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DoD Conference Policies and Controls |
The Department of Defense has always taken its duty to be an excellent steward of taxpayer dollars very seriously. Through the continued implementation of the Secretary’s Efficiencies Initiative and President Obama’s Campaign to Cut Waste, DoD has focused on reducing costs and ensuring that policies and controls are in place to prevent waste, duplication, or abuse, with specific attention paid to spending associated with conferences. Defense-wide Policies and ControlsThe conference planning policy from the General Services Administration’s Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) §301-74 is adopted in the Joint Federal Travel Regulations (JFTR) and the Joint Travel Regulations (JTR). The JFTR and JTR serve as the Department's enterprise-wide guidance for travel and transportation allowances for uniformed personnel and DoD civilian employees, respectively. This enterprise policy is supplemented by ethics counselor handbooks and Component-specific guidance, which provide additional details, such as approval levels and processes, to ensure compliance with all applicable Federal laws and regulations. The relevant sections of the FTR and JFTR/JTR are included below.
DoD has also issued additional guidance that strengthens the requirement to use cost estimates in making decisions about whether to host or attend a conference, reduce conference frequency, and substitute technology for travel whenever possible, to include video conferencing. This guidance, from the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Office and the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel & Readiness), is included below.
Recent OMB Conference PolicyOn May 11, 2012, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum to promote further efficiency and cost consciousness in the federal government’s operations. OMB’s memorandum contained new requirements in the areas of travel, conferences, real property management, and fleet management requiring Departmental action. OMB's memorandum is included below. On the topic of conferences, OMB’s memorandum requires that the Department (1) conduct senior level review of all planned conferences over $100K. Until the review is complete, no new obligations may be made for conferences that have not already been committed to; (2) initiate senior level review of all future conferences over $100K; (3) prohibit conferences over $500K without a waiver; and (4) report publically on an annual basis, starting January 2013, on agency-sponsored conferences over $100K. For each of these actions, the dollar thresholds refer to a combination of both hosting and attendance costs incurred by DoD and for approvals, the appropriate approval authority must approve both DoD-sponsored and non-federal entity-sponsored conferences that exceed the dollar thresholds. On June 3, 2012, the Deputy Secretary issued a memorandum to provided interim guidance to the Department in response to the OMB memorandum. The Deputy Secretary's memorandum is included below. The Department continues to develop long-term guidance to fully implement these recent developments. Additional information will be posted to this space as it becomes available. Defense-wide Adherence to Policies and ControlsOver the past few years, the Department has conducted a number of thorough reviews of its conference policies to ensure that sufficient policiees and controls were in place and that conferences were being executed in adherence to those policies. The Department's most recent reviews took place in April, 2012 and October, 2011. In both cases, the reviews found that the Department and its Components had appropriate policies and controls in place to mitigate the risk of inappropriate conference spending practices. In the April, 2012 review, the Department also looked specifically for previous significant deviations from those policies and found none. While the Department's April, 2012 review was an internal review to inform future policy, the Deputy Secretary certified the results of the November, 2011 review to the Office of Management and Budget on November 1, 2011. The Deputy Secretary’s memorandum is included below. |