Agencies assail travel charge card policy

The Defense Department isn't the only agency having trouble implementing the new mandatory travel charge card policy on time.

According to the General Services Administration's Travel Policy Management division, both the departments of State and Veterans Affairs have received the same 60-day extension granted to the Defense Department late last week.

Under the 1998 Travel and Transportation Reform Act, federal employees must use a travel charge card, issued to employees through their agencies, for major travel expenses. Minor expenses such as dry cleaning, parking and tips, are excluded under the act. The original deadline for implementing the law was Jan. 1, 2000, but that was pushed back governmentwide to March 1 earlier this year.

Now three major federal agencies have until May 1 to make travel charge card use mandatory.

Frank Sullivan, VA's deputy assistant secretary for finance, said the law is an example of how Congress and the administration are out of touch with what's going on at the agency level.

"We're always given these time lines that are based upon some policy or law that was enacted with no thought to what it means to the agencies," he said.

Since most federal agencies now use commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, rather than software designed in-house, they must rely on vendors when implementing new laws. In order to put the new travel policy in place, VA has to wait for its software vendor to release a new version that complies with the new law.

"We're in a different environment now as we're using COTS products. We have to rely on the vendors and normally vendors have a year or more of release schedules already worked out," Sullivan said.

At VA, several computer systems will be affected by the new travel policy, including the agency's paperless travel system and its core financial system. According to Sullivan, the continuous policy changes are burying his staff.

"I know 60 days won't be enough, but it will give us time to work with OMB and take another look at this. We're going to do our best to implement it," he said.

The State Department is in a similar quandary, said Larry Eisenhart, the agency's deputy chief financial officer. Two COTS packages that support processing for travel, GELCO's travel manager plus an American Management Systems accounting package, will not be ready to support the new travel law within the 60-day extension.

A potential solution is to implement the law without making any system changes, a proposal Eisenhart will present to GSA at the end of the extension.

"It's an extremely difficult act to attempt to write a set of requirements to implement," Eisenhart said. While many federal managers might think the law needs some slight amendments, it will be up to GSA to determine how much wiggle room agencies get.

GSA should be given credit for acknowledging agencies' issues and allowing 60 days to resolve those issues, Eisenhart said. If, come May 1, "you've got a significant set of agencies saying they can't implement the law, [GSA] has got to listen," he said.