The Repeal of Reduced Long-Term TDY Per Diems
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The prompt for this round of the FEDforum is better late than never. This week, hear from the Federal Managers Association (FMA).
When prompted by the phrase “better late than never,” there is a lot to choose from in regard to the federal workforce. An evergreen topic is funding for federal agencies. Full funding of Fiscal Year 2022 came nearly six months into the year, and we’re staring down that road yet again for FY2023. Federal managers will certainly say “better late than never,” whenever appropriations are completed, but that doesn’t mean it is not maddeningly frustrating to see the negative effects of these delays year after year.
That said, the Federal Managers Association (FMA) would like to spotlight a win for all Department of Defense (DOD) civilian and uniformed military travelers that came in 2018. It took a lot of work and was long overdue, but the win was a textbook example at FMA of “better late than never.”
We understood DOD’s intentions when it made changes to the Joint Travel Regulations (JTR) in November, 2014, reducing per diems by 25 percent for those on TDY for more than 30 days, and by 45 percent for travel longer than 180 days. As federal managers, we are always looking for ways to increase cost-savings across the government, while providing necessary services. However, FMA criticized the cuts from the beginning, saying the minimal estimated savings to DOD should not come at the expense of individual employees. We wrote, “These extreme cuts will create undue financial burdens on these dedicated employees who will struggle to meet these per diem requirements.” FMA argued DOD should not have created a disincentive for employees to take TDY assignments.
FMA immediately made fixing this issue a legislative priority and went to work advocating for the repeal of the changes to the JTR. We worked side by side with several unions and travel industry trade associations. FMA members sent action letters to their Members of Congress, from Hawaii to Maine, Florida to Washington, and states in between. They shared the negative impacts the cuts had on federal managers and their employees, not to mention the uniformed military members who were subject to those same cuts. Yet, the policy change and those cuts to long-term TDY per diems stayed in place.
In the years that followed, FMA members continued to share their experiences and insights. TDY employees were asked to spend a significant amount of time away from their families and their homes, and under the policy they were expected to cover much more of those costs at their own expense. As a direct result, managers, who already found it difficult to find people at the senior grade levels required, found it even more difficult to find people willing to accept long-term TDY assignments. We heard this particularly often from FMA members at the public shipyards, who regularly need to send hundreds of employees to distant locations for extended periods of time to work on aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. And yet, the cuts to long-term TDY per diems stayed in place.
A Government Accountability Office report found that “DOD did not ensure that certain required processes established in DOD guidance were completed prior to the policy’s approval, and its assessment of the policy’s costs and benefits was not comprehensive . . . As a result, DOD may not be well positioned to understand where the flat rate per diem policy is cost-beneficial and meeting its objectives to reduce travel costs without negatively affecting the traveler and the mission.” And Retired Admiral William Hilarides, the respected former Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), wrote the JTR changes had “the potential to increase the end cost of projects.” He also stated the policy “had a negative impact on the Naval Shipyards’ ability to effectively and efficiently conduct Navy ship maintenance.” And yet . . .
Over the course of four years, FMA and several colleagues worked with a bipartisan group of allies in both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. We made incremental gains each year until finally breaking through to get language added in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA) to prevent the Pentagon from reducing the long-term TDY per diems for all DOD civilian and uniformed military travelers based on duration of the assignment. It was better late than never, and a change that immediately restored some fairness to thousands of feds and uniformed military members alike.
The column from the Federal Managers Association (FMA) is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDmanager audience.
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