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1911, has been referred to this board for report and recommendation.

The recommendations of the commission are:

First. The passage of a law similar to the act of June 16, 1874, to provide that only actual traveling expenses shall be allowed to any person holding employment or appointment in or under any executive department or other Government establishment, and repealing all laws allowing mileage and transportation to such person in excess of the amount actually paid.

With respect to this recommendation the board submits the following: With the exception of paymaster's clerks and the expert accountant of the Inspector General's Department, all civilian employees of the War Department are now paid "actual expenses" in travel. Commissioned officers of the Army are paid "mileage."

The proposition to substitute "actual expenses" in lieu of "mileage" is not new. The act of June 16, 1874, provided for payment of "actual expenses. After a little over two years' trial this act was repealed by the act of July 24, 1876, and the system of "mileage" was reestablished. During this period, approximately $160,000 a year was disbursed for "actual expenses. For the first fiscal year subsequent to the act of July 24, 1876, which reestablished the mileage" system, there was disbursed for "mileage" $176,896.38. The rate of "mileage" under the law of 1876 was 8 cents a mile. If it had been 7 cents a mile, which is now the rate authorized by law, the disbursements would have amounted to $154,784.34, or about $5,000 less than under "actual expenses."

Under the present "mileage" system, two clerks in the Paymaster General's Office are able to do all the administrative work incident to the payment of travel allowances. In the opinion of the Paymaster General, the "actual-expense" system would increase the work to an extent requiring the services of from five to seven clerks, and it is thought that the same condition would obtain in the office of the Auditor for the War Department.

When this matter was under consideration in 1875, Gen. Alvord, then Paymaster General of the Army, used the following language, which is as true to-day as it was then, to wit:

* *

The allowance and payment of mileage to officers of the Army is so hedged about that there can be and were no abuses of it which are not inseparable from any allowance based upon orders issued at the discretion of men. *The experience of officers will sustain the statement that on the average of the whole period of service it is no more than a reimbursement of actual expenses and is uniform in its operations upon all.

Attention is invited, in this connection, to the inclosed memorandum of the Paymaster General of the Army of January 17, 1912. This board does not recommend a change from the "mileage" system to the "actual-expense" system for officers of the Army.

Second. The passage of a law making it the duty of the President to prescribe a per diem allowance for each officer or employee, or each class of officers or employees in or under an executive department or other Government establishment (including officers and employees of the courts of the United States, excepting judges) when engaged in travel on official business, and to vary any per diem from time to time; and that the per diem when so prescribed shall be in lieu of all traveling expenses except the cost of transportation and sleeping-car and parlor-car fares.

The board approves the adoption of this recommendation with reference to those officers and employees who are reimbursed for travel by the "actual-expense" system.

Third. The passage of a law providing that every account for reimbursement of traveling expenses shall be certified as to its correctness by the person by whom the

travel is performed and that no verification by affidavit shall be required, and that all laws requiring such verification be repealed.

The board approves the adoption of this recommendation.

The above recommendations of the commission require a change in the law.

The following recommendations do not require a change in the law, and, in the opinion of the commission, should be put into effect until the necessary legislation can be had:

First. The adoption by executive departments and other Government establishments of regulations which shall be uniform so far as the needs of the respective services permit; and in order to secure uniformity that the President request each of such departments and establishments to adopt the paragraph set forth in Exhibit 3 E as its regulations on the subject covered thereby.

This exhibit prescribes a form of order for travel and items of authorized expenditure constituting "actual expenses," and for that class of travel appears to be reasonable, and the board recommends its approval so far as applicable to the civil employees of the War Department.

Second. In order that the officers and employees of the Government may have for use the form of mileage book most nearly adapted to the needs of the Government, that the President direct that an effort be made to obtain from the various railroad companies the issue of an interchangeable mileage book at a fixed rate per mile for the official use of any Government officer or employee, and that such book be accepted on all railroads in the United States; or that books at different rates be issued, each to be accepted on all railroads within a certain territory.

In connection with the effort to arrange for uniform mileage books, consideration should be given to the desirability of making available for all Government employees the special rates for one or more persons now granted to certain departments.

The board recommends the approval of this recommendation. Third. That the President direct that an inquiry be made through the General Supply Committee or other proper agency as to the advisability of securing such special discounts or special rates as may be offered by hotels for the entertainment of officers and employees of the Government traveling on official business.

The board recommends the approval of this recommendation so far as it relates to the class traveling under the "actual expense" system.

F. L. AINSWORTH,

The Adjutant General, President. E. A. GARLINGTON,

Inspector General, Brigadier General, U. S. Army, Member.

W. W. WOTHERSPOON (absent),

Brigadier General, U. S. Army, Member.

JOHN C. SCOFIELD,

Assistant and Chief Clerk, War Department, Member.

MATTHEW E. HANNA,

Captain, General Staff, Member and Recorder.

[Memorandum: Having reference to the advisability of amending the existing laws with respect to the payment of allowances for travel so as to discontinue the mileage allowance and substitute therefor a system of actual expenses.]

WAR DEPARTMENT,

OFFICE OF THE PAYMASTER GENERAL,

Washington, January 17, 1912.

At the present time the pay department makes payment of mileage in three separate and distinct classes of cases, each of which is governed by a different law, but in preparing the estimates for pay

of the Army for the fiscal year commencing July 1, 1912, this office, by authority of the Secretary of War, inserted an item which, if enacted by Congress, will consolidate under one law the mileage disbursements which are now authorized and provided by the three distinct laws. The multiplicity of the mileage laws greatly adds to the volume of correspondence and reports, and tends to complicate disbursements, and should the proposed legislation be enacted the matter will be simplified and result in increased efficiency and administrative economy.

With respect to the advisability of abolishing the system of mileage and substituting therefor a system of actual expenses, I deem it proper to invite attention to the following extract from the report of the Paymaster General of the Army for the fiscal year 1875, wherein he states that:

Attention is respectfully invited to the subject of reimbursement to officers of cost of travel under orders.

Prior to July 1, 1874, a system of mileages prevailed, for which legislation has since substituted the system of "actual expenses. (See act of June 16, 1874.)

For short journeys "actual expenses" are found, in the majority of cases, to exceed "mileage," for the reason that the allowances for expenses of delays incident to the duty ordered are large in proportion to the distance traveled.

For long journeys the reverse is the case, for the reason that the distance traveled is much greater in proportion to the restricted time for which, under War Department rules, expenses of delays incident to duty may be charged; so that the item of charges for delays is not an important one in accounts for long journeys.

In the aggregate payments on account of actual expenses fall short in amount of what would be the sum of mileage allowances for the same journeys.

The pecuniary advantage to the Government, so far as concerns the Army, of a system of actual expenses, is believed, however, to fall short of the objections to the system, which may be briefly stated as follows:

First. The labor to the officer, to the paymaster, to this office, and to the Treasury Department in the preparation, payment, and scrutiny of the vouchers, is a hundredfold more than in the case of mileage vouchers, for the reason that each item has to be specially set forth and separately scrutinized. The statement of items sometimes covers two, and even three, pages of foolscap, whereas a mileage voucher for the same journey would have involved the consideration and treatment of but a single item of charge.

Second. Experience of systems of actual expenses has shown that the authorities have invariably been obliged, sooner or later, to dispense with itemized accounts and arbitrarily fix a measure of actual expenses, on a basis of time or distance, which is practically a mileage system. This is owing to the fact that different men take diverse views of what constitutes actual necessary expenses, and of the moral obligation to conform to an order which assumes to prescribe what shall be alone regarded as items of such expenses. Hence, persistent effort on the part of many to obtain reimburse ment of expenses not authorized in orders, and to remove certain restrictions, and in some cases to include unauthorized items in charges for others authorized and which may have exceeded in amount the actual outlay thereunder. Contingent allowances become subject of common charge without reference to the existence of conditions to which they were specially attached. Gradually the system becomes one of such abuses that refuge is taken, as above stated, in mileage or a like system of a uniform measure of allowances.

Third. The foregoing suggests plainly enough how unequally a system of "actual expenses" operates upon different men, and to what extent it tends to demoralization. Fourth. Mileage charges are easily computed, quickly paid, and readily scrutinized. A mileage allowance, therefore, forms the most convenient system of reimbursement of travel expenses. The experience of officers will sustain the statement that on the average of the whole period of service it is no more than a reimbursement of actual expenses, and is uniform in its operations upon all.

Fifth. The debate upon the provision of "actual expenses" in the act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, clearly shows that it was based on the understanding that the charge made in the House of Representatives, to the effect that constructive mileage was paid to Government officials, applied equally to officers of the Army. I challenge the proof of a single case

in which mileage has been paid to an officer of the Army for other than actual travel under competent orders.

The allowance and payment of mileage to officers of the Army is so hedged about that there can be and were no abuses of it which are not inseparable from any allowance based upon orders issued at the discretion of men.

Therefore I earnestly recommend a return to the system of mileage, as better fitted to do justice to the officer and to the Government.

What was said by the Paymaster General in the foregoing mentioned report holds good to-day, and I concur in each of the arguments advanced by him in favor of a mileage system as against a system of actual expenses. The advantages of a mileage system have been recognized by Congress, as is indicated by the fact that the substitution by the act of June 16, 1874, of an actual-expense system in lieu of one of mileage obtained for but a little over two years, having been repealed by the act of July 24, 1876, which reestablished a mileage system for the Army.

During the period of about two years while the actual-expense system was in effect there was disbursed for actual expenses approximately $160,000 per year. For the first full fiscal year subsequent to the act of July 24, 1876, which reestablished the mileage system, there was disbursed for mileage $176,896.38. The rate of mileage under this law was 8 cents a mile, but if it had been at 7 cents a mile, which is the rate now authorized by law, the disbursements would have amounted to $154,784.34, or about $5,000 less than under the actual-expense system. While I believe that the disbursements under an actual-expense system will probably be less than under a mileage system, I am of opinion that the difference will be very small and not to an amount sufficient to offset the increased labor and administrative complications which would obtain under an actual-expense system. Under the present mileage system it is possible for two clerks in this office to perform all of the internal administrative work incident to the payment of traveling allowances. This work includes the preparation of the Official Table of Distances, the compilation and recording of new distances and routes of travel and the preparation of amendatory distance circulars, the administrative analysis of each and every account involving the payment of traveling allowances under the head of the specific duty enjoined, the apportionment of the mileage funds to the four military divisions and the separate bureaus of the War Department, the verification of all mileage accounts as regards correctness of distances, and other minor work connected with traveling allowances. If an actual expense system were established the work would be increased to an extent which would require the services of from five to seven clerks, and it is possible that the same conditions would obtain in the office of the Auditor for the War Department.

It is my personal belief that the present mileage system is looked upon with favor by officers of the Army generally, and I can unhesitatingly state that from a disbursing standpoint and one of internal administration it is far more economical to the Government than the the system of actual expenses.

The present policy of the War Department is to reduce to the greatest possible extent the paper work in the Army and the inauguration of a system of actual expenses would be in direct opposition to this policy.

C. H. WHIPPLE, Paymaster General, United States Army.

The SECRETARY OF WAR,

Washington, D. C.

THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington, February 5, 1912.

SIR: Your letter of January 30 to the President, inclosing report of the War Department Board on Business Methods, concerning the report of the Commission on Economy and Efficiency on the subject of travel expenditures has been forwarded to the commission.

I note that the board does not concur in what it regards as the recommendation of the commission, namely, that only actual traveling expenses shall be allowed persons holding employment in Government establishments.

The commission fears that the board's nonconcurrence in the recommendation is due to a misapprehension of its purport. The first recommendation of the commission as to which the nonconcurrence refers should be read in connection with the second recommendation, which has received the approval of the board and which reads as follows:

Second. The passage of a law making it the duty of the President to prescribe a per diem allowance for each officer or employee, or each class of officer or employee, in or under an executive department or other Government establishment (including officers and employees of the courts of the United States excepting judges) when engaged in travel on official business, and to vary any per diem from time to time; and that the per diem when so prescribed shall be in lieu of traveling expenses except the cost of transportation and sleeping-car and parlor-car fares.

Both these recommendations form parts of one and the same plan, and the result of their adoption would be the abolition of the rule of "actual expenses" for all traveling expenses excepting the cost of transportation and sleeping-car and parlor-car fares. The fear expressed by the board that the adoption of the actual expense system would increase the work both in the office of the Paymaster General and in that of the Auditor for the War Department, it would seem, is unjustified.

If the contention of the commission is correct, the appended memorandum of the Paymaster General would not be in point, since it has reference to a system of actual expenses with no per diem allowance in lieu of subsistence.

I therefore call the matter to your attention in order that the comment of your department may, if you deem it advisable, be so modified as to relate to the plan outlined by the commission, which contemplates carrying into effect both the first and second recommendations, which were intended to be inseparable.

Yours sincerely,

F. A. CLEVELAND,

Chairman.

Dr. F. A. CLEVELAND,

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, February 14, 1912.

Chairman President's Commission

on Economy and Efficiency, The White House.

SIR: Referring to your letter of the 5th instant concerning the report of the War Department Board on Business Methods on the subject of travel expenditures, and requesting the board to reconsider

37542°-H. Doc. 670, 62-2—33

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