Board of Contract Appeals General Services Administration Washington, D.C. 20405 _________________________ December 8, 1998 _________________________ GSBCA 14713-TRAV In the Matter of RACHELLE A. BOOTH Rachelle A. Booth, New Bern, NC, Claimant. C. S. Burdulis, Finance Officer, Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, NC; and Maj. C. W. Miner, Eastern Area Counsel Office, United States Marine Corps, Camp Lejeune, NC, appearing for United States Marine Corps. DeGRAFF, Board Judge. An agency may exercise its discretion to reimburse a traveling employee for the cost of telephone calls that are necessary in the interest of the Government. If an agency decides not to reimburse an employee, we will review that decision for an abuse of discretion. Background Rachelle A. Booth, an employee of the United States Marine Corps, traveled from North Carolina to Washington, DC in order to attend a training conference from June 28 through July 2, 1998. Ms. Booth's travel orders stated, "Use 1-800-922-USMC for official long distance calls." Ms. Booth called her home using a commercial telephone line on June 28, June 29, and July 1, and asked the Corps to reimburse her $41.92 for the cost of these calls. The Corps decided not to reimburse Ms. Booth, because official calls were supposed to be placed using the toll free number set out in her travel orders and the Corps considered Ms. Booth's calls to be personal. Ms. Booth asked the Corps to reconsider its decision. She told the Corps that she placed these calls in order to inform her family of her arrival in Washington and to inquire about their well-being and, in her view, the calls were necessary in the interest of the Government. After considering Ms. Booth's reasons for placing the three telephone calls, the Corps again decided not to reimburse her for the cost of the calls. Ms. Booth asked us to review the Corps' decision. In her initial submission to us in September 1998, Ms. Booth repeated her statement to the Corps that she placed the three calls in order to inform her family of her arrival in Washington and to inquire about their well-being. In a submission to us in October 1998, a person described as Ms. Booth's "representative" stated that Ms. Booth called her home in order to check on the well- being of a family member. In a submission to us in November 1998, Ms. Booth's representative stated that Ms. Booth called her home to tell her family that she arrived in Washington, to inquire about the health of two of her children who were ill, and to arrange for a ride home from the airport. Discussion When Ms. Booth traveled, the Federal Travel Regulation, which applies to civilian employees of the Federal Government, required the Corps to reimburse Ms. Booth for expenses "essential to the transaction of official business," and allowed the Corps to reimburse her for miscellaneous expenses "necessarily incurred . . . in connection with the transaction of official business." 41 CFR 301-1.3(b), -9.1(e) (1997). Ms. Booth does not claim that her telephone calls fall into either of these categories. Regulations applicable to civilian employees of the Department of Defense when Ms. Booth traveled also allowed the Corps to reimburse Ms. Booth for calls necessary in the interest of the Government. The Joint Travel Regulations (JTR) provided that the order-issuing official could approve reimbursement for the use of commercial communications services for official communications. JTR C4706. The Department of Defense's Joint Ethics Regulation provides that the official use of a commercial telephone line includes communications that the agency determines are "necessary in the interest of the Federal Government." The ethics regulation goes on to say that official use may include communications by military members and civilian employees who are deployed for "extended periods away from home," when approved in the interest of morale and welfare. DOD 5500.7-R, 2-301 (Mar. 25, 1996). Ms. Booth says that her calls were necessary in the interest of the Government, and refers us to the decisions in Carolyn K. Stiles, GSBCA 14443-TRAV, 98-2 BCA 29,798, and Kathryn Hodges, GSBCA 14554-TRAV (Aug. 18, 1998), which Ms. Booth says support her position. The basis for our decision in Stiles was that the employing agency's regulations stated that calls home such as those made by Ms. Stiles were necessary in the interest of the Government. The Stiles decision is not helpful to Ms. Booth, because no similar regulation applies to her.[foot #] 1 ----------- FOOTNOTE BEGINS --------- [foot #] 1 Although Appendix O to the JTR provides that telephone calls made by an employee to his or her home can (continued...) ----------- FOOTNOTE ENDS ----------- In Hodges, the regulations provided that the agency could reimburse Ms. Hodges for the cost of calls made in the interest of the Government, and the agency decided that Ms. Hodges' telephone calls were in the Government's interest. We explained that the agency's decision was not an abuse of discretion because the majority of Ms. Hodges' calls were required due to requests made by her supervisor, and the remainder of the calls were necessary because Ms. Hodges was traveling thousands of miles away from her mother, who was seriously ill and required sustained medical care, and because an unexpected problem arose concerning Ms. Hodges' apartment that required her attention. The agency's decision to reimburse Ms. Hodges for the cost of her calls does not mean that the agency is required to reimburse Ms. Booth, because the facts of the two claims are significantly different. Unlike Ms. Hodges, Ms. Booth was not thousands of miles away from her family, she had no seriously ill relative who required sustained medical care, and there was no other problem at home that required her attention. Ms. Booth has not convinced us that the Corps must reimburse her for the cost of her telephone calls. The applicable regulations permit, but do not require, the Corps to reimburse Ms. Booth for telephone calls that are necessary in the interest of the Government. According to Ms. Booth, she telephoned her home three times in four days in order to let her family know that she had arrived in Washington, to inquire about their well- being, and to arrange for a ride home from the airport. In the view of the Corps, these calls were personal and were not necessary in the interest of the Government. We cannot say that the Corps exercised its discretion in an arbitrary or capricious manner in deciding Ms. Booth's claim and so we have no basis upon which to require the Corps to reimburse Ms. Booth. __________________________________ MARTHA H. DeGRAFF Board Judge ----------- FOOTNOTE BEGINS --------- [foot #] 1 (...continued) sometimes be considered to be in the interest of the Government, Appendix O applies only to employees working at selected test sites and does not apply to Ms. Booth.