re: " Senate Ethics Committee Forced to Clarify Travel Cash Rules"

Tom Fitton at Big Government looked at Judicial Watch's investigation of Congressional ethics.

Money quote(s):

"According to Senate rules Members of the U.S. Senate can neither simply “keep the change” and pocket the unused portions of their travel per diems nor use them to buy gifts for campaign donors. That seems like common sense to me. These per diems, after all, are paid for by the taxpayers."

Just about every FSO has worked with, as a "control officer," a CONDEL (congressional delegation) or a STAFDEL (congressional staff delegation) at some point or another in their careers.

Part of preparation for being "control officer" for a CODEL or STAFDEL is picking up (and signing for), from the embassy cashier, a set of cash envelopes for each of the CODEL's members. Said cash being the estimated per diem costs for their individual lodging and M&IE (meals and incidental expenses) allowances for stays in that particular foreign country and/or city.

These are considered to be a "cash advance" of the CODEL members' travel expenses.

Most government (including State Dept.) travelers are limited to getting only 75% of their per diem expenses as a cash advance; they are reimbursed the difference, if eligible, sometime after they file their expense reports at the completion of their travel.

IIRC, CODEL travelers get a cash advance of 100% of their estimated lodging and M&IE costs.

(Someone please correct me if I'm mis-remembering that or if it's changed.)

"With regard to how Members of Congress may have misappropriated the funds, according to the article: “Sometimes they give it away; sometimes they pocket it. Many lawmakers said they didn’t know the rules for repayment.”

Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), The Wall Street Journal notes, admitted that it’s “fairly standard” policy for lawmakers to use the leftover money “for shopping or to buy souvenirs to bring back to constituents.”

Personally I find ridiculous the notion that Members of Congress simply did not realize pocketing per diems is a no-no. First off, it’s basic commons sense. And secondly, this behavior is in violation of explicit House and Senate rules governing the reimbursement of travel expenses."

Control officers have each CODEL member sign for their cash envelopes shortly after their arrivals (most will be expecting it, being familiar with the drill) so that the control officer is no longer responsible/accountable for the relatively large sums of cash involved.

("large," in this instance, is defined as: 'more than CAA usually has in his wallet when he's not in either Las Vegas or Atlantic City')

CODEL members are presumed to follow Congress' rules regarding the filing of expense reports.

"(W)what a sad story that United States Senators need to be reminded that they can’t keep taxpayer cash for their own personal use.

And regarding the obvious per diem abuses by Members of the U.S. Senate, we believe a more thorough investigation is warranted. The Senate Ethics Committee shouldn’t give a pass to Members to misappropriated taxpayer funds, whether they are merely “confused” or purposely ignoring the policy for their own personal gain."

For most of us peons, the lodging costs are going to match, just about exactly, what the hotel or other lodging charges us. After all, the lodging per diem rates are published and the (smart) hotels charge exactly that as their "government rate."

(The really smart hotels throw in a lot of little, and not-so-little, extras for government travelers in order to attract their business.)

Just about anyone who's been a control officer can probably tell you a funny story about a CODEL they worked one time or another, perhaps even regarding how a CODEL member or two misunderstood how their travel advances were to be handled.

(But FSOs are a fairly discrete bunch, even the ones who blog, so those stories are saved for each other.)

6/29

re: "Current Events (Or Why We Deserve This Pay Cut)"

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") has a great summation and some alarming ideas.

Money quote(s):

"In a nutshell: our pay is on the line. Life After Jerusalem and several other bloggers covered the details, which amount to this: Foreign Service officers currently have to take a steep pay cut when they move from DC to their overseas posts, due to something called "locality pay." Several years ago, when the powers-that-be were convinced this was a problem (why should I move to Yemen, or Libya, or Beijing, or really anywhere, if I'm going to make 25 cents on the dollar more to stay in DC?), they moved to phase in overseas locality pay so that this disparity would disappear over time. But now, led by Mr. Reed, some of our politicians have decided to call this an "automatic pay raise," and they want to do away with it. Only for State Department employees, mind you: other agencies overseas get this locality pay, and no one's talking about touching it."

Great summary. Covers all the bases. Well, doesn't mention that the pay gap doesn't apply to members of the Senior Foreign Service; for some reason they never lost out on this.

Who are the SFS? They're the Foreign Service equivalent to the Civil Service's Senior Executive Service (SES); in other words, State's flag officers (i.e., the equivalent of generals and admirals). It is from this group that principal officers (when they are not political appointees) such as ambassadors and consuls general are chosen.

"all you FSOs out there, are you ready for this? Here's what I think: This is all your fault.

Seriously. Your. Fault.

And here's why.

Whenever Mr. or Ms. Important Politician decides to come to post, you all leap to help out. I've seen this happen at every single post where I've lived. You get a cable that Congressperson So-And-So is coming next week. It's probably a national holiday. Or a weekend. But they're coming. They're flying in business class, and when they arrive, you scramble to meet them. With a motorcade. You take them to meetings with other important people at your post. You sit at their fancy dinners at the Foreign Minister's palace so you can take notes. After you drop them off for the night at their fancy hotels downtown, you slog back to the Embassy to write your cables before making the long trek back to your home in the suburbs somewhere. You kiss your sleeping kids, argue with your spouse about why you couldn't come with her to her doctor's appointment (she doesn't speak the language well, but you do). Then you go to bed.

You wake up before dawn so you can get back to the Embassy and pull cables for the congressperson, who needs to be up on the news as she breakfasts in her hotel. And then you set off for another day in motorcades, running from meetings to lunches to parties to concerts, ignoring the calls from your kids' school, because you know your spouse has that covered and you don't even have time to eat.

While you're doing this, someone else at the Embassy is taking the congressperson's spouse shopping for pearls, and then maybe to a fancy lunch at a local hotspot. It could be the CLO; it could be your wife. But someone is out sightseeing with the congressperson's hangers-on. Maybe a quick visit to the Great Wall, or Petra, or the pyramids. This could be a weekday, or it could be a weekend. Either way, whoever is taking these folks out has cobbled together extra childcare and cancelled that dentist appointment in order to be available.

The visit is over, and the motorcade races to the airport, where Important Person waits in the VIP lounge. Even after Important Person takes that business class ticket and boards the plane, you still sit, and wait. You wait until wheels-up, because that's what you do."

Because it just wouldn't do for there to be a mechanical problem and the plane towed back to the gate and unloaded and an entire congressional delegation stranded at the airport with no local cellphone anymore. Actually describing this gave me a chill, and not in a good, Chris Matthews sort of, way.

I've often maintained that we do ourselves a serious disservice by building and maintaining this sort of artificial bubble for our VIP visitors such as congressmen and STAFDELs. It only creates an unrealistic appreciation on their part for our roles, conditions, and capabilities abroad.

Donna gets this.

"Meanwhile, Important Politician stretches out in his business class seat and listens to his wife talk about the pearls! And the silk scarves! And the amazing food! And IP thinks back to that Foreign Service Officer he just met. And he thinks: what a great life that guy has! He goes to parties at the President's mansion. He drinks fancy wine. He drives around in air conditioned motorcades, with people saluting him as he walks into government buildings. He goes hiking - in the middle of a work day, even! - on the Great Wall. What a cushy life he leads, thinks Important Politician.

So you see, all you Foreign Service Officers out there, it's your fault all of these congresspeople think you deserve a pay cut. They have no idea what work you put into that recent visit. They don't know what you just gave up in order to make sure their visit was a success. They don't understand that your life isn't all cocktail parties interspersed with awesome trips to exotic locations. They don't know that you live in a place where your every move is recorded. Or maybe you live in a place where the locals want you dead. Or you live in a place where your baby has nightmares from the malaria medication. Or your spouse isn't allowed to work because the host government forbids it. Or maybe you're black, and the locals don't like black people. Or maybe you're gay, and that's a punishable offense in your host country. Or you're a woman, so you have to cover up when you walk outside. Or the signs are all in Arabic, so every time you leave the house, you're lost, and you can't ask for directions. Or maybe you went permanently deaf in one ear while you were serving in a country without proper medical care. Important Politician didn't see any of this from the window of the Prime Minister's residence."

&

"(T)hey don't get it, these Important People. They don't know just how hard you work for them, and for your country, because when they show up at your post for a long weekend in December, you work your asses off and not a one of you ever tells them you need to go to your daughter's Christmas pageant, or you need to help your spouse find wrapping paper, or you need to get your sick kid to the doctor. You don't even point out that you're working weekends for these people. You just do the work you're supposed to do, regardless of the weather, the date, the personal sacrifice.

And so they don't know, even when they should, and they just see an easy way to cut some money from the budget that won't impact their constituents. When they make these financial calculations, they don't even see your faces."