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Request for Clarification of Decision Concerning Payroll Deductions

B-199339 Aug 25, 1981
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Highlights

GAO was requested to clarify its decision concerning the proper appropriation fund to be credited with payroll deductions for use of Government quarters. The specific inquiry was whether the Forest Service could credit the amount of the deductions to the appropriation account that funds the maintenance and operation services for quarters and facilities, rather than the appropriation to which the employee salaries are charged. In the previous GAO decision, GAO stated that deductions from employee salaries for maintenance and operation of Goverment quarters occupied by them should be treated as reimbursements to be credited to the appropriation fund or account that provides the service, according to the applicable regulation. The regulation provides that payroll deductions for these expenses shall remain in the applicable appropriation or fund. Because the appropriations from which the Forest Service employee salaries are paid are also available for the payment of operation and maintenance expenses of Government quarters, GAO interpreted the regulation as allowing retention of deductions in the salary appropriations for use in defraying operation and maintenance expenses. The previous GAO decision was based on the assumption that all salaries were paid from a single appropriation which was also available for operating and maintaining the housing facilities in question. However, the Forest Service pointed out that its housing is usually project financed, so that the appropriations to which its salaries are charged can vary and can involve as many as six appropriations. It was also pointed out that Forest Service housing units are ordinarily maintained from a single available appropriation. GAO determined that there was no legal objection to the policy described in the submission whereby all deductions for quarters would be transferred from their respective salary accounts to other accounts established to fund maintenance expenses for employee housing.

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