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GSA raises per diem
The U.S. government has increased its standard per diem rate for official travel reimbursement effective October 1.
The standard rate for a hotel night will rise to $83 from $77, the General Services Administration announced.
The "standard rate" applies to 2,600 counties, but about 400 other areas with more expensive hotel rooms, including many large cities, will have higher rates.
The Office of Management and Budget has held travel costs on a tight leash since 2011, when the media reported the GSA’s Public Buildings Service spent $823,000 on a four-day Las Vegas junket.
In response to the public furor, OMB ordered government travel to be cut by 30%.
The lodging per-diem rates have been frozen for the past year, and a committee considered cutting them, but the hospitality industry fought any move to lower the rates, and the GSA apparently believed it would not make sense as the economy improves and hotel rates rise.
In a posting on the GSA blog on Friday, Anne Rung, the associate administrator of government-wide policy, said "federal employees routinely have to travel to serve the American people."
The GSA has issued a request for proposals for a new system to manage and report the $17 billion the government spends annually on travel to help control costs.
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