised budget by $539 million, or almost 10 percent. Frugal agencies, such as the Justice Department-which cut spending from $444 million in 2000 to $419 million in 2001-the Treasury Department ($416 million to $387 million) and the State Department ($179 million to $169 million) made up the difference. The Commerce Department had the biggest drop-from $351 million to $102 million-because it didn't have to fund census activity.

This year, Defense says it will join the ranks of the travel budget-cutters. Department officials project a 5.4 percent decline in spending in 2002. But don't be too quick to count those pennies: Defense has asked for a 5.6 percent travel budget increase in 2003, which would put the department back at its 2001 spending levels.

Other agencies are projecting big jumps in travel spending in fiscal 2002. Justice plans to spend almost 25 percent more this year than last; Treasury forecasts a 34 percent boost. Other big hikes are projected at Housing and Urban Development (24 percent), State (21.9 percent), Health and Human Services (11.8 percent) and the Environmental Protection Agency (13.1 percent). But Defense's projected decrease, and flat or slightly falling spending at other agencies, would add up to no major change from fiscal 2001 to 2002.

Going into 2003, the story will be much the same. Most agencies are expecting flat or slightly climbing travel budgets, with the biggest increases coming at Transportation and Veterans Affairs (both around 6.1 percent), and HHS and State (7.6 percent each).

On the vendor side, airline and hotel company market shares have held more or less steady. Though Avis led the car-rental pack in 2000, in 2001 it slid to second place with a 14.1 percent market share. Hertz, which was the third ranking firm in 2000 with 10.9 percent of the market, climbed to the top spot, and National slid from second to fourth, allowing Budget to move up. The list could change significantly in the coming years because some car rental firms are on the edge financially. Industry watchers expect Alamo and National, both owned by the ANC Rental Corp., to declare bankruptcy, as may Budget.

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Agencies Trim Their Wings

Lauren R. Taylor — Thu, 15 Aug 2002 00:00:00 -0400

fter years of promises, federal agencies finally achieved an elusive goal in 2001: They cut travel spending-at least a little. Direct travel expenditures-money spent on airlines, hotels, car rentals and the like-totaled $9.02 billion in fiscal 2001, down 0.4 percent from fiscal 2000. (Indirect expenditures, such as travel management staff time and travel management contract spending, aren't tracked.) The Sept. 11 attacks brought federal business travel to a virtual standstill for weeks. But since the attacks came just before the end of the fiscal year, fiscal discipline, not terror, accounts for the overall decline in travel spending.

More than $5 billion of the money spent in 2001 flowed through federal travel cards, up from $4.7 billion the year before. Last year was the first full year in which card use was mandatory.

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Oops, Wrong Way

Lauren R. Taylor — Mon, 01 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0400

But each year, a couple hundred workers who are denied reimbursements are persistent enough to appeal. Among them are travelers who were just following orders-wrong orders. Good intentions plus bad advice adds up to "Sorry, the law won't allow us to reimburse you for that."

Illegal Turn

Laurel Wheeler, an Air Force civilian, bought a plane ticket directly from an airline for a trip from her base in Nebraska to California. She didn't use the commercial travel office because agency officials told her she could buy the ticket herself. Never having arranged air travel for business before, Wheeler didn't know she was required to use the agency travel office. Luckily for Wheeler, the rules allow the government to make a one-time exception and reimburse an infrequent traveler the amount the ticket would have cost had she bought it the right way. Wheeler got her money, and presumably she knows the rules now.

Other travelers try to work the system-and usually fail. A Justice Department worker in Laredo, Texas, for example, asked for reimbursement for lodging costs at the maximum per diem rate while on a long-term assignment in South Carolina in 1998. Javier Hernandez stayed with his brother for the 136 days. But the Justice Department and General Services Administration's Board of Contract Appeals didn't believe that it cost Hernandez's brother $100 a day-or $13,600-to put him up. When they asked Hernandez for a breakdown of the costs, he included such items as a cell phone, $373.39, and an entertainment center, $1,155.38.

The Federal Travel Regulation says a worker who stays with a relative or friend on business "may be reimbursed for additional costs your host incurs in accommodating you only if you are able to substantiate the costs and your agency determines them to be reasonable. You will not be reimbursed the cost of conventional lodging." But several agencies, including Justice, have gain-sharing programs that allow employees to keep some of the money saved by staying with friends or family.

Bum Steer

Sometimes, an agency or department makes the mistake, and the Air Force is no exception. Like Wheeler, Doris Lee of Las Vegas bought a ticket directly from an airline.

The Air Force civilian was not an infrequent traveler, so she couldn't get an exception to the requirement to use the official travel office. But in this situation, the regs limit the employee's liability to any cost above what it would have been if the ticket had been purchased properly.

The Air Force refused to pay her back, so Lee took the issue to the Board of Contract Appeals and won. The same thing happened to Vivian Nichols, also based in Las Vegas, who needed to go to Texas. And the same thing happened to Richard Mutzman of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, who was sent to training in Virginia.

Vera Wood and Michael Rierson, civilian employees at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, got bad information from a supervisor and bought tickets to Idaho from a travel agency that didn't have a contract with their office. The official travel agency had scheduled a route that took 13 hours each way and cost $600 per person. Wood and Rierson found a route that took eight hours and cost slightly less. They were denied reimbursement.

By the time D. Gregory Arnold, another civilian from Wright-Patterson, got to the appeals board, the judge was frustrated with the Air Force. Arnold asked the board to reimburse him for a trip to Florida for which he had purchased the tickets directly from an airline on-you guessed it-his supervisor's suggestion. In his order to reimburse Arnold, the judge cited the Wood case, which cited five other cases involving Air Force employees who had been denied reimbursement for tickets they bought from unauthorized sources. "The Air Force should cease its practice of denying reimbursement to employees in this situation," the decision says, and avoid "futile defenses of repetitious cases."

While government employees are required to buy their tickets through an in-house or contract travel office, civilians face no penalty for going elsewhere, as long as the ticket costs the same or less as it would have through the proper channels. Service members, on the other hand, will not be paid back if they buy a ticket the unorthodox way. They must take any reimbursement dispute to the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals.

Travelers often get in trouble with the law while following orders. Those orders can be wrong, and if they conflict with the regulations, the government can't reimburse travelers-even if it wants to. That happened in a big way to 11 Social Security Administration workers. At the agency's direction, the employees stayed overnight near their workplace in Baltimore to attend a conference. SSA reimbursed nine of the workers for their lodging and meals, but refused to reimburse the other two. What's more, after realizing their mistake, agency officials wanted to get the money back from the nine who had gotten paid. The law doesn't allow the government to pay subsistence expenses for employees at their official station, even in unusual circumstances. Bad advice aside, the board ruled, "the agency's erroneous actions cannot create an entitlement."

Know The Way

Many of those who end up disputing travel claims were given bad information, often by a co-worker or supervisor-even an authorizing official or travel office. The best way to avoid a dispute is to follow the rules. And the best way to follow them is to know them. The law enforcement maxim, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," applies to travel and relocation reimbursements as well. Three key rules will keep you out of trouble:

Make all travel arrangements through your travel management center, commercial travel office or in-house travel office. The law requires it. And even though few penalties apply if you ignore this law, you can ensure compliance with other rules (such as adherence to the city-pair contract and staying in fire safety-approved facilities) by following this one.
Fly the airline that has the contract for your route. The law allows only limited exceptions to the requirement that federal travelers use the city-pair contract. If someone in your office tells you to go ahead and buy your ticket directly from the carrier, don't do it. This is one of the main reasons people get in trouble.
Use your government travel card for all travel expenses-and only travel expenses. The only exception to the first part of this rule is for expenses that can't be put on a card, such as taxi fares or porter tips or purchases where the cards aren't accepted. There are no exceptions to the second half.

Defense travel is ruled by the Joint Travel Regulations for civilians and the Joint Federal Travel Regulations for service members (www.dtic.mil/perdiem/trvlregs.html). Employees at civilian agencies can find the regs that affect them at www.gsa.gov by clicking on "Travel on Government Business" and then "Federal Travel Regulation." Another way civilian workers can be well-informed is to take one of GSA's travel training classes, which are held across the country. Check them out at www.gsa.gov by clicking on "Training and Professional Development" and then "Travel and Transportation Training" or call (202) 619-8907. ]]>

A Few of Your Favorite Things

Lauren R. Taylor — Sat, 01 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Feds share their top picks in government's 10 most visited cities.

ederal workers are nothing if not savvy travelers, if the results of an informal survey by Government Executive are any indication. We asked you to share your tips on favorite places to stay, eat and unwind in the top federal destinations. General Services Administration data show the 10 cities government travelers frequent most are Washington; Los Angeles; San Diego; San Antonio; Denver; Atlanta; Chicago; New York; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Dallas.

Some themes emerged: Stay near public transportation to avoid big-city traffic (though in several sprawling metropolises, many said renting a car is a must). As for eating, you recommended walking around because "you can always find incredible, inexpensive local or ethnic food. Ask some locals or search around on the Internet before you go." Some of you avoid chain restaurants-"I don't travel looking for what I left behind, and they don't usually serve real food anyway," said one Air Force civilian. Others, however, prefer the consistency of the chains.

In your free time, many of you said you liked to stroll, tour museums or gardens, or spend time at the hotel gym. Some go to casinos. And quite a few answered the question about leisure time with a snort and a guffaw. "Leisure time?" said one Defense Logistics Agency worker. "Not with a Blackberry, a laptop and a cell phone."

Here's what you recommended.

1. WASHINGTON

Why you go. Only 12 percent of federal civilian workers in the United States work in the D.C. area. For the remaining 88 percent, or some 2.4 million people, Washington is the mother ship. Even those agencies based elsewhere, such as the Social Security Administration, have offices in D.C. People visit for meetings, training and conventions-and more meetings.

Where to stay-Washington: "Downtown, as close to the Mall as possible" for the convenience, says a Justice Department employee. A visitor to the Energy Department's headquarters likes the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel and the Holiday Inn Capitol.

Virginia: The Doubletree Crystal City near Pentagon City and the Holiday Inn Rosslyn at Key Bridge because they are "very good" and close to Metro. Another traveler likes the Holiday Inn as well as the Key Bridge Marriott because "if you are a member, you get a great breakfast." Crystal City earns high marks from those visiting the Pentagon and nearby areas "because it is convenient, has indoor access to the Metro and several restaurants in The Underground mall. In fact, you can walk for miles and never have to go outside. That's important for a California guy in the D.C. area during the winter." Also recommended: the Embassy Suites in Old Town Alexandria ("because it has nice facilities, is near the King Street Metro station and has about 30 restaurants within a mile or so"). In Springfield, check out the Hampton Inn.

Maryland: The Woodfin Suites in Rockville has "large" suites and "tremendous" work areas. "It is worth the inconvenience of the 20- to 25-minute drive" to the work site, says a frequent traveler for the Navy. Best eats-Washington: Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle and Georgetown are home to many ethnic restaurants (Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, for example). Dona Flor (Brazilian, near Tenleytown) is "great, but rather expensive." Another favorite is Ruth's Chris Steak House in Dupont Circle-"always good food." Also popular is Paparazzi, an Italian place that "specializes in thin crust pizza" and Old Glory BBQ, both in Georgetown.

Virginia: In Arlington, Queen Bee, Tivoli's and Orleans House (recommended almost unanimously by D.C.-bound travelers who love its prime rib). Near Crystal City, an Air Force civilian recommends Café Italia for reasonably priced "great" food: "You can usually eat dinner with a glass of wine for less than $20." For good seafood, check out the Fish Market in Old Town Alexandria: "A seafood platter there runs about $25, but is great for the price." Ecco Café in Alexandria is an excellent choice for a pre- or post-dinner stroll. Also: Mike's American Grill and Bugaboo Creek Steak House in Springfield and Captain Pell's, a crab joint in Fairfax.

What to do. On the Mall, hang out, watch softball games, read a book or go jogging. "Sometimes I am fortunate enough to see the president land in his helicopter," says one traveler. Tour the monuments in the evening when they're all lit up. Also, walk to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or drive through Arlington National Cemetery, across the river. Walk around Georgetown or Dupont Circle. First-time visitors should check out any one of the Smithsonian Institution's 20-plus museums. If you've seen them, check out the National Building Museum, the Postal Museum, the medical museum at Walter Reed Army Hospital, and the Squished Penny Museum-it's in someone's living room; go to www.squished.com. Tip: Many museums close at 5 p.m.

One regular says his evening destination is the Pentagon City Mall in Arlington: "It's easy to get to by Metro and has lots to do, including restaurants and movies." In Alexandria, says an Air Force traveler, walk down King Street to the Potomac River and watch the planes land and take off at National Airport. "The walk is especially nice since there are about 150 stores selling everything from antiques to books to knickknacks."

2. LOS ANGELES

Why you go. Regional and field offices for, among others, the Justice Department, General Accounting Office, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (because of the mercantile exchange). The Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinates disaster response there, and the city has a "mammoth" convention center, military bases and a large Immigration and Naturalization Service presence. Los Angeles is a good meeting site for employees arriving from west of the Mississippi River because of low contract airfares.

Where to stay The Renaissance near the airport ("a great hotel in a convenient location"). In Orange County, Dana Point has a Holiday Inn Express and other hotels that "offer government rates, free breakfast, and easy access to the beach and freeways." Consider staying on the Queen Mary, a luxury ocean liner docked at Long Beach, now a hotel: "The room was a little small, but the atmosphere was wonderful. The ship's restaurant served good food and had a wonderful view of the city." The Mandalay Bay Beach Resort near the Navy's Point Mugu: "This is the best room I have ever had traveling," declared an Air Force civilian.

What to do. Tour the Queen Mary. Run on the beach. Take an extra day and go to Disneyland, Universal Studios or Magic Mountain.

3. SAN DIEGO

Why you go. Justice Department meetings, Navy bases, National Labor Relations Board conference site.

Where to stay. Woodfin Suites offers the "most amenities," says a Navy traveler. No one recommends the Navy's bachelor officers quarters.

Best eats. Miguel's Concina in Coronado, Casa de Bandini in Old Town, Royal Thai Cuisine in the Gaslight District.

What to do. The San Diego Zoo, the wild animal park, the trolley to Tijuana, Mexico, just 45 minutes away.

4. SAN ANTONIO Why you go. Two major Air Force bases and a huge civic center for meetings.

Where to stay. The Marriott Plaza on South Alamo: "a four-star hotel with a government rate and complimentary limo service downtown."

Best eats. Casa Rio on the Riverwalk or any of the restaurants in or around the Mercado, billed as "the largest outdoor Mexican marketplace outside Mexico."

What to do. Ramble along the Riverwalk, taking in its views, shopping, restaurants, fairs and special events. Take a Gray Line tour of the five historic missions or the Hill Country.

5. DENVER

Why you go. The Office of Personnel Management's Western Management Development Center, facilities and offices for FEMA, GAO, Health and Human Services, Interior and the Selective Service System, among others. Several military bases and installations.

Where to stay. The Radisson-Aurora at the OPM training center.

What to do. The OPM training site has a "great fitness center" (the Colorado Athletic Club) and a park with biking and walking trails. Take in a Colorado Rockies baseball game, go to Cherry Creek Mall, take a bus trip to the casinos or hop on a Gray Line tour of the area.

6. ATLANTA

Why you go. Meetings, trainings and site visits for the Agriculture Department, the Air Force, the Army. Regional offices and service centers for FEMA, the Corporation for National and Community Service, HHS and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Where to stay. "First choice, stay downtown (Westin, Marriott Marquis, Embassy Suites)." These are two or three blocks from the MARTA [subway] line. "Second choice, stay in Buckhead (Ritz Carlton, Swissotel, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Lenox Inn)" within walking distance of a MARTA line. More than one traveler warned about the city's premier shopping promenade: "Stay away from Underground Atlanta" because it is an "overpriced tourist trap."

What to do. Take in athletic events; tickets are usually available for the Braves (baseball), Hawks (basketball) and Thrashers (hockey). Check out Philips Arena for special events, and visit Lennox Square Mall and Phipps Plaza for shopping.

7. CHICAGO

Why you go. EPA meetings; a FEMA regional facility; field and regional offices for GAO, HHS and FERC; and a Selective Service System data management center.

Where to stay. Swissotel gets two thumbs up from one traveler. A Defense Logistic Agency civilian usually stays at the airport Ramada "for no reason other than habit and because it has a government rate."

Best eats. Mama Desta's: "the mother of all Ethiopian restaurants in the country"; the Foodlife food court at Water Tower Place; The Berghoff, a German restaurant in the heart of the Loop (you must go "at least once to say you have been there"); the Billy Goat Tavern.

What to do. The art museum and the parks near Lake Michigan are "a soothing place to walk on a spring or summer evening"; take the boat tour.

8. NEW YORK

Why you go. FEMA has a regional facility there and still is responding to the Sept. 11 attacks. HHS has a regional office. Treasury, GSA and other agencies offer training there to make it accessible to their large number of employees on the East Coast. Where to stay. The Park Central (near Carnegie Hall) offers government rates, is in a central area and is within a block or two of several subway stops, says a Census Bureau employee.

What to do. "Always a temptation to go to the theater, walk in Central Park, walk in Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan (below where the World Trade Center towers were), the museums, the refurbished Brooklyn waterfront for great restaurants." Check out the Lower East Side Tenement Museum "to see how our immigrant parents and grandparents lived when they arrived in New York City."

9. ALBUQUERQUE

Why you go. The city has a big Energy Department presence, Army training, a central location for many Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs activities. A "nice civic center" also draws business travelers.

Best eats. "Any place that serves sopaipillas" (Mexican pastries). Visit Quarters BBQ, insists an Energy Department worker from the Savannah River Site. "Living in the South, I really miss western BBQ," says another traveler. "Quarters is the best." Other picks: Ron's Camino Real ("check out the carne adovada and the specials"); Los Cuates ("marvelous chile rellenos and very good tamales"). One traveler cautions, "Remember, the official state question is: 'Red or green?' Chili, that is. And it's wise to ask which is hotter."

What to do. Take the tram up Sandia Mountain-"a wonderful experience." (Tip: "Do not think of eating [at] Sandia Crest. Pricey and not good.") Shopping tips from an Energy employee: The Chile Pepper Emporium has an amazing selection of chiles and hot sauces; Hispaniae offers a wide selection of Mexican crafts.

Tip: "Stay anywhere, but rent a car at the airport. Nothing is in walking distance."

10. DALLAS

Why you go. Training for employees of the Justice Department, Small Business Administration and the Army. Air Force site visits. FEMA, GAO and HHS facilities.

Where to stay. The Wyndham just outside the city is a "huge, luxurious hotel" that offers government rates. The Wyndham Anatole has "good meeting facilities." The Adolphus is "wonderful."

What to do. The Dallas Farmer's Market, the Texas Schoolbook Depository (from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy) and the famous grassy knoll nearby.

Tip: "Everything in Dallas is a long drive from anywhere else."

TELL USDon't see your favorite hotel, restaurant or leisure activity here? That's because you didn't tell us. Send your tips to ltaylor@govexec.com or Lauren Taylor, Travel Editor, Government Executive, 1501 M St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005. We might run them in a future issue. ]]>

Share And Share Alike

Lauren R. Taylor — Wed, 01 May 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Frugal travelers can pocket some of what they save the government.

ave the government travel dollars and some of that money might end up in your own pocket. A little-known program allows agencies to reward frugal travelers for their efforts to keep costs down.

Two laws gave birth to the gain-sharing program. Title 5 of the U.S. Code authorizes agencies to pay cash to employees who "contribute to the efficiency or economy of government operations." And the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, which includes a mandate to promote frequent traveler programs, directed the General Services Administration to issue guidelines on gain-sharing to agencies. GSA has an agencywide gain-sharing program, as do the departments of Justice and Education. Other agencies offer gain-sharing, but in some cases it is limited to a single office or division. These include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Energy, Agriculture and Treasury departments.

Rules Of The Road

Throughout government, some of the basic rules of gain-sharing apply. Employees are eligible for cash awards of up to 50 percent of the amount they save. Employees can save two ways: by using an airline ticket earned with frequent flier miles or spending less than the maximum on lodging. They can save on lodging expenses by staying with family or friends, choosing hotels with rates that are lower than per diem or sharing rooms. Any extra money spent on transportation to stay at a hotel with a cheaper rate is deducted from the amount saved.

Most programs require travelers to save a certain amount before they can get money back. Education Department employees, for example, must save at least $400 in a fiscal year before they can apply for a cash award. Most agencies have decided that processing an award for smaller amounts isn't worth the administrative cost.

In fiscal 2000, Education gave $25,109 to 24 employees who participated in the program. Participation peaked in 1998 with 36 employees. "The people who use it have gotten some nice awards," says Jeanne Johnson, a financial manager who oversees Education's program. Justice handed out about $100,000 to 110 people for saving more than $200,000 in 1997, the last year for which figures are available.

Dubious Rewards

Although the amounts saved by this program aren't huge, Justice finance staffer Mark Rodeffer considers it successful because it costs the department virtually nothing. Each traveler's administrative office processes the awards, and the amount of additional work is minimal, he says. Though it looks like a simple win-win deal, gain-sharing has its detractors. Chief among them are those who think people shouldn't be rewarded for spending the taxpayers' money wisely. "In my office," says a financial officer at the Energy Department, "we feel that government travelers should have a desire to be good stewards and make the best economic decisions. We didn't like the idea of incentivizing what should be expected." Others are frustrated because only frequent travelers, most of whom are managers, can effectively benefit from gain-sharing programs. Thus gain-sharing looks like something managers cooked up to reward themselves, one critic says. And although the structure of the program is simple, "it can be an accounting and administrative nightmare," says one federal travel expert who asked not to be named. Gain-sharing also suffers from a lack of visibility. An Education staffer calls the department's initiative a "stealth" gain-sharing program. "I tried to find out about the program after hearing that they existed in other departments," says the employee. "Neither my supervisor nor the executive officer knew about it." And Defense civilians, who make up the government's largest workforce, are ineligible for the program. The department's Joint Travel Regulation, which covers such workers, says that when travelers stay with family or friends on a business trip, their per diem lodging expense is considered to be zero. The big question is what will happen to gain-sharing now that federal workers are allowed to keep frequent flier miles earned on business travel for personal use. "People are not going to give the government a free trip," says the travel expert. "Gain-sharing may just go out the window." But people like Julie Yeager Arthur, an institutional improvement specialist for Federal Student Aid in Seattle, may keep gain-sharing alive. She expects to continue turning in her frequent flier miles to Education. Arthur travels so much she doubts she could take enough time off to use all her miles for personal travel. "Besides," says Arthur, "when I have time off, I like to stay home."

All Charged Up

ank of America, which issues travel cards to more than 400,000 Army employees, has given the government until the end of May to figure out how to pay millions of dollars in delinquent bills. Otherwise, the bank plans to cancel the cards. The bank threatened to close off the accounts on March 25, but it granted a 60-day stay of execution, says Sue McIver, director of the Services Acquisition Center at the General Services Administration. The center oversees government travel contracts. In fiscal 2001, Defense Department employees spent $3.4 billion with travel cards.

The 1998 Travel and Transportation Reform Act requires federal employees to use government charge cards, instead of personal credit cards, for travel expenses. In most cases, agencies reimburse employees for travel expenses and the employees pay the bills. But late payments and allegations of card abuse, particularly at the Defense Department, have tarnished the program's reputation. Pentagon officials have formed a task force to find ways to reduce abuse of government charge cards, including purchase and travel cards. "Money lost this way is the kind of money that can be spent on bombs, bullets and whatever else is needed," Defense Comptroller Dov Zakheim told reporters at a March press conference. "We are not going to let the grass grow under our feet on this one." The task force's recommendations are due in late May. A year ago, Defense Finance and Accounting Service Director Jerry Hinton told House legislators that the Pentagon had crafted a plan to solve the problem. The plan included:

Increased attention from agency managers.
Deactivation of infrequently used cards.
Garnishment of salaries for workers whose accounts were more than 120 days overdue.
Establishment of direct payment systems to banks.
Reduced credit limits.
Increased fees for late and returned checks.

But at a March 13 hearing, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said that 46,572 Defense employees had defaulted on more than $62 million in travel expenses as of November. Recommendations the task force is studying include making supervisors who sign off on purchases pay for unauthorized purchases out of their own pockets and making charge card abuse a specific offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The move would strengthen the Pentagon's ability to punish and prosecute employees, according to Zakheim. Another suggestion is to suspend security clearances for people who misuse the cards. More than 90 Defense employees are under investigation for misuse and abuse of government charge cards. A bank has never canceled an agency or department travel card account, McIver says. "Employees are on travel all around the world," she says. "Credit cards are an important way the [government] does business."

- Kellie Lunney and Tanya N. Ballard

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Laws: www.opm.gov/perform/articles/112.htm and www.access.gpo.gov/uscode (Title 5, Part III, Subpart C, Chapter 45, Subchapter 1). Contacts: Jeanne Johnson at Education (jeanne_johnson@ed.gov) or Mark Rodeffer at Justice (Mark.H.Rodeffer@usdoj.gov).

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Time is On Your Side

Lauren R. Taylor — Mon, 01 Apr 2002 00:00:00 -0500

If your job is executive, managerial or professional, your work hours most likely are governed by Title 5 of the U.S. Code, rather than the Fair Labor Standards Act. Title 5 says that if you are traveling outside the regularly scheduled work week, and the time is "ordered and approved," you can receive compensatory time if scheduling of the work is not in the government's control.

The key question is, "What is in the government's 'control?'" The Transportation Department employee takes exception to the widespread position that the government almost always has administrative control over scheduling, and thus workers aren't entitled to overtime or comp time.

He points to an Office of Personnel Management ruling last July that says: "The phrase 'could not be scheduled or controlled administratively' refers to the ability of an executive agency . . . to control the event that necessitates an employee's travel. The control is assumed to be the agency's. . . . [But when] an institution outside the government conducts a training course, unless it is for the sole benefit of the government, it is an event that cannot be scheduled or controlled administratively" (OPM FLSA decision F-0640-09-010).

"Most people don't know the rule and most managers, who approve travel, have never read the rule, and therefore no one gets paid," says the Transportation employee. "I think there are a lot of employees who are not being adequately compensated." For more rulings on this topic, including those that define when the government does have control of an event, go to www.opm.gov/flsa/table.htm.

Places To Go, Things To Dohe top federal travel destinations are the Washington metro area; Los Angeles; San Diego; San Antonio; Denver; Atlanta; Chicago; New York; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Dallas. Does your business take you there? If so, we want to hear from your for an upcoming travel column. Let us know:

What takes you to these cities? Meetings, training, inspections? Inquiring minds want to know.
Do you have favorite places to eat or to stay? Please share your recommendations with other Government Executive readers.
What do you do in your leisure time? Do you have a special park to walk in? A rockin' bowling alley? A convenient movie theater? Send your tips and suggestions to Lauren Taylor, Travel Editor, Government Executive, 1501 M St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005 or to ltaylor@govexec.com. And look for the results in the June issue of Government Executive.

Save The Dateearn about everything from the new lodging program to the 1974 Fly America Act, from smart cards to planning an Earth-friendly meeting at the National Travel Forum 2002.

More than 1,500 federal employees-at all levels of travel planning, relocation services, financial systems and meeting planning-and industry mavens will gather. The conference is an opportunity to network; talk to those who make travel policies and rules; learn about travel and relocation trends; see the latest in relocation coordination, information systems, conference planning, best practices and more.

Who: Sponsored by GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, the Interagency Travel Management Committee and Government Executive.
What: National Travel 2002
When: June 17-20
Where: The Gaylord Opryland, Nashville, Tenn.
How: Go to www.nationaltravel2002.org or call (800) 315-4333 for more information or to register. Discounted registration ends April 30.

Per Diem Going Uphe General Services Administration raised per diem rates for the Washington area, Seattle, and Portland, Ore., effective Feb. 15.

The new rates for federal business travel are:

Washington and surrounding areas: $196, up from the current rate of $165.
Seattle: $189, up from $155.
Portland, Ore.: $129, up from $115.

In January, GSA also boosted the rate for Manhattan to $254 a day ($208 of which is lodging), and decreased the rate for the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens to $214 a day.

Washington, Seattle and Portland are being added to the Federal Premier Lodging Program, under which hotels contract with the government to guarantee that a certain number of rooms will be available within the per diem lodging rate. GSA took on the project after workers complained that they frequently were unable to get rooms at or below per diem at many federal destinations.

Thirty-eight properties in Washington, 14 in Seattle and six in Portland will be added to the program, increasing opportunities for federal employees to find affordable lodging in those areas when traveling on official business.

Two years ago, GSA ran a pilot of the program in Boston before expanding it to other cities. Recent contracts were awarded in Chicago, Denver, New York and Jefferson County, Colo. Contracts are pending in Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Boston and Memphis, Tenn. GSA plans to have contracts in all of the top 75 government travel destinations by June. Until the contracts are final, per diem rates for those locations remain the same.

Federal employees still can submit complaints about locations where they have difficulty finding lodging within per diem at GSA's No Vacancy Web site (http://policyworks.gov/org/main/mt/homepage/mtt/ perdiem/lodging/novac1.cfm).

Following the IRS' lead, GSA also increased the reimbursement rate for business use of a private vehicle to 36.5 cents a mile (up from 34.5 cents) effective Jan. 21.

-Tanya N. Ballard contributed to this report

Do you have a winning travel program?Government Executive's Travel Manager of the Year Awards recognize excellence in travel and relocation management.

If you know of a federal travel or relocation team or project-big or small-that we should shine a spotlight on, contact Jessica D'Auria at (202) 739-8519 or jdauria@govexec.com for an application. The nomination form also will appear on www.govexec.com/travel/award in May.

Judges look for agency programs that:

Have made great strides in reengineering government travel.
Adhere to the concept and principles of government reinvention.
Save money.
Use staff time well.
Improve accuracy, productivity and morale.

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The Lowdown on High Mileage

Lauren R. Taylor — Fri, 01 Mar 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Most business travel is routine, but given the amount of time some feds are on the road, they encounter some unpredictable challenges.

n average, federal agencies spend about $5,500 on travel per employee each year. And the big spenders aren't always the ones you might expect: The National Science Foundation's annual travel budget averages almost $11,000 per employee, while Social Security hits the road the least, spending less than $1,000 per employee.

Who actually spends those funds is another story. Some feds don't travel at all, while others are on the road a lot. Some agencies even subsidize trips for non-government travelers on federal business.

And the leading road warriors aren't always going to the meetings and conferences, training sessions and site visits that are synonymous with government travel. Here's a peek inside the travel routines of some high-mileage agencies.

Striving for Sanity

The budgeters at the Federal Emergency Management Agency have to use a crystal ball when they plan for travel. Disasters, by definition, pretty much can't be foreseen.

Travelers from the agency-which is responsible for planning for, responding to and helping in the recovery from disasters-have hit the road for every type of emergency, from the Sept. 11 attacks to California's earthquakes, fires and mudslides; from Hurricane Andrew to Mississippi River floods. FEMA estimates it spent nearly $14,000 per employee on travel in 2001.

Immediately after a disaster, says James Lucas, a senior policy adviser at the office of FEMA's chief financial officer, the agency often deploys several hundred people. And they can be assigned to the site for months-or years. FEMA travelers are a diverse bunch, including community outreach workers, crisis counselors, engineers, materiel handlers (people who, for example, deliver tarps for damaged roofs after a hurricane), engineers, building inspectors and accountants.

So where do all these people come from? They're not just sitting around FEMA's offices waiting for something bad to happen. Most of them are retirees-from FEMA, other agencies and the private sector. The agency has 2,300 regular employees-and three times that in reservists. FEMA also has the authority to assign tasks to 27 other government agencies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, the General Services Administration and the Health and Human Services Department.

Life on the disaster crew can be as unpredictable as disasters themselves. Most workers stay wherever they can get a room. Often accommodations have been destroyed, especially after a hurricane. Employees take second place to people displaced by disaster in getting a roof-or a tent-over their heads.

"We've stayed in tents; we've stayed in boats anchored off shore," says Lucas. "We've stayed in rooms with the windows blown out and with soggy carpets. We've also stayed in rooms with air conditioning that were dry and very nice."

On long-term assignments, "eating out and looking at the same four walls gets a little bit tiring," Lucas says, so the agency tries to put people in extended-stay properties or get a group together in a condo.

Immediately after a disaster, crews work 12, 14 or even 16-hour days, seven days a week. "Once things settle down a bit, we try to give people at least one day off a week-for their sanity," Lucas says.

Leave Them Wanting More

Why does the National Science Foundation spend so much on travel? Cheryl Kaminski, branch chief of cash management and external accounting, has the answer: the foundation's 15,000-plus panelists. These renowned scientists from all over the world travel to meetings at which they consider the foundation's research grants to universities and private institutions.

"We do research everywhere-we are even in Antarctica," says Kaminski. "We cover every discipline, from mathematics to education to biology to computers."

Most panelists make one trip a year, so that's about 15,000 trips compared with about 5,000 regular business trips by staff each year, Kaminski says.

The panelists get a flat daily rate and a small honorarium. Most of them view the work as donating time to the government. Kaminski says her focus is on paying the travelers quickly, because the agency's "objective is to make them want to come back."

Short on Glamour

Government travel isn't as sexy as critics might think. When you're on an Air India flight heading east, for example, you know you're in trouble. That's one of many bits of wisdom gleaned from one State Department officer's life of travel.

On one four- or five-hour leg, the flight attendants generally lock the toilets so they won't have to clean them later, says an official with the State Department's Bureau of Administration. And economy class is filled with migrant laborers where "you are the only one who can read and write. Everyone passes their disembarkation forms to you to help them fill them out." The official, who asked not to be named, says she views that public service as shaving time off her stay in purgatory.

In carrying out its mission to "shape a freer, more secure, and more prosperous world," the department maintains diplomatic relations with some 180 of the world's 191 countries. It has nearly 260 posts around the world, including embassies, consulates and missions to international organizations.

All this and more contribute to State's travel budget of $190 million for 28,000 employees, or almost $7,000 each. (Before Sept. 11, the department planned to spend $224 million on travel in fiscal 2002.) "We live overseas," and foreign travel is expensive, says the official. Some employees are on the road most of the year. Some who are stationed overseas without their families travel back to the United States to deal with family responsibilities. The families of employees stationed overseas get vacation travel every year or two. Medical travel is needed because many posts don't have adequate facilities. And there is relocation travel, which tallies 3,000 or 4,000 moves a year.

Experiences like the one on Air India are the norm for State Department travel, says the official, not the elegant life many people imagine when they picture someone circling the globe with a diplomatic passport.

"It's quite the opposite," she says. "The diplomatic passport can help you avoid the shakedown at the border, but the travel is anything but glamorous."

Whatever the reason for the trip, State Department travelers must have advanced degrees in patience, fortitude and flexibility. Once, on a flight into Central America, the State official's plane was diverted-to another country. The air traffic control towers had no glass, and plastic sheeting was flapping in the wind. When she got off the plane, far from her intended destination, she says, "No one was there to say, 'Ms. Jones, we have a bus waiting for you.' " In this kind of travel, she says, standards are different, adding, "There is no thought about putting your seat in the upright and locked position."

Home Base

Staying closer to home-but still racking up the miles-are the travelers at the National Credit Union Administration. Three-quarters of the agency's 1,000 employees are examiners. The agency has six regional offices and a small headquarters, but the vast majority of examiners, each of whom performs audits in a specific district, are based at their homes. Most examine each credit union once a year. Some examiners, especially those on the East and West coasts, where the largest credit unions are, have "pretty much a 9-to-5 experience," says Ron Aaron, deputy chief financial officer. "They lead fairly normal lives."

But in the rest of the country, many "Ma and Pa" credit unions are housed in places like the lobbies of churches. And examiners' territories can cover hundreds of miles. For example, examiners based in Austin work with credit unions between there and North Dakota. They often are away from home a week or two each month.

That set-up explains how the agency spends about $13 million a year on travel, or almost $13,000 per employee. Most of the travel is routine, but given the amount of time they are on the road, these civil servants encounter some unpredictable challenges. After Hurricane Andrew, one examiner found trees blocking the road. He sawed them apart and was on his way. That isn't something they teach in accounting school.

Save The Date

earn about everything from the new lodging program to the 1974 Fly America Act, from Smart Cards to planning an Earth-friendly meeting at the National Travel Forum 2002.

Who: Sponsored by GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, the Interagency Travel Management Committee and Government Executive
What: National Travel 2002
When: June 17-20
Where: The Gaylord Opryland, Nashville, Tenn.
How: Go to www.nationaltravel2002.org or call (800) 315-4333 for more information or to register. Discounted registration ends April 30.

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The Home Front

Lauren R. Taylor — Fri, 01 Mar 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Defense Department takes aim at domestic violence.

essa Rosdahl's husband, an Army private, hit her. And every time Rosdahl sought help from the Army-like the time her husband punched her in the face, or the time he threatened her with a knife when she was nine months pregnant-she came up empty-handed.

It was a rough time. Rosdahl was in her early 20s and had young children. She and her husband were stationed in Germany, far from family and friends. "It didn't matter where I turned: the platoon sergeant, the chaplain, the military police," she says. No one gave her the help she needed. The chaplain warned her not to leave her husband, saying the violent man would get custody of the couple's three daughters. "The Army takes care of its own," he told her.

A counselor told her he would have to report anything she confided in him to her husband's commander. And when Rosdahl said she thought her husband's violence was linked to his alcohol abuse, the counselor responded: "Just let him drink." After one incident, the military police sent Rosdahl's husband to the barracks, where single soldiers live, but they sent him home the next day.

"When the military turns its back and sweeps the problem under the carpet, there's nowhere else to turn," says Rosdahl.

But the Defense Department is trying to do a better job of helping women in Rosdahl's situation. In fact, Defense is running the largest anti-domestic violence program in the United States. In November, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz issued a memo to service leaders saying, "Domestic violence will not be tolerated in the Department of Defense." He called on military commanders to take action against perpetrators and to protect victims. "Domestic violence is an offense against the institutional values of the military services of the United States of America," Wolfowitz declared. "Commanders at every level have a duty to take appropriate steps to prevent domestic violence, protect victims, and hold those who commit it accountable."

The world's most powerful military was frightened into becoming a leading advocate for abused spouses by a January 1999 edition of 60 Minutes. The broadcast pronounced military families as much as five times more likely to be violent than civilian families. It charged the military services with neglecting the problem, stating that very few offenders ever face court-martial.

Congressional reaction was swift. The fiscal 2000 Defense authorization bill required the Pentagon to appoint a task force to come up with ways to solve the military's domestic violence problem.

Even without the bad press and the congressional mandate, the Defense Department had good reason for setting its sights on family violence. For one thing, domestic violence interferes with readiness, retention and morale in the ranks, whether the service members involved are abusers or victims. The military services espouse a deep belief in protecting the family. And because the Pentagon serves as doctor, landlord, employer, clergy, therapist, teacher, police officer, judge and almost everything else to 1.4 million service members and their 1.9 million dependents (about half of whom are spouses), the problems of family violence are shoved in its face every day.

Defense has had programs to help abuse victims and perpetrators since the early 1980s, but many find them inadequate.

Like Rosdahl, when Heather Morales (not her real name) was looking for help, she met roadblocks at every turn. Newly married, she and her husband, an Army corporal, were in Fort Polk, La., for a year. After a move to another duty station, the abuse started. He said she was fat and ugly, he punched her in the face, he tried to run her over with a car.

Morales called the military police, but they wouldn't take any action because they didn't witness the assault. Months later the civilian police arrested and charged Morales' husband with spouse abuse. After a week in jail, he was released into his commander's custody. Morales' husband was ordered to stay away from her, but the first night he was out of jail, he tried to break into her house. Morales tried to get help from the Army's mental health services, the military's Family Advocacy Program, two chaplains, and more. "Nobody ever helped me," she says. Her husband's commander even witnessed one of the attacks, but beyond pulling the man off Morales, he took no action.

Last March, Morales, now 23, returned to her home state. But she's not free of the terror of her husband's abuse. He's still in the military and still stalking her, Morales says. Her husband now has a new commander, who said to Morales, "As far as I'm concerned, he's starting with a clean slate."

Tearing Down Barriers

The Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence, made up of 12 service members and 12 civilians, convened in early 2000 to uncover-and tear down-the kind of barriers Rosdahl, Morales and others face. After a year of investigation, the task force released its first report in February 2001. The panel praised the military for the steps it has taken to combat domestic violence, but pointed out many areas for improvement and made more than 75 recommendations.

Advocates for abused women are skeptical about the task force and its report. The military has a long history, they charge, of ignoring victims' needs. Christine Hansen, executive director of the Miles Foundation, a private nonprofit organization, has worked with more than 7,000 survivors of abuse by service members since 1996. She says problems with the military's response to victims are deep and systemic, and they won't be easy to solve.

One major sticking point is the size of the problem. Some task force members and others who work on the issue insist the military's domestic violence problem is no worse than that of the general population. Others think the statistics 60 Minutes cited are basically sound, and that violence is rampant in military families.

All sides agree that active-duty service members and their families report 20,000 to 23,000 spouse abuse incidents every year and that the rate of substantiated incidents has remained fairly steady over the past five years.

What's less clear is what those numbers mean. David W. Lloyd, director of Defense's Family Advocacy Program, which serves families with abuse problems, is one of many who says that comparing civilian and military abuse rates is impossible: "It's apples and oranges." The military's statistics differ from those collected on civilians in several ways. First, the military only tracks incidents between spouses. That means any abuse involving dating couples, cohabiting couples, or people who used to date, live together but aren't married is not counted. Second, civilian research doesn't tally emotional abuse that occurs without physical violence, while the military does. Also, the military does not look like America. Eighty-five percent of active-duty service members are men ages 18 to 35-the group at the highest risk of committing crimes, including physical violence, Lloyd points out.

If you control for demographic factors, the rates are "very close," says Richard Heyman, a research associate professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who has compared Army and civilian partner violence.

Heyman calls the "civilian versus military" angle on the issue "a sexy one . . . but really a red herring. Sometimes the military gets heat when it is not deserved." The Defense Department has funded some of Heyman's research. "Does the military have a problem that needs to be addressed? Yes," says Heyman. "Does it have more? It all depends on the perspective."

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., who led the crusade for a task force, subscribes to the theory that warriors may have trouble dropping the "might makes right" attitude when they get home. "We train the [military] to be combative," says Sanchez, "so the personality may be a little bit more prone to violence than the average American."

"Not Soldier-Like"

Any amount of domestic violence is too much, in the eyes of Marine Lt. Gen. Jack Klimp, who until his June retirement was the military co-chair of the task force. "Domestic violence is not Marine-like. It's not sailor-like, it's not soldier-like, it's not airman-like. It is conduct that is not acceptable from a member of the armed forces of the United States," says Klimp, a veteran of Vietnam, Somalia and the Gulf War.

Klimp and the task force asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to declare war on domestic violence in the ranks with what they've dubbed "the mother of all recommendations"-a zero-tolerance policy. In a letter to Rumsfeld accompanying their report, the task force members wrote: "An unequivocal statement from you will send a powerful signal throughout the department. It will make clear that this matter must be addressed decisively, judiciously and unwaveringly."

Touting the zero-tolerance strategy's success in reducing drug and alcohol abuse in the military, the task force sought a similar campaign on domestic violence.

When he was a commander, Klimp says, it wasn't uncommon for an officer to come to him in defense of someone in the unit who was in trouble and say, "But sir, he's a good Marine."

Klimp says, "Good Marines don't abuse their children, they don't abuse their spouses and they don't abuse their troops. And if they do do that sort of thing, they are not good Marines by my definition, regardless of how they perform in the field."

Wolfowitz's call for a crackdown on domestic violence in the military is a powerful acknowledgement of the problem and a strong statement against it, some task force members say. "Now there's no way to deny or minimize that there is a problem," says Debby Tucker, co-chair of the task force and director of the National Training Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence in Austin, Texas. Wolfowitz is "sending a message out from the very top throughout the armed services," she says.

The task force found that service members at all levels-commanding officers, senior enlisted personnel, Family Advocacy Program staff, legal workers, and the police and medical providers who encounter victims right after violent incidents-say senior leaders should "publicly state their support for prevention of domestic violence, accountability for offenders and support for victims."

In addition to the call for zero tolerance, the task force made more than 75 proposals to prevent family violence and improve intervention. Some of its key suggestions fall into two areas: confidentiality and offender accountability.

RETALIATION Risk

Many abuse experts say the military's family violence problem is larger than the numbers indicate: As formidable as the barriers to reporting abuse are in the civilian world, they are in some ways worse for service members and their families.

Civilians can confide in clergy, lawyers or therapists and be confident their secrets are safe. Not so for those in the armed forces, nor for their spouses or children. In fact, if someone reports abuse to the Family Advocacy Program, to the military police or to other installation service providers, the service member's commanding officer will be told immediately.

The military requires such reporting because commanders are responsible for the safety and well-being of those under their commands and their families. Commanders are "charged with the responsibility 'to maintain good order and discipline for all the service members within [their] unit,'" according to the task force report.

The result can be devastating for victims. The military's lack of confidentiality discourages reporting of abuse and may put victims at greater risk, an April 2000 General Accounting Office investigation found (GAO/NSIAD-00-127). The Defense task force found that advocates for victims believe the requirement to report domestic violence to commanders "can result in the unintended consequences of putting the victim at increased risk of retaliation from the offender and/or reinforce the victim's sense of powerlessness and lack of control."

Instead, the task force urges, victims should have a say in how cases are handled. The military should provide for privileged communication with counselors and should reevaluate the mandatory reporting rule, the panel says.

'Chew Him Out'

A commander has vast discretion in how to respond after discovering domestic abuse in the ranks. The consequence doled out, if any, depends on "the commander's personal attitude toward and beliefs about the military, families, relationships and abuse," the task force reports. In the most common situation, the commander simply reprimands the offender.

"The commander might bring in a couple and say to the guy, 'You gotta stop beating your wife,'" says Rep. Sanchez, adding that is often the extent of the intervention.

Victim advocate Hansen hears the same thing. "Many of the commanders use this terminology," she says. " 'We chew him out. We read him the riot act. We tell him what's what and where's where.' "

While well meaning, such actions can put a victim in more danger. Lacking knowledge about domestic violence, commanding officers often "make decisions that placed the victim in unsafe circumstances," according to the task force.

Hansen is more direct: "If you are going to hold an offender accountable . . . you can't release him at the end of the workday without initiating some steps to deal with victim safety." If all they do is chew him out, she says, "it escalates the violence. The woman becomes much less safe."

The reprimand response means other strategies and tools go unused. The task force found that "relatively few military personnel are prosecuted or administratively sanctioned on charges stemming from domestic violence." Although statistics aren't kept, it's estimated that only 5 percent of cases result in court-martial. "You've got to have a pretty heinous crime before somebody is going to face . . . a criminal justice response,"adds co-chair Tucker.

The task force also noted that military police and others who respond to incidents of domestic violence don't have adequate training. "Many, if not most, military police are not trained to view domestic violence incidents as serious crimes. Most had not received training to enable them to distinguish the primary aggressor."

"Unfortunately the outcomes resulted in a perception that cases were handled arbitrarily and capriciously," the task force says. The task force says the military should investigate every reported incident to see whether a crime has been committed and that military police and others who respond to abuse get adequate training. The military also should develop guidelines for dealing with such situations.

Other barriers to holding offenders accountable include confusion over who has jurisdiction on and near military installations. Civilian and military police cannot enforce each other's protective orders. Protective orders commonly prohibit an abuser from further harming or even approaching a victim. In many jurisdictions, judges also might order an abuser to leave the family home and assign temporary child custody. But such legal protections are limited by jurisdictional loopholes, such as the fact that battered service members can't get military protective orders, because they don't apply to their civilian spouses. If the victim is a service member and her spouse a civilian, her commander might send her to the barracks in an effort to protect her, leaving the children with the violent parent. The task force urges that civil protection orders be enforceable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and that military orders be enforceable in civilian communities.

The Fear Factor

Abusers often control victims by manipulating their fear of consequences if they tell the truth about what's going on at home. For those in uniform, housing, income, careers and more can hang in the balance.

Hansen hears the threats all the time. Abusers tell victims "'You'll ruin my career,' " she says. "'You won't have money. You won't have a place to live. You and the children will be out on the street.'"

Two studies for the military by Caliber Associates, a Northern Virginia research firm, found that the No. 1 barrier to reporting domestic violence by service members is the victim's fear of damaging the offender's career. Not only does that discourage reporting, says Bob Stein, executive director of the Defense task force, it also leads to "a lot of recanting."

In fact, service members' careers rarely are affected, except in severe child abuse cases. Spouse abuse, the task force found, is seen as more acceptable, and fear of negative consequences is probably out of proportion to the true effect.

Where concern about consequences is warranted, observers agree, is among victims of domestic violence. The key question is whether the Defense Department is doing enough to keep victims safe.

"The Department of Defense says this is an issue they take seriously," says Hansen, "but the question becomes the dedication to assisting the victims and to appropriate treatment for offenders." Counseling is available to abusers at each base or in the community through the Family Advocacy Program. But for the Defense Department, Hansen says, "military mission is paramount and victim safety is somewhere down the list." She says commanders often make excuses, such as, "We have training exercises, so he won't be able attend anger-management [class] this week."

The task force is embracing the victim safety creed to some degree. "A victim is not safe until free of not only violent acts themselves, but also of threats of those acts and the fear that is engendered as it limits the victim's autonomy," the panel's report says. Knowing that the risks of violence, and of increasingly severe violence, shoot up when a victim tries to leave an abuser, the task force proposes more victim involvement in determining the next steps in each case.

"The military has focused on the offender, usually the active duty service member," says Stein. "That needs to at least even up and make sure to take care of victims and that they feel safe."

Still Waiting

Legislators gave the Defense Secretary 90 days after the Feb. 28, 2001, release to review the task force report and send it to Capitol Hill, but for many months it was stalled at the Pentagon, awaiting Rumsfeld's review. Some on the Hill were unconcerned, ascribing the delay first to the change in administration and later to the response the Sept. 11 attacks. Others accused the Pentagon of foot-dragging.

When the report was finally transmitted in November, the Pentagon signed off on all but 11 of the task force's recommendations and promised to begin work on them immediately. The task force's second report was scheduled to be released the last week in February. Despite the delays, a mood of optimism surrounds the military offensive against domestic violence. Given its role and its reach, the military is in some ways ahead of the private sector in combating physical abuse. Task force director Stein says the Pentagon's history of forthrightly addressing other social issues-such as drug and alcohol abuse, equal employment opportunity, child care and drunken driving-give him confidence that this project will be a success.

Twenty-five years ago, Stein says, drunken driving got service members "a wink and a nod. Now, an offense has significant consequences for your career. I think we'll see that kind of change in domestic violence. It goes against the institutional values of the military." Co-chair Tucker cites the military's record in dealing with racism in the ranks. The department recognized that it couldn't change people's thinking or attitudes, but made it clear that "behavior toward others cannot be discriminatory," she says. The military learned that "If you act as if you respect people from other cultures, your values and attitudes and beliefs will catch up with that." A similar approach of policing abusers' behavior while encouraging attitudinal change, Tucker believes, can work with domestic violence.

Observers say the task force's work to date is just the low-hanging fruit. Many of the recommendations, such as the need for more and better training, are obvious. And they are more easily said than done. Most of what the task force is recommending, says Family Advocacy Program director Lloyd, "will not necessarily be easy, quick or cheap."

The proof will come in the next year or so, when the task force considers domestic violence in military families overseas, follows up on implementation of its recommendations and puts together a comprehensive, strategic plan for combating domestic violence in military families.

"The result of our collective efforts should be military communities that are safer, more wholesome, and provide a quality of life for our men and women in uniform and their families that is free of fear," the task force wrote to Rumsfeld.

Realistically, Stein points out, no system anywhere can prevent all domestic violence. "What we need to do is make the system as good as possible," he says. "That way, if some domestic violence happens, people will understand that it is not because of the system, but in spite of it."

Where to Turn

Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence
www.dtic.mil/domesticviolence
Provides information on the task force and its 118-page report.

Miles Foundation
(877) 570-0688 http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/milesfdn/myhomepage
milesfd@yahoo.com
A private nonprofit organization that provides services to victims of violence associated with the military. "Intimate Partner Violence and the Military: A Victim's Handbook" is available free to victims and survivors, $15 for others.

"Military Dependents: Services Provide Limited Confidentiality In Family Abuse Cases"(GAO/NSIAD-00-127)
www.gao.gov/archive/2000/ns00127.pdf

Military Family Resource Center
(703) 602-4964 or 332-4964 (DSN)
http://mfrc.calib.com
Click on "Special Issues" and then "Domestic Violence Prevention." Lists family advocacy programs worldwide and domestic violence prevention resources.

National Domestic Violence Hotline
(800) 799-SAFE (7233) or (800) 787-3224 (TTY)
www.ndvh.org
ndvh@ndvh.org or deafhelp@ndvh.org
Hot line operates 24 hours a day. Interpreters of more than 100 languages available.

Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel
(866) 879-2568
www.staaamp.org
Assistance for those who have survived abuse or mistreatment by military personnel.

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Frequent Fliers Land Perks

Lauren R. Taylor — Fri, 01 Feb 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Federal travelers are finally allowed to hang on to their frequent flier miles.

isten to federal workers talk about the law that prohibited them from keeping frequent flier miles for personal travel and you'll hear it called "totally unfair" and "idiotic." According to one critic, "As government travelers, we are the ones who suffer."

So government employees cheered on Dec. 28 when President Bush signed the 2002 Defense authorization bill, which included an amendment allowing them to keep frequent flier miles and other travel perks earned on business travel.

Senators Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., added the amendment, joining the General Accounting Office director, the President and many of their Hill colleagues in arguing that allowing federal workers to use the miles for personal travel would help federal retention and recruitment efforts. The government is focused on attracting and keeping quality employees, as it expects to lose a huge portion of its most seasoned workers to retirement in the next five years.

The long-awaited benefit allows civil service, military and Foreign Service employees to use points earned from airlines, hotels and car rental agencies while traveling on government business. Federal workers have lobbied lawmakers and regulators for a change for years; many said the restriction made them feel their contributions were not valued.

The benefit is retroactive, allowing federal workers to use points earned before the bill's enactment. The bill doesn't say how far back miles can be tallied, only that it applies to promotional items received before, on, or after the date of enactment of the law. The prohibition on using frequent traveler points earned on federal business trips is codified in the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act. That law prohibited workers from accepting promotional items while traveling at government expense and required them to turn the miles over to their agencies for use on official travel.

But a General Accounting Office report said that most frequent flier miles went unused, because agencies found accounting for and cashing in the benefits too onerous. "Many agencies found the cost of monitoring, tracking and accounting for [them] to far outweigh any benefit to the government," says Lennard Loewentritt, deputy associate general counsel at the General Services Administration.

A frequent traveler at the Veterans Affairs Department feels it's "only fair" to allow workers to have what compensation they can for their time on the road. "When you're on travel, you're not just away for eight hours a day," says the program manager. "For 24 hours a day you're away from home, family, chores and everything else you would have done at home. It's wonderful that they did something positive for us."

GSA and the Defense Department are revising their travel regulations to conform to the new law, and those changes should be in effect by February or March. The GSA administrator has already waived the rules that prohibited use of miles for personal travel while the regs are being revised.

Federal workers will be expected to pay any costs, such as membership fees, associated with frequent traveler perks. As in the private sector, frequent flier miles are taxable as an employee benefit.

For more details on the new rules regarding frequent traveler benefits, go to www.policyworks.gov and click on "Travel Management."

- Tanya N. Ballard contributed to this report.

Easing The Pain of Car Rentals

To avoid spinning your wheels on business trips, follow these tips from Christine Braswell, car rental program manager at the Military Traffic Management Command. The MTMC manages the car rental program for the federal government.

Use your commercial travel office or travel management center to book or confirm your reservations. That way you don't have to worry about whether you are renting from one of the companies that has a government agreement. Contracted travel agencies also have quick access to the locations, rates, rules, and size and class of vehicles offered.

Get the travel agency's toll-free number in case you have questions while traveling.

Take along a copy of your travel orders and travel authorization, and use your government credit card to authenticate your official status.

If you aren't going to use the reservation, cancel it so the next renter can have access to a car. If the car breaks down or you lose the keys, call the car rental company for instructions. If the vehicle is involved in an accident or you notice damage, call the police, get a police report, and call the car rental company for instructions. If you are billed for damage, don't panic. Contact your travel or transportation office, the car rental company's government representative, or MTMC-they can help you resolve the matter. Renters who use cars under the agreement will not be billed for loss of or damage to the vehicle unless one of the 12 exceptions listed are violated. (For the exceptions, see page 5 of the car rental contract at www.mtmc.army.mil/CONTENT/656/agree.pdf.)

You don't need to pay for additional insurance if you rent under the agreement. In the United States, you won't be reimbursed if you buy additional insurance. In some overseas locations, theft insurance is mandatory and is reimbursable.

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On Your Own Time

Lauren R. Taylor — Tue, 01 Jan 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Feds are ticked off about not getting comp time for traveling off the clock.

et's get right to the bottom line: If you're reading this, you probably can't get any compensation-time or money-for personal time spent on government travel.

That's because the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs overtime pay and comp time and requires overtime pay for work in excess of eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week, doesn't apply to most managers, professionals and executives. If that law doesn't cover you, you're left with Title 5 of the U.S. Code, which says only a tiny number of obscure situations qualify a worker for comp time or overtime pay-none of them likely to help when you travel on personal time.

Ticked Off

Uncompensated time on travel irks and inconveniences many federal travelers. One Defense civilian says he is frustrated at frequently being required to leave home on a Sunday morning, making it impossible for him to attend church, and return home the following Saturday. The employee says his supervisor's response is, "If you don't like it here, find another job." In the coming months the Defense traveler will be on the road for three weeks at a time for three months in a row.

"It is unfair to ask us who travel for work to give up our personal lives to accommodate the organization," says the worker, who asked not to be identified. "If we were adequately compensated for this time, I am sure we would not be on the road as much." He estimates that last year he donated 286 hours of personal time to business travel.

A civilian agency worker says he returned from travel at about 10 o'clock one night; the following day he reported for work about an hour late. "My supervisor asked me to fill out a leave slip for one hour. I asked, 'What about the time that I spent last night driving home?'" the worker says, adding that the supervisor said, in essence, "tough luck."

A federal attorney recently spent more than 25 hours of uncompensated time traveling across the country to attend a meeting. "This is totally outrageous and unfair and a very good incentive for me to leave public service and go back to the private sector," she says. "All it does is make me feel unappreciated and unworthy."

Time-Tested Rules

After Sept. 11, the amount of personal time lost to travel has increased. Travelers must get to the airport earlier, and, especially in the Washington area, many flights that used to be direct now require connections, making for more time in transit.

But not everyone's out of luck, because some offices are flexible. Some supervisors allow workers to go home early to prepare for a trip, or, more commonly, come in late after returning. A Defense manager says: "My employees know that they can take whatever unofficial comp time they deem reasonable for personal business during business hours. I've been blessed with honest employees, so there has never been an issue."

One traveler reports, "I am comfortable asking my boss for time after a trip, and I get it. I am also a supervisor and extend the same to those who work for me." Those who follow such "unofficial" practices point out that it is never a one-for-one exchange: Usually travelers take off an hour or two-or maybe a morning-after spending much longer on the road.

The law specifies that whenever possible, travel should be scheduled during an employee's regular workweek. And in many federal offices, people try to start meetings on Monday afternoon and ending them Friday morning.

Federal workers covered by unions often negotiate contracts that attempt to protect them from too much travel off the clock. One such contract says, "The agency agrees it will schedule travel during normal duty hours to the maximum extent practicable. When the employee is required to travel outside duty hours in order to accomplish the mission of the agency, the employee has the right to request from management the reasons for such determination." Another says, "Management will consider employees' personal needs with respect to scheduling travel, and management will not ordinarily require travel on the weekends for activities over which the department has no control."

Off The Clock

Some federal workers consider weekend and evening demands part of the job. A Veterans Affairs Department employee says that in her office, "it's an atmosphere of team playing, and you do whatever it takes to get the job done."

Paul Anderson, an Energy Department travel manager, says he would know if staffers had a problem with the law, because he hears all the travel-related gripes. But in his office, the "ethic is that travel time, especially after hours, is uncompensated."

Despite some employees' illusions, they wouldn't necessarily be better off in the private sector. Only 22 percent of the organizations who responded to a 2001 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management reported that they give comp time for business travel on personal time.

For travelers who aren't happy with the lack of comp time, relief may be in the works. The Office of Personnel Management is reviewing and researching the entire compensation system, and included in that effort is the possibility of asking Congress for a change in the laws governing overtime. This is a long-term project, so don't hold your breath-or count your hours.

OVERTIME TANGLE

he Office of Personnel Management administers and enforces the laws on pay and overtime for federal employees. But don't ask that agency to explain the laws on travel time-its publications on the subject are inscrutable. So, until the plain language mandate makes its way to OPM, here are the basics of the laws.

If you are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, and you work more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week, including travel, in most situations you would be eligible for overtime pay.

If your job is executive, managerial or professional, the FLSA most likely doesn't cover you. In that case, your work hours are governed by Title 5 of the U.S. Code. That law says that if you are traveling outside the regularly scheduled workweek, and the time is "ordered or approved," you can get compensatory time or overtime pay if one of the following conditions applies:

You are working while driving (as in a job that requires driving a truck).
The work is "arduous and unusual."
The scheduling of the work is not in the government's control.

Different rules apply to certain law enforcement officers and other, smaller, groups. Senior Executive Service members are not eligible for comp time or overtime pay.

The final condition is the one that trips most people up: They reason, for example, that if a private sector group hosts a meet ing, training or conference that government employees attend, it's not in the government's control. But a strict interpretation is often applied to that condition: In that example, it is in the government's control when the employee arrives at the event. A situation that qualifies as being out of the government's control would be one in which the employee is subpoenaed for a job-related court appearance.

RESOURCES

"Compensatory Time Off"- www.opm.gov/oca/pay/html/comp.htm
"Hours of Work for Travel"- www.opm.gov/oca/worksch/html/travel.htm
"Title 5 Overtime Pay"- www.opm.gov/oca/pay/html/factot.htm
If you have a problem or dispute about work or travel hours, you must first try to resolve it with your supervisor or human resources office. If you're still not satisfied, see OPM's information on making a pay claim - www.opm.gov/payclaims/index.htm
Defense Department civilians are covered by the same laws that apply to workers at civilian agencies, but Defense's Web site is more intelligible. Go to these sections - www.cpms.osd.mil/fas/pay/ref/rgtravel.htm, www.cpms.osd.mil/fas/pay/pdf/806_rg.pdf, www.cpms.osd.mil/fas/pay/pdf/821_rg.pdf.

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Back In Flight

Lauren R. Taylor — Sat, 01 Dec 2001 00:00:00 -0500

Since Sept. 11, the Postal Service retail marketing specialist has had to develop a new approach to air travel. Limited flights out of National mean she has to trek to Dulles or Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and tighter security means she has to allow a great deal more time.

Thompson is happy with the increased scrutiny. "Airline staff look you in the eye when they ask the questions now," she says." Before, you could have been a purple and green spotted alien and they wouldn't have noticed because they were looking down at their computers." Time and patience are the tools a business traveler should pack for a trip, Thompson counsels. She should know: She not only flies twice a week, but, as president of the Society of Government Meeting Professionals, she deals with thousands of federal travelers each year. "We have to be more forgiving and flexible than we've ever been before," says Thompson. "We will get to whatever 'normal' is sooner if we all are more patient, even with ourselves."

Making Changes

Throughout government, agencies, departments and individual workers are taking varied approaches to travel in the post-Sept. 11 world. For some, it's business as usual. Others are cutting back on travel, and still others must travel more to get the job done. At the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, supervisory economist Diane Herz and some colleagues decided to forgo a trip to Norway and chose videoconferencing instead.

"Our agency respected our decision either way," says Herz, "and we each made the decision not to go based on different concerns-e.g. concern about flying; fear of getting stuck there if we started war (this was prior to the bombing); or family preferences that we not be out of the country."

Some in Herz' office who would normally be excited about trips have been apprehensive, she says, but many are flying domestically again. At Transportation, the department's mission focus has shifted to transportation security; that means more travel for those in the inspector general's San Francisco office. But with the added time needed to get through the checkpoints, says Robin Hunt, there has been "a shift in the way we travel." In the past the staff could work a half day or more before returning from D.C. on a Friday. Now they have to head to the airport earlier. And they can no longer take a one-day trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles or from D.C. to Atlanta. "It will require staff taking these previously short trips to stay overnight," says Hunt. "This will impact travel budgets and time away from home."

Navy trial attorney David Koman concurs: "It now seems to take a whole day no matter where you are going. Until all the airports figure out what to do, the delays always seem to be something different. It could be check-in lines, or lines at security, or canceled flights, or delayed flights." He says he's "experienced it all" on trips to Europe, Florida and Wisconsin just between Sept. 11 and mid-October. The hardest part, says David Downey, a traveler who works at the Federal Aviation Administration, is having no idea if you will need two hours or eight minutes for check-in and security. Downey traveled to eight locations in the month after Sept. 11 and "the level of scrutiny has varied dramatically," he says.

City-Pairs Confusion

Airline schedule changes, airport closings and other disruptions have left many federal travelers confused about travel rules. But GSA says its city-pair agreements are ready for such problems, because airlines often change service levels while a contract is in force. So the agency continually monitors service and awards new contracts as needed, says Sue McIver of the Federal Supply Service.

Washington is probably most affected because of the initial closing and then limited flights in and out of National. But 154 of the 207 city pairs that include that airport also can be reached from Dulles or BWI, McIver says.

GSA crafted the city-pair rules "to meet every known contingency that our customers face," McIver says. The Federal Travel Regulation 301-10.107 (available at www.policyworks.gov) lists exceptions to the requirement that travelers use only contracted carriers. GSA also lists updated information on individual airlines' security policies at www.fss.gsa.gov/citypairs/; click on "Travel Advisory." The Federal Aviation Administration's latest updates about air travel after Sept. 11 are at www.faa.gov/apa/update.htm.

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Business Travel After Sept. 11

Lauren R. Taylor — Thu, 01 Nov 2001 00:00:00 -0500

Two days after the attacks, the General Services Administration issued the first in a series of advisories for federal travelers. Although agencies usually prefer that employees use air travel, they were allowed to authorize other modes of transportation on a case-by-case basis, GSA said.

"Bus, rail, car, whatever way we can get people back home, that's what we're telling people to do," GSA's Jim Harte told Government Executive on Sept. 13. "Now is not the time to look at cost. Just get people back home, and we'll fix it later. We have too many people stranded." On an average business day, some 90,000 federal workers are traveling.

In the future, federal travelers still reluctant to fly can ask to travel using ground transportation, but they must get prior approval and go through a travel management center.

As in all emergencies or other situations that disrupt travel plans, civilian agencies and the Defense Department can authorize additional spending for lodging, meals and other expenses. GSA's Federal Supply Service also permitted higher spending limits on travel cards to accommodate emergency spending.

For the latest GSA travel advisory, go to www.policyworks.gov and click on "Travel Management."

Military recruiters spent the week after the attacks helping recruits get to basic training. Many were stranded when the Federal Aviation Administration shut down air travel.

Capt. Jody Breckenridge, commanding officer for the Coast Guard's recruiting command, orchestrated the movements of 140 recruits scheduled to ship off to Cape May, N.J., for basic training on Sept. 11. Breckenridge sent some home to await a later ship date and put some in hotels to await the resumption of travel services. In the Northeast, Coast Guard recruiters rented vans and drove recruits to Cape May.

"These logistical disruptions are not unusual for us," Breckenridge says, noting that snowstorms frequently ground recruits on their way to training in the winter. "This is certainly numerically more extreme. . . . But we haven't heard anyone who has said they're overwhelmed. The attitude is that whatever it takes, that's what we'll do."

Overall, the Military Traffic Management Command had 6,000 to 7,000 recruits who were not where they were supposed to be right after the attacks. In one week the number was down to about 1,000, says Gail Andrews, chief of the Recruit Movement Team. At one civilian agency at least, travel came almost to a standstill in September. Between low year-end funding and tight security, people were going nowhere, said a transportation specialist.

In another department, a travel manager reported: "It doesn't seem as if the [attacks have] convinced any of our employees not to travel. I have seen only one traveler opt to drive a rental car rather than fly. No one has complained about getting to the airport earlier or anything like that."

Though travel experts have been flooding the airwaves and other media with tips, most of what they have to say is standard operating procedure for experienced travelers: pack light, get to the airport in plenty of time, carry photo identification, give those back home your itinerary, take contact numbers with you and so on.

Some, including the National Business Travel Association and GSA, are discouraging use of e-tickets, because they are more difficult to change when flights are delayed or canceled. But the Airlines Reporting Corp., which provides technology services to airlines and travel agencies, stresses that e-tickets and ticketless travel are still permitted.

As of Sept. 26, the Federal Aviation Administration's advice was to check with the airline if you have an e-ticket to find out if you should request a paper ticket. "Within certain guidelines, the airlines will determine what ticket documentation (tickets, boarding passes, or reservation confirmations) their security screeners will allow," the advisory said.

Airlines have gotten stricter about keeping things that could be used as weapons out of passenger cabins. So check through anything sharp with your luggage. That includes office supplies, points out Sheryl Blackburn, a travel assistant with the Army Corps of Engineers in Los Angeles.

"Box cutters, staplers, scissors, letter openers, etc.," says Blackburn, "I will now have to pack all supplies in stowed luggage instead of . . . in my briefcase. Also, disposable razors, cosmetic mirrors, nail clippers, nail files, and such-none of that stuff can be taken in your carry-on bag anymore."

Reports of four-hour layovers, reductions in meal service and directions by the airlines to be at the airport three hours before departure are filtering into offices at the Military Traffic Management Command, reports one self-described traffic management "old-timer."

Travel to and from headquarters was in an upheaval with the temporary suspension of service at Reagan National Airport and with about 15 percent of other flights canceled after the attacks, she says. Travelers had to go in or out of Dulles or Baltimore-Washington International, which are farther away, adding to travel costs.

"We will all be inconvenienced for a very long time until the commercial sector and the customers can adjust to the new requirements," says the Defense traffic expert. "But Americans are flexible even though we are spoiled. We will make it and improve our processes-it's an opportunity for growth."

The day after the attacks, 38 percent of those surveyed told travel marketing firm Yesawich, Pepperdine & Brown of Orlando, Fla., that they would cancel a domestic business trip; 52 percent said they would take fewer international trips.

Private sector business travel managers told NBTA that they would increase use of videoconferencing (88 percent) and car rentals for short trips (65 percent).

Some of the reduction in travel, both commercial and government, is because of the tightening economy, not because of the terrorist attacks.

Brian Friel and Tanya N. Ballard contributed to these reports. ]]>

Federal Travel Guide 2002

Lauren R. Taylor — Mon, 01 Oct 2001 00:00:00 -0400

This year's buzz was about airlines' promises to passengers, federal air travel contracts with advance purchase discounts, the last-minute rescue of the Defense Travel System, headway in relocation reengineering, a glimmer of hope that federal employees may soon be able to use frequent flier miles for personal travel and much, much more.

Change is hard, even when it's good. But most federal travelers focus on their missions and log their miles undaunted. Travel managers keep their eyes on the prize of making travel more efficient and effective.

In these pages, we shine the spotlight on four agencies that exemplify the best in government business travel. They are the winners of the 2001 Travel Managers of the Year Award: the Veterans Affairs Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Naval Supply Systems Command and the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs.

Finally, we always want to know about your travel experiences, good and bad. Feel free to contact us at ltaylor@govexec.com or Travel Editor, Government Executive, 1501 M St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005.

Happy trails!

Lauren R. Taylor

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Frequent Flier Relief

Lauren R. Taylor — Sat, 01 Sep 2001 00:00:00 -0400

Under the legislation co-sponsored by Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., federal workers could keep the miles as long as they were obtained under the same terms provided to the public and at no cost to the government. The bill would be retroactive, allowing federal workers to use miles earned before the bill's enactment. Federal travelers have been encouraged to maintain frequent flier accounts and turn over their miles to their agencies in order to keep travel costs down.

Federal workers currently may not use bonus points earned on business travel for personal trips. Most of the points are going unused, as agencies and departments avoid the administrative burden of tracking and redeeming the mileage for official travel. The General Accounting Office and the Bush administration have thrown their weight behind the policy change, saying it would help the government recruit and retain employees.

"The private sector commonly allows its employees to keep the frequent flier miles they receive while on business travel," Burton, chair of the Government Reform Committee, says. "This gives private companies, including government contractors, a competitive edge over federal agencies in attracting and retaining skilled employees."

The legislation covers only civilian employees, but administration officials are seeking authorization to allow service members to use miles for personal travel as well. The bill, introduced on July 11, flew through the House on a voice vote on July 30. The Senate may pick it up upon return from its summer recess.

Book Early and Save

ederal travelers have an incentive to plan their business trips early this year, thanks to a new airfare program the General Services Administration announced in July.

The 2002 city-pair contracts offer air fares even lower than the already-discounted federal rates for some seats in 337 markets. GSA chose the markets randomly from the government's 2,000 most-traveled cities.

The restricted fares are $20 to $100 less expensive than the unrestricted, or "walk-up," rates previously available to federal travelers. But the new reduced fares are available only on a finite number of seats, so budget-conscious travelers should book early. "Federal travelers are going to have to make some changes" in the way they plan trips, says Sue McIver, director of GSA's Services Acquisition Center, which awards the contracts.

While it remains to be seen whether federal travelers will take advantage of the new fares, airlines are happy because earlier booking would help them manage their inventories, McIver adds. Travelers still can buy tickets under standard government rates at the last minute if seats are available. No cancellation fees apply to the special discounted fares. Unrestricted standard fares will continue to be available in the test markets. This year, GSA awarded contracts for walk-up fares to 14 air lines at an average savings of 72 percent over unrestricted coach fares. GSA negotiates the walk-up fares each year and awards the contracts competitively based on the best overall value to the government. Walk-up tickets don't require advance purchase and have no minimum or maximum stay requirements, travel time limits, charges for cancellations or blackout periods.

Federal fliers will have almost 5,000 routes to choose from in fiscal 2002. Discounted fares for federal employees include $37 one way from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National airport (down from $40 in 2001); $90 one way from Chicago's O'Hare to Washington Reagan (up from $52 in 2001); and $66 one way from Boston Logan to Washington Reagan (down from $70 in 2001). The 2002 contracts include 91 additional markets offering nonstop routes. "In 95 percent of markets where nonstop was available, we were able to offer it," says McIver. Search fares online at www.fss.gsa.gov/citypairs.

Defense System A Go

he Defense Department has decided not to pull the plug on its struggling paperless travel system, officials announced in late July. The Defense Travel System (DTS) "will meet our future temporary duty travel authorization, arrangements, payment and accounting requirements, while providing broad benefits to the department" according to a Pentagon memo (www.dtic.mil/travelink/docs/osdltr71701.html).

In March, project director Col. Pamela Arias said Defense officials planned to make a formal announcement on the future of the long-awaited travel system in mid-spring. She denied rumors that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might scuttle the project. In July, Air Force acquisition officer Lt. Col. Larry Schaefer replaced Arias after less than one year in office.

Under the restructuring, oversight of the program was moved from the comptroller's office to the U.S. Transportation Command. To encourage bases and installations to adopt the system, they will be allowed to keep any savings it generates. The Defense Travel System will be funded with congressional appropriations through fiscal 2003. Defense and TRW are beginning negotiations to restructure the contract's provisions, including how TRW will get paid.

DTS promises to streamline everything involved in government travel, from the number of approval signatures required to auditing and processing vouchers. It will enable workers to request authorization to travel, make arrangements and submit claims using their desktop computers. Defense has estimated that the system will save the department $300 million each year.

DTS was conceived in 1994, and Defense awarded a contract to TRW in May 1998. The launch was set for December 2000, but it has been delayed several times, most recently by a series of unsuccessful tests at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. The tests showed that training, system setup and response times needed improvement. More recent tests at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., are going well, say DTS officials and TRW project manager Rich Fabbre.

As of early August, Fabbre expected implementation to begin as early as September. Defense has abandoned its plan to put the system in place by regions, starting with Defense Travel Region 6 (11 Midwest states), and now will install it at bases that have large numbers of travelers and the necessary infrastructure. Neither TRW nor DTS would predict when the system would be up and running at all military sites worldwide.

Can This Move Be Saved?

fforts to improve the way the Defense Department moves its people have bogged down en route for lack of funds.

The military services have ditched several pilot programs designed to relieve service members and their families of nearly ubiquitous move-related problems such as lost and damaged household goods, poor communications, pickup delays and long waits for delivery. The department pays an estimated $100 million a year in claims on top of the $3 billion spent on more than 600,000 moves. The real cost of the fragmented and bureaucratic relocation system, which hasn't changed in 35 years, is impossible to calculate because factors such as reduced readiness, morale and retention are tough to measure.

The improvement programs have been in process since the late 1990s. The Full Service Moving Program, a departmentwide effort that started Jan. 1 and was scheduled to run two years, was touted as the solution that would combine the best of the previous pilots. But the high costs of relocation reengineering threaten to put the experiments out of business prematurely. The Navy bailed out of the Full Service Moving Program and the other pilot programs, including its own Sailor Arranged Move program, in April. The Air Force has issued a memo stating its intention to withdraw, and the Army reportedly "has concerns" as well.

A panel was scheduled to meet in August to decide whether to put the Full Service Moving Program out of its misery or find a way to resuscitate it.

The problem is money. Better customer service costs more, and the military services don't have the dollars budgeted. If Congress doesn't allocate funds in the fiscal 2002 budget, the project will fold at the end of the fiscal year, more than a year ahead of schedule. Stakeholders put the chance that Congress will rescue the program at better than 50-50.

The new, improved move programs were to distribute work to movers based on both quality and price (rather than lowest price alone, the current practice) and to provide, among other things:

Better communication with customers through toll-free numbers.
Full-value replacement for lost and damaged goods.
Two-hour pickup and delivery windows.

Defense had contracted with seven private move management companies to furnish comprehensive move coordination services that more closely mirror those in the corporate world.

A year and a half ago, Maj. Gen. Kenneth Privratsky, commander of the Military Traffic Management Command, which oversees one pilot, pledged to make some changes immediately, including toll-free numbers for service members to contact moving companies and full-value replacement for claims. The toll-free numbers haven't materialized, though Terry Head, president of the Household Goods forwarders Association of America, says they will be required of all carriers by Oct. 1.

The U.S. Transportation Command still plans to evaluate the pilot programs early next year and to recommend improvements.

Katy Saldarini, Tanya N. Ballard and Kellie Lunney contributed to these reports. ]]>

Hitting the Road More Often

Lauren R. Taylor — Wed, 15 Aug 2001 00:00:00 -0400