Mauro takes issue with employee reimbursement changes

DES MOINES – Policy changes covering state employee travel reimbursements designed to keep the budget in the black have at least one elected official seeing red.

Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro is taking exception to new rules slated to take effect July 1 that change circumstances whereby state employees can be reimbursed for meals, checked baggage, Internet use and other travel-related expenses.

A recent memo issued by the state Department of Administrative Services noted that the travel departure time of 7 a.m. has been moved to 6 a.m. and the return time from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. for meal reimbursements – meaning traveling state employees will have to get up pretty early in the morning for the government to pick up the cost of breakfast.

“I think it's absurd,” Mauro told fellow Executive Council members this week. “We're nit-picking our employees. It's laughable. This, to me, is going down the wrong way.”

However, Ray Walton, director of the Department of Administrative Services, said the changes were proposed by an advisory panel made up of veteran state employees that reviewed various travel policies.

“Mostly it's just cautious government,” Walton said of the proposed changes. “It's saying it's not necessary to reimburse a person for breakfast if you're leaving at 7 a.m. It's reasonable to think that you can eat at home.”

In the case of checked baggage airline fees that would not be allowed to be charged on a state employee's travel purchasing card, Walton said the change would only apply to bags that did not have a business justification.

Fees for checked bags transporting work clothes would be reimbursed, but charges for things like golf clubs or other non-work related bags would not. A similar business-justification criteria would be applied for Internet charges that an employee might incur for responding to emails, he said.

Given the state's tight budget situation and emphasis on cutting costs, travel reimbursements have come under closer scrutiny.

Gov. Chet Culver used his item-veto power to remove legislative directives regarding state employee expenses and reimbursements that he felt were too piecemeal in applying to some budget areas but not others.

Instead, the governor signed an executive order that he hoped would promote greater transparency and efficiencies in state government.

The order called for the Department of Administrative Services to implement a new policy across the executive branch that would require every department to institute cost-effective and transparent practices to track reimbursements paid to state employees for meals, travel and other work-related costs.