The federal government is not sure how much it spends each year to relocate its employees, but the annual cost could be nearly $1 billion, the General Accounting Office has reported.
GAO surveyed 119 federal agencies and departments to estimate the cost of relocating civilian employees each year. From 1991 to 1995, 97 agencies reported obligating about $3.4 billion for 132,800 relocations, and another 23 reported actually spending about $363 million on 40,200 relocations. The survey did not include relocation data for every organization for every year.
Relocation costs include moving costs, per diems, storage costs and real estate expenses. Agencies don't have data on the exact cost of relocation travel because the varied costs associated with relocation are divided under different reporting classes, including civilian personnel benefits, travel and transportation of people, travel and transportation of things, and operation and maintenance of equipment.
According to the GAO survey, seven agencies accounted for 52 percent of the relocations authorized from 1991 to 1995. The State Department authorized 17,881 relocations, or 13.5 percent of the governmentwide total. The Army reported 16,009 relocations. The Navy, the Defense Education Activity, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI and the Forest Service were the other top relocators.
The Defense Logistics Agency reported a 221 percent increase in relocations from 1991 to 1995, due to consolidation of its facilities around the country.
The General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy recently sent out a survey to agencies to collect travel data, including relocation figures, for fiscal 1996.
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