November 21, 1996 GSBCA 13693-RELO In the Matter of CHARLES J. ROBINSON Charles J. Robinson, Dale City, VA, Claimant. C. Bruce Sheaffer, Comptroller, National Park Service, Washington, DC, appearing for Department of the Interior. DANIELS, Board Judge (Chairman). Where does one draw the line between temporary and permanent? This is a question which philosophers undoubtedly have pondered for ages. In a metaphysical sense, everything of man's making must be temporary, for it can never be truly permanent -- but to call everything temporary would render the concept of permanence a nullity. We visit this conundrum now in the context of a claim by Charles J. Robinson, an employee of the Department of the Interior's National Park Service, for temporary quarters subsistence expenses (TQSE) associated with a permanent change of station from Dale City, Virginia, to Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. When an agency transfers an employee from one permanent duty station to another, it shall, within specified parameters and in accordance with regulation, pay the subsistence expenses the employee and his or her immediate family incur while occupying temporary quarters. 5 U.S.C.  5724a(a)(3) (1994). The Federal Travel Regulation, which, pursuant to authority granted by Executive Order 11609 (July 22, 1971), implements this statute, defines "temporary quarters" as follows: Generally, the term temporary quarters refers to lodging obtained from private or commercial sources for the purpose of temporary occupancy after vacating the residence occupied when the transfer was authorized. However, occupancy of temporary quarters that eventually become the employee's permanent residence shall not prevent payment of the temporary quarters allowance if, in the agency's judgment, the employee shows satisfactorily that the quarters occupied were intended initially to be only temporary. In making this determination, the agency should consider factors such as the duration of the lease, movement of household effects into the quarters, type of quarters, expressions of intent, attempts to secure a permanent dwelling, and the length of time the employee occupies the quarters. 41 CFR 302-5.2(c) (1995). There is no community with private or commercial sources of housing within sixty miles of Grand Canyon National Park. Park Service employees at the park therefore, of necessity, live in Government-owned housing. This housing is available in various forms: rooms with shared bathroom and/or kitchen facilities, efficiency and one-bedroom apartments, and duplex and single-family houses. Leases are not entered into for these quarters; the Park Service simply deducts rent from the employees' biweekly paychecks. The agency maintains a list of employees who wish to occupy apartments; an individual may move into an open unit when his or her name rises to the top of the list. The agency also allows employees to bid for occupancy of houses which become open; winning bids are based on the number of points each interested employee has, and that number is dependent on the employee's pay grade and years of service. Mr. Robinson understood these facts before he transferred to the Grand Canyon. He expected to live in a place of his own -- most likely a house -- while he was working at the park, and he was led to believe that such a dwelling would become available to him either upon his arrival or within two months thereof. When the claimant arrived at the park in November 1994, the only unit open to him was a room in the "clinic," where the occupant had to share shower and kitchen facilities with other employees. Mr. Robinson moved into this room. He made clear that he intended to stay there only until he could secure a private dwelling, but called the room "permanent quarters" in filing his travel voucher. His bids for houses failed for lack of points, and six months passed before his name rose to the top of the waiting list for apartments. He consequently had to remain in the clinic for half a year. While he was there, the Park Service paid for storage of his household goods. After he had been in the clinic for nearly three months, Mr. Robinson changed his view about the nature of the quarters. In transferring him to Grand Canyon National Park, the Park Service had authorized payment to him of TQSE for not to exceed thirty days. He claimed that because he was in the clinic only until he could move to a better place, the room was "temporary quarters" and he was therefore entitled to TQSE for his first thirty days in that location. The agency denied this claim. In our judgment, it acted correctly in doing so. The claimant and the agency both point to decisions of the Comptroller General which they feel support their positions. Mr. Robinson cites Allan L. Franklin, B-222136 (Sept. 19, 1986); John Castaneda, 55 Comp. Gen. 1429 (1976); and Gerald R. Adams, B-186549 (Mar. 7, 1977). In Franklin, TQSE were allowed where an employee stayed by himself in an apartment much too small for his family until he purchased a residence suitable for the entire group and his wife and children joined him at the new duty station. Mr. Franklin's intent to remain in the apartment temporarily was manifested by the inappropriate size of the unit for the family, and was not defeated by the fact that the claimant had bought the place. In Castaneda, as well, quarters were found to be temporary because they were too small for the claimant's entire family; the fact that the quarters were owned by the Government did not preclude payment of TQSE. Adams did no more than apply Castaneda's holding regarding ownership of the temporary quarters. The Park Service cites Charles L. Avery, B-179870 (Sept. 26, 1974), and Jerrold L. Rathbun, B-172228 (Apr. 29, 1971). In both those cases, TQSE was inappropriate because the employee's intention on initially moving to his new duty station was to remain in his lodgings indefinitely; the employee's wish to move at some time in the future was too indefinite to support a conclusion that the initial quarters were temporary. We but do not consider any of these holdings to be particularly relevant to this case, which is unusual because of the extremely limited nature of the living quarters available at Grand Canyon National Park. We have no doubt that Mr. Robinson intended to stay in his clinic room only until a larger unit became available to him, and we infer from the fact that the Park Service stored his household goods while he lived there that the room was too small to hold all those belongings. On the other hand, the concept of permanence in residence at any particular dwelling in the park is not especially meaningful. Every employee was staying temporarily, without a lease, in Government-owned quarters, as long as he or she worked there. Mr. Robinson (for one) desired to move to successively larger dwellings as he was able (through the waiting list and point-based bidding) to do so; no quarters would be permanent for him until he could move to a house -- and even then, he would stay there only until he was transferred to another duty station. In the absence of some compelling factor, such as the dwelling-space assigned being too small for a family, we consider that the Park Service properly viewed any of the park's quarters suitable for housing on an indefinite basis to be "permanent" for the purposes of the regulatory definition of "temporary quarters." The fact that Mr. Robinson's household goods had to remain in storage while he was in the clinic supports his position, but is not decisive. Quarters cannot be deemed either temporary or permanent depending solely on the amount of belongings an individual has. The claimant was not staying in the clinic temporarily while he searched for a permanent residence; his room was his permanent residence, at least until a larger unit became available to him. "Temporary quarters" for Mr. Robinson, in the context presented here, would have been housing in the nearest town (which was too distant for a reasonable daily commute) or in transient lodging (such as a hotel or motel) in the park. We may sympathize with Mr. Robinson's plight of having to stay in shared facilities for much longer than he anticipated, and with the Park Service's admitted predicament of not being able to afford better housing for its employees at the Grand Canyon. These feelings cannot serve as the basis for calling the claimant's initial quarters at the park temporary rather than permanent, however. Similarly, we are concerned that the same agency treated another employee, at the same park and in a similar situation, differently from Mr. Robinson. The fact that the two employees were paid from different sources should not have had any impact on the determination of how permanent was their residence in the clinic. No claim is before us regarding the other employee's relocation expenses, however. We deny the only claim presented, Mr. Robinson's, on its own merits. _________________________ STEPHEN M. DANIELS Board Judge