March 1, 2000 has come and gone. But in its wake it left behind a revised governmentwide policy on the use by federal employees of government charge cards to pay for their official travel expenses.

Effective March 1, federal employees are required to use a government-issued travel charge card to pay for expenses related to official government travel.

Mary Andrasco, team leader for fiscal policy in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, noted that this revised policy is a result of provisions of the Travel and Transportation Reform Act of 1998.

“But there are some exceptions to the requirement,” she pointed out. In fact, she noted that the original intent was that, governmentwide, virtually all federal employees would have to be issued a travel charge card, and then they would have to use that card for virtually all expenses incurred during official government travel.

“Frankly,” she observed, “USDA felt that the mandatory issuance of travel charge cards to all employees was impractical, and would impose unreasonable burdens on our employees and agencies.”

Accordingly, USDA specialists worked with staffers in the General Services Administration who were drafting the implementing regulations. “We wanted to help GSA ensure that the final regs proved more useful and implementable,” Andrasco advised.

Pat Wensel, acting director of OCFO’s Fiscal Policy Division, noted that GSA took into account the comments from USDA and from other sources and modified their original implementing regulations. “Then, here at USDA, we fine-tuned those implementing regulations even more, to suit our work environment,” she explained.

The net result: USDA has exempted certain categories of employees from the requirement of having to have a travel charge card. According to OCFO staff accountant Lester Pitts, USDA’s exemptions include employees who do not expect to travel more than twice a year, intermittent and/or seasonal employees, and employees who have had their travel charge cards canceled for cause.

In turn, Pitts noted that there are certain official travel expenses which don’t need to be charged on the travel charge card. They include out-of-pocket expenses such as for parking, taxicabs, tips, and laundry or dry cleaning; telephone calls; and expenses covered by the 'meals and incidental expenses’ portion of the federal per diem allowance.

“Let’s be practical,” he advised. “For some official travel expenses, it’s just more convenient for the employee to pay cash or use a check.”

Pitts added that such official travel-related expenses as airline or train tickets, motel costs, and rental car expenses must be paid for using the travel charge card.

Andrasco pointed out that there is an additional provision of the 1998 Act which could benefit employees. “Many employees in government objected to mandatory use of a travel charge card because they said that their department or agency didn’t reimburse them promptly for those official travel expenses,” she said. “Accordingly, the Act now requires agencies to pay employees a late fee, if a valid claim for travel reimbursement has not been paid within 30 days of when the approving official received that claim.”

Dale Theurer, OCFO team leader for cash and debt management, noted that OCFO’s Fiscal Policy Division staff is working with specialists at the National Finance Center in New Orleans to finalize the procedures for implementing this 'late fee’ provision. “I anticipate that it will be in place by this summer,” he said.

Actually, the use of travel charge cards to pay for official government travel is not something new. In fact, Andrasco said, they have been in use within USDA since 1983. The April-May 1996 issue of the USDA News carried a story on delinquent payments of balances on official travel charge cards.

“But the difference with these revised regulations,” she explained, “is that the use of the travel charge card is now mandatory, except for the exemptions we’ve mentioned.”

“Travel charge cards assist our employees so they don’t have to carry excess cash, or use their own personal credit cards, while they’re on official government business,” Andrasco advised.

“These revised rules provide specific guidance so that our employees no longer have to guess about whether they should have a travel charge card--and, if they do, what expenses they have to charge on it.”

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