Reimbursement for Long-Distance Telephone Calls

A Navy employee requested reconsideration of a Claims Division decision which denied his claim for reimbursement for three long-distance telephone calls made to his wife while he was on temporary duty overseas. The Claims Division denied the claim based on information from the Navy that the calls were of a personal nature, rather than business. The employee contended that the calls were both reasonable and necessary because he had only 48 hours notice of the assignment. He and his wife did not have sufficient time to adjust their personal business, and she did not know when he would return or when to meet him at the airport. In previous decisions, GAO held that telephone calls involving the traveler notifying his family of his arrival or his travel arrangements would normally be considered personal calls since travel plans are generally known well in advance. In another decision, however, GAO held that with the proper certification, an employee could be reimbursed for a long-distance call to notify her family of her location in the event of an emergency. In this case, the telephone calls to attend to personal business were beyond the scope of the previous decisions. While a telephone call to advise a relative of one's return transportation arrangements may be reimbursed in unusual circumstances, as when travel plans are not known in advance, the Navy did not certify for this purpose any one of the three telephone calls this employee claims to have made to his wife as being in the interest of the Government. Accordingly, the prior decision was sustained.