Anonymously contributed:
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DoE contractors take a lot of international trips
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Lookee here at this. It reports 90,000 contractor international trips over 6 years, with only 100,000 contractors on the payroll. Looks like a lot of contractors get to go on a lot of international trips. Perhaps it is just one of the compensating factors for the salary structure.
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'According to the Department's centralized travel database, the Foreign Travel Management System (FTMS), Federal and contractor employees made approximately 109,000 individual international trips at a cost of about $360 million from Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 through FY 2012— a 6-year period. Consistent with the Department's organizational structure and its significant reliance on contractor assistance, the vast majority of these taxpayer-funded trips, in fact about 85 percent, were taken by contractor employees. This equates to over 90,000 contractor employee foreign travel trips in the period with a cost to the government of just over $300 million.
Despite the sizable expenditure of Federal funds, the Department had not made a concerted effort to reduce contractor international travel costs. In particular, we found that the FTMS was not being fully utilized to identify overall trends in foreign travel, potential wasteful practices, and possible strategies to reduce the Department's international travel expenditures. Further, while the Department implemented a mandatory 30 percent reduction in Federal employee travel, management officials informed us that parallel action had not been taken to manage or control foreign travel by contractors. Based directly on the information sourced from the FTMS, had the Department applied the 30 percent reduction criteria to the international travel costs incurred by its 100,000 contractor workforce, as much as $15 million could be saved each year.'
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/DOE-IG-0872.pdf
Comments
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Not true. At LANL management has made it extremely clear that they want little, if any, travel. This includes both domestic and foreign travel and includes travel in support of important operational programs that affect national security (not just research conferences).
In fact, lab travel has been cut so severely that science is now suffering but science has long ceased being an important part of LANL's efforts since LANS took over.
However, do not fear. LANS did find plenty of money to send Director McMillan, Brett Knapp and a bus load of other top executives on a nice "vacation" to Russia last fiscal year. First class all the way, of course!
It was an excellent way to reenforce the understanding that LANS management is a privileged class, and the people who actually do the work must know their place at the bottom.
Does Charlie really seriously believe most of the staff would be in awe of his story that the Russian weapons lab staff were in awe of Los Alamos, when many of us were actually stunned by the kick in the teeth we got knowing our big travel savings must have gone to send him and his minions to Russia?
This manager said she or he was going to so and so and having a little vacation with his or her spouse.
Managers are simply above the law and they know it and do not care. You have no power to change it.
Either way, your tax dollars at work, helping improve management mental health and morale, while also supporting the travel and entertainment industries globally.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/energy-department-spent-360-million-on-foreign-travel-vast-majority-by-contractors/2012/10/22/5d3dc8b8-1c5c-11e2-ad90-ba5920e56eb3_story.html