GSA seeks to require federal travelers to use contract hotels

The General Services Administration has proposed legislation that would require federal employees who travel out of town on business to stay in hotels that are under contract with the government.

The measure is part of broader legislation known as the General Services Enhancement Act, which also would streamline the management and disposal of government property and automatically align the federal mileage reimbursement rate with that set by the Internal Revenue Service.

"This is not just the engine of government getting an oil change. It's getting an oil change, fixing the brakes and getting the timing belt together," said Kevin Messner, GSA's associate administrator for congressional and intergovernmental affairs, about the legislation. "It's doing a number of things to help make things better."

The proposal, which cleared the administration's approval process this week, was transmitted to Congress on Thursday along with a detailed analysis of the bill. As of Friday, the measure did not have a congressional sponsor.

The bill's hotel provision is among its more notable measures.

In 2004, GSA launched FedRooms, a program in which the government uses its buying power to leverage low rates with national hotel chains. The private sector, particularly the airline industry, uses similar programs.

But because of a decades-old law that prohibits federal workers or military service members from being forced "to occupy quarters on a rental basis," GSA has been unable to require workers to use the FedRooms program. Currently, government travelers are allowed to stay at any hotel within the federal per diem rate GSA sets for local areas.

Messner said the change would not result in a noticeable decrease in the quality of hotels available to federal travelers, and would likely save the government a significant amount of money.

"We are not encouraging the federal traveler to stay at the top-of-the-line, five-star [hotels] and we don't want them to stay in cockroach-infested hotels on the side of the highway," he said. "We want them to stay in nice, decent hotels where the federal government and the taxpayer are getting a good rate."

The bill also would alleviate a recurring GSA headache by automatically aligning the federal mileage reimbursement rate with the standard set annually by the IRS.

Every year, GSA goes through a cumbersome process of consulting with various agencies and other independent stakeholders to set its mileage rate -- a process that is always completed well after the IRS implements its national standard for the private sector. In fact, GSA announced on Friday that it would adopt the IRS' $0.505 per mile reimbursement rate, up from $0.485 in 2007. The IRS announced its rate change at the start of the year.

"This would eliminate the redundancy within the federal government and would save the taxpayer dollars," Messner said.

GSA's bill also would create an exchange program under which employees would be able to trade or sell outdated federal property such as computers -- as well as related technical services -- and apply the proceeds toward the purchase of a newer item. And the measure would authorize GSA to transport surplus property to state and local governments during major disasters.

The measure also includes a day care-related provision that would broaden the definition of "federal children" to include the children of contractors working at federal facilities.

Day care facilities managed and leased by GSA can operate only if at least 50 percent of the children they serve are dependents of federal employees. In many cases, Messner said, federal facilities have been unable to open day care centers because that threshold has not been met.

"This will provide child care to more children that are helping work for the federal government and would help the federal employees that may not be able to have a child care facility because of this restriction," he said.

Under the provision, in cases where there is a waiting list or when child care facilities are at maximum capacity, the children of federal employees would be given first priority.

Other provisions in the bill would:

• Expand GSA's ability to lease property in the case of an emergency from 180 days to five years. The amendment also would allow the GSA administrator to trigger the emergency leasing authority, rather than waiting on a disaster declaration by the president.
• Authorize the GSA administrator to settle civilian and travel relocation claims that now must be forwarded to Congress for review.
• Allow agencies to pay the transportation expenses of up three members of the immediate family of federal employees who have been seriously injured or killed while on duty.

The likely destinations for the bill, Messner said, would be the House Oversight Government Reform Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Government Executive by e-mail that "it's a little late in the session to be submitting such a major legislative proposal, but at first glance it has the type of nuts-and-bolts, good government proposals that the … committee pursued for many years. …I hope to work closely with Chairman [Henry] Waxman [D-Calif.] to get as many of the provisions that the committee supports as possible enacted into law before the end of the year."