Board of Contract Appeals General Services Administration Washington, D.C. 20405 _______________________________________________ August 18, 1998 _______________________________________________ GSBCA 14554-TRAV In the Matter of KATHRYN HODGES Kathryn Hodges, Alexandria, VA, Claimant. Saundra F. Prince, Director, Resource Management, National Defense University, Washington, DC, appearing for Department of Defense. BORWICK, Board Judge. The agency, the Department of Defense, through the National Defense University (NDU or agency), requests a decision pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 3529 (section 3529 decision) in the matter of Kathryn Hodges (claimant). The agency asks whether it may reimburse claimant for $812 of commercial service phone calls from her overseas temporary duty (TDY) site to her office and to her home, family and colleagues. Based on the record presented, we conclude the business phone calls are reimbursable. The phone calls to home and family, and to colleagues concerning home and family, are reimbursable up to the ceiling amount to be established by the Travel Authorizing Official (AO). Claimant is an employee of the NDU's War Gaming & Simulation Center, Washington, D.C. Between September 6 and September 13, 1997, she traveled on authorized TDY to Brussels, Belgium and Stuttgart, Germany to attend a conference concerning interagency training simulations of complex contingency operations, such as those in Bosnia and Somalia. Between September 7 and 11, claimant made many commercial- service phone calls from her hotel for various purposes. As claimant explains, on September 7, her supervisor expanded her TDY duties from a software demonstration to briefing the conference attendees on a Presidential directive. This change required claimant to consult with higher authority, and necessitated seven overseas calls totaling eighty minutes for a cost of $329. Her supervisor--the AO--also directed claimant to attempt to arrange a visit to Croatia at the end of that week. She made fifteen calls regarding country clearances and other unspecified procedural matters. For nine of these calls, claimant left messages asking her associates to return her calls. One call was local. These calls took sixty minutes and cost $305. Before leaving on TDY, claimant requested a colleague to mind her apartment and car. Claimant's colleague agreed to do so, but did not inform her that he would be out of the city for the first two days of her trip, and thus unavailable to claimant. Claimant made eight overseas calls, five of which were messages to her colleague and two to a third person attempting to find her colleague; on the eighth call she found her colleague. These calls cost a total of $52. During claimant's TDY, claimant's mother was seriously ill and required sustained medical care. Claimant made three phone calls to check on her mother's health. These calls totaled seventeen minutes and cost $117. The remaining calls were local or within the hotel. These calls cost $9. The total for all calls was $812. Claimant explained that she used a Government phone line when possible, but due to the six-hour time difference between the Eastern United States and Western Europe, she could reach her home office only between 2:00-5:00 p.m. European time. For four days of her trip, she was in meetings during those times. On the fifth day, she was in transit between Belgium and Germany. Claimant was unable to use Government lines to call her home or to call the homes of other members of her family, or for calls to colleagues at their homes, because the Government lines did not terminate at those places. On October 16, claimant submitted a travel voucher seeking reimbursement of the phone charges described above. The Director, Resource Management, NDU, submitted the reimbursement request to the NDU General Counsel (GC) for an opinion on whether the phone charges were reimbursable under the Joint Travel Regulations (JTR). On November 19, the GC, after reciting pertinent provisions of the JTR, stated that before the agency could reimburse the expenses, the AO must make several findings and determinations: (a) that use of commercial services for official long distance telephone calls was appropriate--i.e., that Government owned or leased equipment was not available; (b) the calls were necessary to the successful completion of the TDY mission; (c) that certain phone calls to the traveler's home were in the Government's interest; and (d) that the AO had set a dollar limit before the trip and that the calls to home were within the dollar limit. The GC concluded that "the claim for reimbursement does not indicate any evidence of the: (a) unavailability of Government equipment . . . ; (b) necessity and nexus to the TDY mission; (c) approval by the AO for calls to the traveler's home; and (d) the preset limit of the calls." On March 9, 1998, the NDU GC repeated his opinion that the agency could not pay the reimbursement request under the JTR "until the required findings and determinations are provided in support of the claim for reimbursement. . . . As appropriate, thereafter, payment is limited by the findings and determinations of the AO." In response to the GC's opinion, on March 12, 1998, the AO wrote the Director, Resource Management, stating that he considered: (a) the use of commercial services for the long- distance phone calls to be appropriate for the reasons stated by claimant and (b) all official calls to be necessary to the successful completion of the TDY mission. The AO explained that before the TDY he did not specifically determine that certain phone calls to the claimant's family were in the Government's interest, but that such determination would have been made positively, if requested, and was implied given the known health problems of claimant's mother and claimant's housing situation. The AO stated that he did not set a dollar limit on calls to traveler's home or family, nor did the traveler request it. The AO explained that in more than twenty-seven years of military service, both as a traveler and as an AO, he had not been made aware of the requirement for a preset dollar limit, and that there is no guidance in NDU policy or in NDU forms establishing the necessity of such a limit. The NDU forwarded this matter to the Board with the request that the Board render an opinion as to whether claimant's telephone charges of $812 were reimbursable. Discussion The JTR explains that the AO is the official who "controls the mission, authorizes the trip, and controls funds for TDY travel." JTR T4000 (Appendix O). The JTR provides in pertinent part: The AO authorizes reimbursement for other necessary travel-related miscellaneous expenses necessary to the successful completion of the mission. They include . . . long distance phone calls. . . . The AO may also authorize reimbursement for other necessary incidental expenses when they are clearly in the interest of the Government. For example, an AO may consider certain phone calls to the traveler's home and family while on the trip as official if the AO considers the calls to be in the Government's interest. If such calls are considered in the Government's interest, the AO establishes the reimbursement ceiling for the calls. Travelers should find out what telephone dollar limit the AO has set before they leave on the trip. JTR T4040-A.4.b. (Appendix O). The JTR also provides: Government-owned or Government-leased services should be used for official communications. When they are unavailable, commercial communications services may be used. Reimbursement may be authorized/approved by the order-issuing official. JTR C4706. In a matter involving phone calls from a TDY site to home, we recognized that under the JTR, the AO was the Government officer to make the discretionary determination as to whether the calls were in the interest of the Government and therefore "official." If the AO determined that calls to home were official, we concluded that the agency must pay for the reasonable cost of the calls. We also concluded that the phone calls would be reimbursable if the AO could make those determinations after the trip, including the determination of a reasonable ceiling amount. Andrew R. Miller, GSBCA 14486-TRAV (July 28, 1998). In this matter, the AO has exercised his discretion and made the required findings save for one--the ceiling amount-- necessary to support reimbursement under the JTR for the business calls. The findings made by the AO are not arbitrary or capricious and satisfy the findings necessary under the JTR. Regarding the calls to home and to family, we do not view the JTR as requiring the AO to set a ceiling amount for any allowed calls home before the trip commences in all circumstances. The JTR requires only that travelers "should" ascertain any telephone dollar limit the AO has set before commencement of the trip. While the JTR places this responsibility on the traveler, it is a fair presumption that an AO would establish a ceiling rate if the traveler, recognizing the need to call home often, asked for a ceiling rate. In the JTR, "should" means that an "action is required, unless justifiable reason exists for not taking action." JTR T4070 (Appendix O). Here, both the unexpected absence of claimant's apartment-minder/colleague from the Washington, D.C. area and the medical treatment of claimant's mother generated a volume of home calls that neither the claimant nor the AO anticipated before the trip began. Thus, the failure of either the AO or the traveler to pay attention to ceiling rates before the trip is justified. The AO may establish a ceiling rate for the calls to home and family, and the claimant may be reimbursed in accordance with that rate. Andrew R. Miller. __________________________ ANTHONY S. BORWICK Board Judge