Proposed Amendments to Federal Travel Regulations

GAO has reviewed proposed amendments to the Federal Travel Regulations and has no objection to amendments that would change certain temporary duty travel allowances as they refer to local transportation and relocation allowances as they refer to dependents, household goods, mileage for relocation travel, forfeited contract costs, miscellaneous expenses, househunting trip costs, and certain allowances for temporary quarters. A proposed regulation, which would allow that occupancy of quarters which eventually would become permanent need not preclude reimbursement where the employee shows satisfactorily that the quarters were intended initially only to be temporary, would reverse a long line of GAO decisions. The regulations should provide guidance to agencies as to the factors which should be considered in such a determination. An employee should also be allowed reimbursement for meals and miscellaneous expenses because of lack of household goods in such a situation. A proposed amendment to regulations covering real estate expenses should be changed to expressly provide that an employee is permitted an initial 2-year period for settlement, without the requirement of requesting a 1-year extension following the initial year. The proposed regulations would allow a loan origination fee to be a real estate expense. GAO has consistently held that a loan origination fee may not be paid because it is a finance charge, but GAO does not object to the proposed change or to other amendments which cover real estate expenses and household goods weight and storage limitations. These amendments will provide increased benefits to transferred employees and could result in increased costs to the government. Nevertheless, GAO endorses the general purpose of the amendments to alleviate the financial burden on employees who are transferred.