BNUMBER:  B-261779
DATE:  April 12, 1996
TITLE:  Chris B. White

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Matter of:Chris B. White

File:     B-261779

Date:April 12, 1996

DIGEST

An employee who was authorized to return home for the weekend from a 
temporary duty assignment rented a car to drive from the airport to 
his home on Friday and kept the car over the weekend to use to return 
to the airport on Sunday.  The employee may be reimbursed for rental 
costs incurred on Saturday, even though the car was not used that day 
for official business, because the overall cost to the government was 
less than any other available mode of transportation.  See 41 C.F.R.  sec.  
301-2.2(b) (1995).

DECISION

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) asks the proper amount to 
reimburse an employee who was authorized to return home for the 
weekend from a temporary duty assignment (TDY) and who rented a car to 
drive from the airport to his home on Friday, which he kept over the 
weekend and used to return to the airport on Sunday.  Specifically, 
the agency asks whether the employee may be reimbursed for each of the 
3 days he rented the car or only for the 2 days he actually used the 
car for official travel.  The answer is that he may be reimbursed for 
all 3 days.

BACKGROUND

Mr. White is an FAA employee permanently assigned to the Des Plaines, 
Illinois, duty station who lives in McHenry, Illinois, about 52 miles 
away.  When assigned to TDY at Oberlin, Ohio, about 400 miles from his 
duty station, Mr. White requested and was authorized to drive his 
privately owned vehicle (POV) to the TDY site.  The agency also 
authorized voluntary weekend return trips to his residence.  See 
Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) 41 C.F.R.  sec.  301-7.15(b)(3) (1995).  
For these trips, Mr. White left his POV at the TDY site and flew home, 
using the Milwaukee airport, which is about 65 miles from his 
residence.  According to the record, the cost of using a rental car to 
return home on Friday and to the airport the following Sunday, 
including keeping the car on Saturday, was less expensive than one-way 
taxi or limo fares for each trip.  Apparently, there is no car rental 
return lot near McHenry, making it impractical--and more expensive--to 
try to return the car on Friday and complete the trip by taxi and then 
take a taxi to pick up a rental car again on Sunday for the return 
trip to the airport.  Thus, from a strictly financial perspective, the 
least expensive method of getting Mr. White from the airport to his 
residence on Friday and back to the airport on Sunday was by having 
him keep the rental car over the weekend.

The FAA's finance section questions whether earlier decisions of this 
Office limit their authority to reimburse Mr. White only for the days 
the rental car actually was used for official business, which in this 
case was on Friday and Sunday.  (These decisions are discussed below.)  
The agency's travel section, however, notes the FTR's requirement to 
use the mode of transportation most advantageous to the government and 
supports reimbursement for all 3 days because the overall cost to the 
government is less than any other authorized mode of transportation.  
See FTR  sec.  301-2.2(b).

OPINION

The authority to reimburse transportation expenses for travel between 
an employee's residence and an airport is found in the FTR at section 
301-2.3(c), which states, "Reimbursement shall be allowed for the 
usual taxicab and airport limousine fares, plus tip, between a common 
carrier or other terminal and either the employee's home or place of 
business at the official duty station or place of business and lodging 
at a temporary duty point, or between the airport and airport 
limousine terminal."  Although this regulation does not refer to 
rental cars, our Office has allowed reimbursement for the cost of a 
rental car for travel between an airport and a residence not to exceed 
the usual taxicab or limousine cost.  Ernest D. Ellsworth, B-196196, 
Aug. 19, 1980.

The decisions cited by the agency involve employees who combined 
personal travel with official travel.  See Marty J. Dama, B-235070, 
Oct. 6, 1989, and Vincent L. DiMare, B-212087, Feb. 7, 1984.  In Dama, 
the employee used a rental car for part of indirect travel to a TDY 
location.  We held that the employee may be reimbursed only for the 
basic rental fee (and fuel and other charges) for the days necessary 
to travel to and from the TDY location.  The issue in DiMare, which 
also involved an employee who used a rental car to perform indirect 
travel to a TDY site, was the method of calculating the reimbursement 
due the employee.  Although the employee had rented the vehicle at a 
weekly rate, we held that he should be reimbursed at the daily rate 
instead of prorating the weekly rate, since, had he rented the vehicle 
only for the days he actually traveled on official business, he would 
have been charged the daily rate.

We do not believe these cases apply here, since Mr. White rented the 
vehicle only for transportation to and from the airport, and not for 
local travel during the weekend.  Because the total cost of keeping 
the rental car all 3 days was more advantageous to the government than 
any other available mode of transportation, the agency may reimburse 
the employee for all 3 days.  See FTR  sec.  301-2.2(b).

/s/Seymour Efros
for Robert P. Murphy 
General Counsel