Senator renews call to rein in agency conference spending

A lawmaker critical of government waste said Thursday that agencies must continue to find ways to curb the amount they spend sending employees to conferences.

Agency projections show that such spending will total about $300 million in fiscal 2006, said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., chairman of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. He praised the Health and Human Services Department and the Environmental Protection Agency for issuing agency directives advising supervisors and managers on how to reduce conference travel spending.

The directives asked managers to consider e-mail and videoconferencing options before authorizing employees to attend events in person. They also asked staff to consider lower cost locations and holding conferences every 18 months instead of every year.

Coburn also expressed concern over a trend of federal employees attending conferences in places like Europe and the Caribbean and taking paid vacation days while overseas. In one case, he said, 31 Commerce Department employees took 81 days of paid leave while on a government-sponsored trip to Greece for the International Sea Turtle Symposium at a cost of $84,000.

Additionally, Coburn criticized agency financial management chiefs for failing to produce precise numbers on conference spending.

Chief financial officers and budget officials representing the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Office of Personnel Management and the departments of Agriculture, Education, Commerce, Interior, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor and Treasury, defended their agencies' conference spending and assured Coburn that they were taking measures to improve the tracking of travel dollars.

Coburn said he asked those 10 departments to attend the hearing because they were unable to or late in providing his committee with information on their projected conference activity in 2006. USAID and Agriculture have yet to submit their 2006 data, he said.

Coburn said information compiled by his staff shows that agency spending on conferences is projected to be about $300 million in fiscal 2006. Since fiscal 2001, the government has spent more than $1.4 billion on conference-related travel and meetings.

Coburn said he is waiting to receive justifications from several agencies on eye-catching trips to conferences that were questionable because of their topic, cost and location. After agencies are given a chance to justify the expenditures, he plans to publish the list.