Road to Reinvention Has Bumps

he Defense Department has a clear vision of what it wants its travel system to be: Seamless, paperless, less costly; a system that supports mission requirements and provides excellent customer service.

DoD has a straightforward concept of how it's going to transform its existing travel system to achieve this vision: Simplify the rules, delegate authority and use the best industry practices.The agency even has a methodical plan: Collect baseline data on current travel processes and test new procedures at pilot sites, then implement the new system one region at a time.

In spite of well-laid plans, reengineering travel at DoD isn't proving to be clear, straightforward or methodical. However, it is proceeding apace, and the barriers that DoD employees are encountering contain valuable lessons for other federal agencies.

"We have made significant progress in a very short period of time," Undersecretary of Defense John Hamre told a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee panel in March. "Given the scope and complexity of the operations in this department and the changes under way in the travel industry itself, I would go even further to characterize the progress as extraordinary. I will admit to you, however, that this change effort has been much harder than we anticipated."

Whittling Down the Regs

DoD initiated its travel reengineering effort nearly two years ago with a task force report which pointed out that the current system was fragmented, inefficient and expensive. Hamre, DoD's comptroller, was chosen to lead the reengineering project, which would institutionalize a new management philosophy: Most travelers and supervisors are honest and responsible, and therefore, controls designed to prevent employees from bilking the travel budget can be loosened. DoD subsequently established two offices to overhaul travel processes. The eight-person Reengineering Travel Transition Office, based in the comptroller's office, changes policies to allow new procedures; the 19-person Defense Travel System Project Management Office implements the new procedures. The Military Traffic Management Command will oversee the new system when it becomes operational.

The Reengineering Travel Transition Office's first order of business was to wrestle the DoD's 230-page travel regulation document down to a 17-page pamphlet that places accountability for travel with the traveler's supervisor and gives all employees equal status as travelers. Since then, the comptroller's office has regularly issued directives which fine-tune the concepts contained in the revised regulations. Directives have included:

• Giving supervisors the authority not only to approve travel, but also to obligate travel funds, thereby eliminating the lengthy process of seeking funding approval from a central source.
• Maximizing use of travel charge cards.
• Performing random audits.
• Allowing split-disbursement (reimbursing a traveler's personal account and/or government charge card account).

• Electronic funds transfer (EFT). DoD now issues travel advances and reimbursements by electronic funds transfer rather than by cash or Treasury checks. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service is developing a Defense Business Operations Fund rate structure that will reward DoD offices for promoting EFT.
• Meals and incidental expenses (M&IE). In the past, DoD travelers calculated M&IE for their first and last days of travel based on departure and return times. Now, 75 percent of the regular M&IE reimbursement is the standard for first and last days of travel.
• $75 receipt threshold. Since the IRS changed its policy, DoD no longer requires travelers to retain receipts for travel expenses less than $75, with the exception of lodging expenses.
• Paper non-availability statement. In the past, DoD travelers staying off base had to obtain a written statement from the installation's billeting offices stating that on-base lodging was unavailable. The statements are no longer required if travelers are unable to reserve lodging with the billeting office prior to departure.

Pilot sites reported a number of stumbling blocks to implementing the new travel system, Comptroller Hamre told the Senate panel in March. They noted difficulties in obtaining electronic signature capability, updating software and educating managers and travelers about their responsibilities under the new system.

To make the travel system paperless, DoD needs to ensure that the person claiming travel funds is entitled to them and the person authorizing the funds is the correct certifying official. Electronic signature capability can provide the required integrity, but GAO has been cautious about approving its testing. Senior Master Sgt. Robert Sullivan, a program management officer at Air Combat Command's pilot site in Langley, Va., says the command received permission to test electronic signature technology only after "months and months of negotiation with GAO. They were very, very careful to understand what our system was before they let us go. Our encryption had to be of a high grade."

DoD also underestimated the time it would take to update software at the pilot sites and ensure that their accounting systems accept the changes for payment processing. The software updates are necessary to incorporate new entitlement rules. "Since entitlement changes occur on a regular basis, this is an issue that needs to be worked," Hamre said.

Concerns are beginning to surface about contracting. It is unclear whether DoD's travel reengineers envision one software provider, or several, for all of the department's travel processing. The pilot sites are testing software from different vendors.

If DoD chooses to incorporate a variety of vendors into its new travel system, indications are that software will be procured on a regional basis. The Midwest Defense Travel Region is scheduled to release a request for proposal for new software in early 1997. "We don't view this as a very good thing," says Air Combat Command's Sullivan. Twenty-five percent to 33 percent of DoD's personnel move every year, he points out. If each region uses different software contractors, employees will be required to learn a new system each time they move. If different travel software programs are used in the new travel system, says Sullivan, it would be better to have each service procure its own.

Still, feedback on the reengineering concept remains positive. Employees at Air Combat Command say "the electronic method is long overdue," Sullivan says.

1997 CITY-PAIR CONTRACTS

his fiscal year, travelers' plane tickets will cost an average of 62 percent less than unrestricted coach fare tickets when feds fly on city-pair routes. And federal fliers will have about 1,000 more city-pair routes to choose from than they did in fiscal 1996.

Each year, under the city-pair program, the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service awards air transportation contracts for official government travel. The awards are based on the best overall value. The decision is based on the type of aircraft, distribution and number of flights, the average flight time and the average ticket price.

For fiscal 1997, GSA awarded contracts for 6,147 city pairs, up from 5,115 city pairs in fiscal 1996. The average discount off the full walk-up fare is 62 percent, saving the government $2.4 billion.

The contracts feature several advantages over commercial fares:

• No advance purchase is required.
• No minimum or maximum length of stay is required.
• The tickets are fully refundable. There is no charge for cancellations or for schedule changes.
• Seats are not capacity-controlled, meaning as long as there is a coach class seat available, the government traveler can purchase it at the contract fare.
• There are no blackout periods in which the fares do not apply.
• The price will not change throughout the length of the contract, enabling agencies to better plan travel budgets.