TO:                 Designated Agency Ethics Officials

FROM            Jack Covalski         
                       Deputy Director, Office of Agency Programs                         

SUBJECT:      Reporting Payments Accepted Under 31 U.S.C. § 1353
                       

       Section 1353 of title 31, United States Code, authorizes the acceptance by executive branch agencies of payments for travel, subsistence, and related expenses from non-Federal sources in connection with the attendance of employees at certain meetings or similar functions. The statute provides that the head of each agency shall submit to the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) semiannual reports of payments of more than $250 accepted under this authority. The next semiannual report should be submitted to OGE not later than May 31, 2001, concerning payments received during the period beginning on October 1, 2000, and ending on March 31, 2001. Agencies are required to submit negative reports.

       The General Services Administration's (GSA) regulation implementing 31 U.S.C. § 1353 is codified at 41 C.F.R. part 304-1. Additionally, the standard forms for reporting this information, SF 326, "Semiannual Report of Payments Accepted from a Non-Federal Source" and SF 326A, "Continuation Sheet" can be downloaded from the GSA Web site at www.gsa.gov/forms under the "Other Forms" section as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. You may use these forms or continue to use other reporting formats designed in accordance with § 304-1.9(a) of that regulation. ¹

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       ¹   GSA recently published a set of proposed amendments to its regulation that, among other things, would require the use of the standard forms for reporting. See 66 Federal Register 22491-22498, at proposed §§ 304-6.4 and 304-6.5 (p. 22497), which was published on May 4, 2001 (with any comments due by July 3, 2001).