From Federal News Radio comes another look at your federal tax dollars at work.
Between fiscal 2007 and 2012, DoE employees and contractors made about 109,000 international trips at a total cost of $360 million, according to the agency’s Foreign Travel Management System (FTMS). The vast majority of those trips — 90,000 — were taken by contractors.
Contractor travel has also grown in recent years. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of foreign trips by contractors increased by more than 35 percent, the IG found.
“Despite the sizable expenditure of federal funds, the department had not made a concerted effort to reduce contractor international travel costs,” the IG found.
That’s because, so far, agency officials have interpreted the administration’s directive to reduce travel spending to apply only to federal employees, the IG said.
