[Payment of Comparability Allowances by the Panama Canal Commission]

A decision was requested as to whether the Panama Canal Commission could pay two of its employee physicians comparability allowances for service prior to the date they executed service agreements. Because of an administrative error, the physicians did not enter into new service agreements before the expiration of their earlier service agreements, and there followed a 3-month period during which there was no authority to enter into new agreements. Because of a delay in the Commission's learning of a legislative amendment, new agreements were not entered into for more than 5 months after the expiration of the physicians' earlier service agreements. The Commission asked whether the service agreements could be regarded as effective for these 5 months. The legislative history of the law reflects a congressional intent that the service agreements entered into after September 30, 1981, be given effect retroactive to that date. Therefore, GAO concluded that service agreements executed within a reasonable period subsequent to the date of the enactment of the new legislation may be given retroactive effect to October 1, 1981, provided that the other conditions of entitlement are met during the period. The fact that new agreements could have been executed on or before September 30, 1981, did not change the retroactive effect. In this case, where the record indicated that the physicians would have executed an agreement in a timely fashion, but for lack of information as to the existence of authority to enter into such an agreement, their agreements may be given effect retroactive to October 1, 1981, and the physicians' comparability allowance can be paid retroactive to that date.