Reimbursement of Personal Expenditures by Military Member

An advance decision was requested as to whether an Air Force Sergeant could be reimbursed for expenditures from his personal funds to purchase equipment for official Air Force purposes. The Sergeant used his funds, without advance authorization, to buy supplies needed for the installation of an Air Force project. Generally, when an employee expends his own funds in what he judges to be the interest of the government, no liability of the government to reimburse him is created, except in the case of expenditures in the government's interest in urgent and unforeseen emergencies. GAO determined that in this case, government property could have been lost and the mission uncompleted had the expenditures not been made. Therefore, the case fell within the exception and the Sergeant could be reimbursed.