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: "Protests here, there and everywhere and the US Government shutdown looms large"

Domani Spero at DiploPundit ("Just one obsessive observer, diplomatic watcher, opinionator and noodle newsmaker monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and the worldwide available universe") has an extremely informative post about federal government shutdowns.

Money quote(s):

"The most recent one occurred in FY1996 for five days between November 13-19, 1995. The second one also in FY1996 was the longest in history, and lasted 21 days between December 15, 1995 - January 6, 1996.

Of course, as soon as the second government shutdown was lifted, the blizzard of 1996, a severe nor'easter arrived and paralyzed the entire East Coast with up to 4 feet of wind-driven snow. Remember that? A big mess all around, and not just the snow, most of it dumped on the GOP lawn."

I remember it well, working at the time as a government contractor. Since my contract remained funded, I continued working during the shutdown, but nearly all of my federal co-workers (I was working "on site" at a departmental headquarters in D.C.) weren't there. It was spooky.

To really enhance the fun, about 50 percent of my reserve battalion was being mobilized during that time period to deploy to Europe as part of Operation Joint Endeavor. Being snowed in (it took them most of a week for the snowplows to reach my apartment parking lot, and then an entire day for me to re-unentomb my car so I could get myself, uniforms, and gear to the reserve center that night) sucked.

"Potentially, all US embassies and consulates will also shutdown if the continuing funding resolution is not extended before Friday, March 4 at 11:59 pm. Since ambassadors are presidential appointees, they will presumably continue working. I suspect that most of the embassy staff will be sent home. Think you might volunteer your service for free to Uncle Sam? Think again. Not possible. "Unless otherwise authorized by law, an agency may not accept the voluntary services of an individual." (31 U.S.C. 1342). Read more here.

US missions will not be able to pay local bills for water, phone, electricity, sewer and other services for the chancery, and all USG properties. Hopefully, your management section already has an excellent working relationship with these service providers and none will cut off essential services to the embassy or embassy housing.

In 1995, all visa applications are walk-in. Today, a good number of consular sections have online appointment systems. Which means, visa appointments will have to be canceled and rescheduled if there is a shutdown. Consular sections may only be open for life and death emergencies. That means lost passport applications, reports of births abroad, adoption cases, notarials, etc. will all have to wait until the Federal government reopens.

Large scale evacuations of US embassy staff and US citizens in whatever is the next domino to fall -- would that be considered "essential?" Don't know if evacuees will be allowed government loans during the shutdown. Don't know what happens if you are on evacuation status in the safehaven destination or back in the US when the government shuts down. Best check with official folks to get answers before window closes for official business.

Members of Congress are exempt from the shutdown furloughs (and will continue to get their paychecks, of course). This means you might still see a CODEL visit in popular destinations like Kabul or Baghdad amidst a federal shutdown. Of course, there won't technically be embassy cars/drivers or control officers for those visits."

Control officers? Where have I heard that term before?

re: "Moments to Remember"

Hannah at the slow move east ("thoughts on being an expatriate") gets to be a control officer.

Money quote(s):

"Tomorrow I start eight full days of control officering on two separate visits, both of which have more moving parts and complications than a bureaucracy designed by Rube Goldberg. When I leave for R&R in two weeks, I'll be running right at mental and physical empty. So for the moment, I'm holding on to the best moment of the last few weeks, to keep me going through several long nights at the airport or hours in tour busses."

What is a control officer and why does it sound like something stressful?

Control officers, generally FSOs, are assigned by posts (embassies, consulate, or missions) to be the overall wrangler of an official visit. The visitors, almost by definition VIPs, may be codels (congressional delegations), stafdels (congressional staff delegrations), Departmental officials of sub-cabinet (i.e, job titles including the word "Secretary;" that's with an upper-case "S") or ambassadorial rank, the Secretary of State, or even POTUS/VPOTUS/FLOTUS.

Posts put a lot of effort, time, and resources into making those visits as worthwhile for the visitors, given whatever their focus might be, as is humanly possible (actually, this is sometimes counter-productive).

Everything is laid on ahead of time, little is left to chance, transportation, security, receptions, media events, it's all planned to the minute; after having done a few of these I commented to a fellow Iraq vet that running convoys had been less stressful.