90TH CONGRESS 2d Session } HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES REPORT No. 1144 TRAVEL EXPENSES OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES MARCH 5, 1968.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. DAWSON, from the Committee on Government Operations, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H.R. 13738] The Committee on Government Operations, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 13738) to increase the maximum rate of per diem allowance for employees of the Government traveling on official business, and for other purposes, having considered the same, report favorably thereon without amendment and recommend that the bill do pass. PURPOSE The purpose of H.R. 13738 is to amend existing travel expense legislation for Government employees to increase the maximum per diem in lieu of subsistence and the maximum amounts which may be reimbursed when actual expenses are paid to more nearly reflect the costs of official travel at the present time. The bill's main features are as follows: 1. The maximum per diem allowance is increased from its present rate of $16 per day to $20 per day. The specific per diem will be set by the departments and agencies based on the nature and destination of the travel and such other factors as may properly be taken into consideration. 2. The maximum allowance for official travelers authorized to be paid on an actual expense basis is increased from the present $30 per day to $35 per day. 3. The per diem for mobile unit employees of the Post Office Department is increased from a maximum of $9 per day to a maximum of $15 per day. 4. The three judges of the U.S. Court of Military Appeals will be reimbursed for travel expenses on the same basis as the judges of other U.S. courts. HEARINGS Hearings were held by the Subcommittee on Executive and Legislative Reorganization on H.R. 7113, the predecessor bill to H.R. 13738, during which officials of the Bureau of the Budget and the U.S. Civil Service Commission and representatives of Government employee organizations testified and submitted factual data. All witnesses agreed that the maximum travel allowance should be increased. An amendment was proposed by the United Federation of Postal Clerks to increase the maximum per diem for mobile employees of the Post Office Department. A separate hearing on this matter was subsequently held at which time representatives of the Post Office Department and the postal clerks supported the increase.2 SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS OF THE BILL Payment of travel expenses such as hotel, food, and other subsistence costs to Government employees traveling on official business is authorized by the Travel Expense Act of 1949 and subsequent amendments, now codified in sections 5701-5708 of title 5 of the U.S. Code. The pertinent provisions affected by H.R. 13738 are sections 5702 and 5703. The act provides maximum amounts which may be paid by departments and agencies and it was not anticipated by the Congress that the maximum would be set for all travel. Based on the expected costs of the particular travel, the agencies exercise their discretion to set rates that in many cases are lower than the maximum. Overall policies and regulations are made by the Bureau of the Budget. Section 1 of the bill raises the maximum per diem within the United States from the present $16 to $20 per day. Thus, where a department or agency determines that the expenses to be incurred warrant it, any amount up to the maximum may be paid. Per diem is the customary way of paying travel expenses but the law provides that when the actual expenses of a trip within the United States are greater than the maximum per diem due to the unusual circumstances of the travel assignment, the employee's actual and necessary expenses may be paid up to a present maximum of $30 per day. Thus, when the unusual circumstances of the travel or conditions at the destination result in costs to the employee that exceed the per diem, he may be paid his specific out-of-pocket expenses up to $30 per day. The bill increases this maximum to $35 per day. When traveling in foreign countries travel expenses are paid on the basis of a per diem for that country which the State Department determines is adequate. But there are occasions when the per diem may be exceeded by the expenses. The law now permits the payment of an additional $10 above the per diem for such cases if accompanied by unusual circumstances. This bill increases the $10 to an additional $15 per day. Section 2 makes the same changes in the payment of travel expenses for intermittent employees of the Government such as experts and consultants as have been made for the regular employees by section 1. Thus, the maximum per diem they may be paid is increased from $16 to $20 per day. Maximum actual expenses within the United States are increased from $30 to $35 per day and outside of the United States 1 Hearings, Sept. 13, 1967 (pt. 1). 2 Hearings, Oct. 26, 1967 (pt. 2). from the $10 added to the per diem to $15 added to the per diem for the country involved... Section 3 of the bill increases the maximum per diem rate for mobile unit employees of the Post Office Department from the present $9 to $15 per day. This figure is based on three-fourths of the new $20 maximum which this bill provides for nearly all other employees of the Government. Mobile or road-duty employees, as they are variously called, service the mail on trains and at locations away from their homes. Their travel expenses are covered by separate legislation from other Government employees (39 U.S.C. 3581(d)). Section 4 of the bill affects only the three judges of the U.S. Court of Military Appeals and puts the payment of their travel expenses on the same basis as that of all other judges in the U.S. courts. COMMITTEE POSITION We support this legislation as a matter of fairness and equity. The maximum per diem of $16 per day was established by legislation in 1961. Incontrovertible evidence was placed before us that necessary expenses incident to official travel have broken well through this ceiling in the years that have intervened. To refuse to recognize this fact would mean that the Congress would require Federal employees who travel on official business to pay a portion of their expenses out of their own pockets. The Bureau of the Budget advised us of the results of a study it made of employee travel experiences, 51.3 percent of those reporting were under circumstances where the costs of hotels, meals, and miscellaneous expenses were more than $16 per day. The average daily subsistence expense for this group was $19.21. To make the average, of course, a considerable number of travelers exceeded this figure. It is clear, then, that the present $16 per diem is inadequate and that the $20 agreed upon by the committee is a conservative maximum. Another study conducted by the Bureau of the Census produced a sample which showed a daily cost for hotel and meals to be $17.78 to which a 10-percent allowance of $1.78 should be added for miscellaneous expense, bringing the total daily subsistence cost to $19.56. Testimony was presented to us based on the studies of private accounting firms and trade associations showing increases in the cost of hotel rooms. Harris, Kerr, and Forster reported a 16-percent increase from 1959 to 1966. For the same period, the American Hotel & Motel Association reported these typical increases in hotel rates: Boston, 17 percent; Houston, 41.7 percent; Minneapolis, 25.3 percent; New Orleans, 24.7 percent; Philadelphia, 9.9 percent; St. Louis, 6.2 percent; and San Francisco, 22.8 percent. The Government Employees Council, AFL-CIO, stated its own research had revealed that in New York City the cost of hotel rooms had risen 27.2 percent from 1961-66. The indexes maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an increase of 20 percent in the cost of restaurant meals between 1961 and 1967. Numerous personal reports from individual travelers were presented to us by representatives of employee organizations, including a log of intercity travel expenses by former Congressman and Civil Service Commission Chairman Robert Ramspeck. They all pointed up the high cost of subsistence and demonstrated the inadequacy of the present $16 per diem. The same justification applies to the increase in the maximum allowable when due to unusual circumstances the per diem is clearly inadequate and the actual expenses of the travel are allowed. The traveler must submit a detailed accounting of all expenses in these cases. We were informed by the Bureau of the Budget that very little travel was performed on an actual expense basis. The Bureau indicated, however, that there were sufficient instances of such travel to warrant an increase in the maximum from $30 to $35 per day. The committee reiterates that the $20 per diem and the $35 limit on actual expenses recommended herewith are the maximum allowable and we charge and expect the departments and agencies, supervised by the Bureau of the Budget, to approve only a per diem warranted by the particular travel being required. Much travel is accomplished below the maximum per diem and we expect this to continue. We recognize that it is no more possible for the Federal Government to conduct its business without traveling by its personnel than that private corporations can operate on a stationary basis. We expect, however, in view of present budgetary pressures that every effort be made to reduce official travel to the minimum necessary. As was explained in our analysis above, Government employees, when traveling abroad on official business, are reimbursed on the basis of a per diem set for individual countries by the State Department. This bill has no effect on these per diem rates which vary from country to country and are changed by the Department when conditions in those countries warrant a change. Upon recommendation of the Bureau of the Budget, this bill does say, however, that when there are certain unusual circumstances of a particular trip within a foreign country that clearly will result in expenses beyond the per diem for that country, that departments and agencies may reimburse up to $15 per day above the per diem. This is an increase from the current $10 per day. We expect that this provision will not be widely used but is available in the event of special cases of inequities which do occur from time to time. As noted above, we included in the bill a provision increasing the maximum per diem for mobile employees of the Post Office Department from the present $9 per day, set in 1955, to $15 per day. These mobile employees come under a special statute not part of the Travel Expense Act of 1949. We were advised by the Chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, which had jurisdiction, that his committee had no objection to this legislation. Mobile clerks were described to us as postal clerks who distribute mail in railway or highway post offices. In regard to the manner in which the per diem is calculated, the Post Office Department advised us as follows: The amount of per diem paid each employee varies, of course, with the run to which he is assigned. Per diem begins 10 hours after the employee has reported for work and ends when he returns to the place of the journey's origin. For each 6-hour period or any part thereof after the first 10 hours, the employee receives $2.25. If he is away for four periods or 24 hours, he receives the full day's allowance of $9. For example, for the run to Florence, S.C., a clerk will report to the railroad here in Washington at 11 p.m. and commence working in the post office car. The train leaves Washington at 2:30 a.m. |