Federal Workers Abusing Air Travel, Report Says

By ERIC LIPTON
Published: October 2, 2007

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — Federal employees are routinely abusing rules on business-class travel, taking trips to destinations like Zurich for $7,500 and costing taxpayers an extra estimated $145 million annually, congressional investigators have found.

The improper use of premium-class travel is widespread at a half-dozen federal departments, including Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce and State, according to the Government Accountability Office report, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.

One Agriculture Department official, for example, spent $62,000 on 10 business-class flights to Europe to attend trade negotiations. The coach fare for the same trips would have been less than $9,000.

The official, A. Ellen Terpstra, who is now deputy under secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the department, also wrongly had a subordinate authorize the premium-class travel, according to the report, which identified Ms. Terpstra only as a high-level department employee.

“No one disputes that government officials have to travel,” said Senator Norman Coleman of Minnesota, the ranking Republican on the Senate panel that requested the report. “But government is about first-class service. It is certainly not about first-class lifestyles.”

The Agriculture Department, in anticipation of the report, responded today by disclosing that it would immediately begin requiring the chief financial officer to sign off on all business-class travel. It is also opening its own investigation, a spokeswoman said.

“We want to ensure we are following the rules and that the travel has been appropriate,” Terri Teuber, the spokeswoman, said.

While the government allows business-class travel, it is generally prohibited on flights shorter than 14 hours, unless there are medical reasons, security needs or “exceptional circumstances” that make the higher-priced trip essential.

Even for trips that last longer than 14 hours, there are restrictions such as a requirement that the employee go directly to work upon arrival with no rest period, or there is no rest stop during the trip.

The G.A.O. study examined in detail a sample of the 53,000 premium-class tickets purchased in 12 months ending in June 2006 at a cost of more than $230 million, not including any trips using upgrades with frequent-flier miles.

That travel represents just 1 percent of overall flights, but it consumes 7 percent of the dollars spent on air travel because business class costs on average five times more than coach.

The investigators found very few first-class flights, which fall under even stricter rules. But they concluded that about 65 percent of the overall premium flights — or about $146 million worth — were improper or abusive, meaning either they broke the rules or were not appropriately authorized.

The State Department’s foreign affairs agency, whose employees are spread around the world, had one of the highest shares of questionable premium class travel, the investigators found.

A family of eight traveling to Washington from Eastern Europe flew business class at a cost of $46,000, as part of permanent change of assignment, a trip that auditors said should only have cost about $12,000.

The most widespread scrutiny was reserved for the Department of Agriculture. The department at times sent large groups of employees by business class, including as many as eight agency officials who went to a trade conference in Geneva on flights that cost $50,000.

The travel of Ms. Terpstra, whose identity was determined by studying details in the report, drew particular scrutiny. She spent $163,000 during a 15-month period for 25 premium-class trips, at least 10 of which, or $62,000, involved flights to Western Europe.

Written policy at the agency where she worked, the Foreign Agricultural Service, explicitly prohibited flying to Europe on business or first class, the report said.

Ms. Terpstra did not reply to several messages left at her office seeking comment. But Ms. Teuber, the department spokeswoman, said that the trips appeared to have been justified because Ms. Terpstra was on her way to trade negotiations and the plane ride was her only chance to sleep before starting work.

Even so, she said, the trips may not have been properly authorized, because one of Ms. Terpstra’s subordinates, instead of a superior, signed off on the business-class travel.

The report did find that premium class travel by the Department of Defense has declined significantly, which Senator Coleman and others said was a welcome change. An 2003 G.A.O. audit had focused just on the Defense Department, finding that 73 percent of the travel was improper.

The latest audit did find some questionable trips by Defense employees, including $105,000 spent on 15 premium class trips by one presidential appointee because of a medical condition, even though the note was signed by a peer and not a doctor, contrary to rules. But over all, the department’s questionable trips appeared to be on a much smaller scale than before, saving an estimated $82 million a year, Senator Coleman said.

“I don’t pat them on the back too often,” he said, of government agencies his subcommittee has investigated. “Here they deserve it.”

Gregory Kutz, the G.A.O. official who oversaw the study, said that officials coming to the federal government from the corporate world often do not appreciate that generous policies no longer apply.

He said federal departments should do more than change the policies, recommending that they should take disciplinary action against any employees who clearly broke the rules.

“Some of these people have individually wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars,” he said. “But no one, as far as I am aware, has ever had to repay one dollar or administratively be reprimanded for their actions.”

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