Can Your Agency Use Appropriated Funds for Meals and Light Refreshments? (Superseded by 2011 Version)

This document was superseded by the document "Can Your Agency Use Appropriated Funds for Meals and Light Refreshments?" dated March 10, 2011. This document is a government guidance regarding the appropriate use of government funds for meals and light refreshments. The document states that in general, an agency may not use appropriated funds to purchase items considered personal expenses like food, without specific authority. There are exceptions to this law, however, such as using funds for an awards ceremony where an awardee is being fed to advance the recoginition of his or her achievements, or consuming meals and/or light refreshments during the course of employee training, in order to obtain the training's full benefit. Furthermore, an agency may pay for food if it sends an employee to a government-sponsored conference and the conference involves matters of topical interest to multiple agencies and/or non governmental participants.