At my institution we are currently looking at our current policy of
reimbursing travel expenses based on submission of receipts for actual meal
and hotel costs.  It has been suggested to us that we pay our travelers the
federal per diems in order to simplify life for our Accounting department.

Concerns have been voiced about the adequacy of the federal per diems.  I
have investigated the travel policies of a number of large research
institutions and find that some institutions use the federal per diem
allowances and some have set reimbursement levels that are higher than the
federal levels.   For those of you operating under policies that allow per
diem reimbursement at rates above the federal levels, have you experienced
questions in audits and have you entered into negotiations with your
cognizant audit agencies to establish that the reimbursement levels in your
policies are reasonable and allowable?

Michael Pelletier
Education Development Center, Inc.
xxxxxx@EDC.org

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