The Lowdown on High Mileage

n average, federal agencies spend about $5,500 on travel per employee each year. And the big spenders aren't always the ones you might expect: The National Science Foundation's annual travel budget averages almost $11,000 per employee, while Social Security hits the road the least, spending less than $1,000 per employee.

Who actually spends those funds is another story. Some feds don't travel at all, while others are on the road a lot. Some agencies even subsidize trips for non-government travelers on federal business.

And the leading road warriors aren't always going to the meetings and conferences, training sessions and site visits that are synonymous with government travel. Here's a peek inside the travel routines of some high-mileage agencies.

Striving for Sanity

The budgeters at the Federal Emergency Management Agency have to use a crystal ball when they plan for travel. Disasters, by definition, pretty much can't be foreseen.

Travelers from the agency-which is responsible for planning for, responding to and helping in the recovery from disasters-have hit the road for every type of emergency, from the Sept. 11 attacks to California's earthquakes, fires and mudslides; from Hurricane Andrew to Mississippi River floods. FEMA estimates it spent nearly $14,000 per employee on travel in 2001.

Immediately after a disaster, says James Lucas, a senior policy adviser at the office of FEMA's chief financial officer, the agency often deploys several hundred people. And they can be assigned to the site for months-or years. FEMA travelers are a diverse bunch, including community outreach workers, crisis counselors, engineers, materiel handlers (people who, for example, deliver tarps for damaged roofs after a hurricane), engineers, building inspectors and accountants.

So where do all these people come from? They're not just sitting around FEMA's offices waiting for something bad to happen. Most of them are retirees-from FEMA, other agencies and the private sector. The agency has 2,300 regular employees-and three times that in reservists. FEMA also has the authority to assign tasks to 27 other government agencies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, the General Services Administration and the Health and Human Services Department.

Life on the disaster crew can be as unpredictable as disasters themselves. Most workers stay wherever they can get a room. Often accommodations have been destroyed, especially after a hurricane. Employees take second place to people displaced by disaster in getting a roof-or a tent-over their heads.

"We've stayed in tents; we've stayed in boats anchored off shore," says Lucas. "We've stayed in rooms with the windows blown out and with soggy carpets. We've also stayed in rooms with air conditioning that were dry and very nice."

On long-term assignments, "eating out and looking at the same four walls gets a little bit tiring," Lucas says, so the agency tries to put people in extended-stay properties or get a group together in a condo.

Immediately after a disaster, crews work 12, 14 or even 16-hour days, seven days a week. "Once things settle down a bit, we try to give people at least one day off a week-for their sanity," Lucas says.

Leave Them Wanting More

Why does the National Science Foundation spend so much on travel? Cheryl Kaminski, branch chief of cash management and external accounting, has the answer: the foundation's 15,000-plus panelists. These renowned scientists from all over the world travel to meetings at which they consider the foundation's research grants to universities and private institutions.

"We do research everywhere-we are even in Antarctica," says Kaminski. "We cover every discipline, from mathematics to education to biology to computers."

Most panelists make one trip a year, so that's about 15,000 trips compared with about 5,000 regular business trips by staff each year, Kaminski says.

The panelists get a flat daily rate and a small honorarium. Most of them view the work as donating time to the government. Kaminski says her focus is on paying the travelers quickly, because the agency's "objective is to make them want to come back."

Short on Glamour

Government travel isn't as sexy as critics might think. When you're on an Air India flight heading east, for example, you know you're in trouble. That's one of many bits of wisdom gleaned from one State Department officer's life of travel.

On one four- or five-hour leg, the flight attendants generally lock the toilets so they won't have to clean them later, says an official with the State Department's Bureau of Administration. And economy class is filled with migrant laborers where "you are the only one who can read and write. Everyone passes their disembarkation forms to you to help them fill them out." The official, who asked not to be named, says she views that public service as shaving time off her stay in purgatory.

In carrying out its mission to "shape a freer, more secure, and more prosperous world," the department maintains diplomatic relations with some 180 of the world's 191 countries. It has nearly 260 posts around the world, including embassies, consulates and missions to international organizations.

All this and more contribute to State's travel budget of $190 million for 28,000 employees, or almost $7,000 each. (Before Sept. 11, the department planned to spend $224 million on travel in fiscal 2002.) "We live overseas," and foreign travel is expensive, says the official. Some employees are on the road most of the year. Some who are stationed overseas without their families travel back to the United States to deal with family responsibilities. The families of employees stationed overseas get vacation travel every year or two. Medical travel is needed because many posts don't have adequate facilities. And there is relocation travel, which tallies 3,000 or 4,000 moves a year.

Experiences like the one on Air India are the norm for State Department travel, says the official, not the elegant life many people imagine when they picture someone circling the globe with a diplomatic passport.

"It's quite the opposite," she says. "The diplomatic passport can help you avoid the shakedown at the border, but the travel is anything but glamorous."

Whatever the reason for the trip, State Department travelers must have advanced degrees in patience, fortitude and flexibility. Once, on a flight into Central America, the State official's plane was diverted-to another country. The air traffic control towers had no glass, and plastic sheeting was flapping in the wind. When she got off the plane, far from her intended destination, she says, "No one was there to say, 'Ms. Jones, we have a bus waiting for you.' " In this kind of travel, she says, standards are different, adding, "There is no thought about putting your seat in the upright and locked position."

Home Base

Staying closer to home-but still racking up the miles-are the travelers at the National Credit Union Administration. Three-quarters of the agency's 1,000 employees are examiners. The agency has six regional offices and a small headquarters, but the vast majority of examiners, each of whom performs audits in a specific district, are based at their homes. Most examine each credit union once a year. Some examiners, especially those on the East and West coasts, where the largest credit unions are, have "pretty much a 9-to-5 experience," says Ron Aaron, deputy chief financial officer. "They lead fairly normal lives."

But in the rest of the country, many "Ma and Pa" credit unions are housed in places like the lobbies of churches. And examiners' territories can cover hundreds of miles. For example, examiners based in Austin work with credit unions between there and North Dakota. They often are away from home a week or two each month.

That set-up explains how the agency spends about $13 million a year on travel, or almost $13,000 per employee. Most of the travel is routine, but given the amount of time they are on the road, these civil servants encounter some unpredictable challenges. After Hurricane Andrew, one examiner found trees blocking the road. He sawed them apart and was on his way. That isn't something they teach in accounting school.

earn about everything from the new lodging program to the 1974 Fly America Act, from Smart Cards to planning an Earth-friendly meeting at the National Travel Forum 2002.

More than 1,500 federal employees-at all levels of travel planning, relocation services, financial systems and meeting planning-and industry mavens will gather. The conference is an opportunity to network; talk to those who make travel policies and rules; learn about travel and relocation trends; see the latest in relocation coordination, information systems, conference planning, best practices and more.

Who: Sponsored by GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, the Interagency Travel Management Committee and Government Executive
What: National Travel 2002
When: June 17-20
Where: The Gaylord Opryland, Nashville, Tenn.
How: Go to www.nationaltravel2002.org or call (800) 315-4333 for more information or to register. Discounted registration ends April 30.