We sometimes have faculty that take professional improvement leave from the
university and work for 1-2 years with a federal agency on location under
an IPA agreement.  These agreements pay salary and fringe and often pay for
living expenses such as housing, meals and incidentals.  Our state's
regulations supposedly say that if a person is away from their home base
for more than six months, then this constitutes a change in home base and
living expenses (perdiem etc) are no longer allowable.  I tried to suggest
that they should be allowable for alot of reasons - sponsor thinks they
should be covered, a person can't sell their home just for a six-12 month
travel period, the burden of maintaining two households without extra
compensation of some sort is too high, opportunities to engage in these
activities are lost becasue of the "rule" etc etc etc.....  BUT allowable
or not, they are probably taxable.

I need mega help from other state universities who have successfully
navigated this swamp.  I would like info on how to make it work for
everyone and am not opposed to "borrowing"  from policies if allowed to do
so.  Thanks in advance for any good news or warnings about these kinds of
arrangements that you can give.

Merry Christmas.

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