A House-passed bill requiring federal employees to use government-issued charge cards for most travel expenses advanced in the Senate Wednesday.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee approved H.R. 930, the Travel and Transportation Reform Act, by voice vote. The House passed the measure more than a year ago.
Unlike the House version of the bill, the Senate version allows agencies to make certain exemptions to the charge-card requirement.
The Senate version also penalizes agencies if they fail to reimburse employees for travel expenses within 30 days. Agencies would have to pay employees a late fee, to be determined by the General Services Administration.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bill would reimburse certain employees for travel-related tax charges they have incurred. A change in tax law in 1992 reduced the income tax deduction for business-related travel expenses from a maximum of two years to a maximum of a year.
Unfortunately for some federal employees, the IRS did not notify agencies until December 1993 that agencies needed to withhold tax payments from employees' salaries to cover the added taxes. Some federal employees on extended travel duty ended up with more than $1,000 in additional taxes. The government owes those employees $4 million, GSA estimates.
The Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday also approved H.R. 2675, the Federal Employees Life Insurance Improvement Act, which the House passed in November.
The bill requires the Office of Personnel Management to submit legislation to Congress that would make group universal life insurance available to employees. The Senate version also requires OPM to conduct a study evaluating employees' interest in additional insurance options. Currently, employees can participate in the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance Program, which offers only term policies.
The committee also advanced the nominations of G. Edward DeSeve to be deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget and Deidre Lee to be administrator of OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy. And the committee passed by a 9-1 vote the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which would force the President to fill appointments within 150 days of their vacancy. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., chairman of the committee, has complained about the Clinton Administration's slow pace in filling appointments.
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