Frugality: Allow Money Saving Practices
Try as one might to save the taxpayer money, sometimes it is not allowed. Often times it appears that spending and/or waste is built into the system. Government spending is often required regardless of need and sometimes regardless of want. Occasionally people (including fellow federal employees) have expressed concern regarding others claiming mileage reimbursement. Recently I asked if I could not claim, read forgo/decline, ...more »
Try as one might to save the taxpayer money, sometimes it is not allowed. Often times it appears that spending and/or waste is built into the system. Government spending is often required regardless of need and sometimes regardless of want. Occasionally people (including fellow federal employees) have expressed concern regarding others claiming mileage reimbursement. Recently I asked if I could not claim, read forgo/decline, travel reimbursement. The answer is “no”. A ruling called Suffer or Permit to Work disallows not claiming mileage. The following is gleaned from http://www.flsa.com/overtime.html Potential work is actual work if the employer "suffered or permitted" the employee to do it. An employer suffers or permits work if it knows the employee is doing the work (or could have found out by looking), and lets the employee do it. All time spent by an employee performing work-related activities that the employer suffers or permits is work time, whether on premises or not and whether "required" or not.
Another topic is the requirement to accept individual government laptops in a shared office where computers have been and could continue to be successfully shared, especially when their use is nearly exclusively to check email.
In summary, my idea, then, is to save where you can find a loophole in the requirements to accept monies and equipment. Happy findings.
« less full details »