Wednesday, June 15, 2005

TRAVEL. Can it be fixed?

Like their counterparts at other research universities, UB faculty travel on professional business. They consult materials in archives, participate in work being done at labs off campus, and deliver papers at national and international conferences. Such travel is necessary both for the advancement of faculty careers and for the visibility and prestige of the university. Moreover, UB faculty bring outside researchers to this campus as job candidates, consultants, or lecturers. Much of this travel is funded through the budgets of academic departments, that it, through the campus operating budget provided by the State of New York. Thus it is subject to state regulations. The regulations exist both to prevent waste and fraud and to maximize the benefit to the institution and the faculty members, but the system is dysfunctional.

Funds are limited, so it is important that every possible economy be realized. Once their institutional support is exhausted, faculty are forced to pay for travel out of personal funds, even though the University continues to benefit from the exposure.

For UB travellers and the people they invite to campus, airfare and train fare must be purchased through a "central travel account" (CTA), according to UB's Business Office, which explicitly forbids the purchase of tickets via personal credit cards, thus making it impossible for faculty to seize on a bargain fare and lock it in with their credit card. The required protocol is identified as being "a State requirement," which is code for "immutable, no matter how stupid." The designated CTA is a company called Stovroff and Taylor Travel, located in the affluent Buffalo suburb of Williamsville, New York. When left to their own devices, S&T consistently propose overpriced fares, and back down only when confronted with evidence of vastly better deals available on the Internet.

A little research uncovers interesting information.

The first discovery is that this "state requirement" is actually a campus requirement. Most instrumentalities of the State of New York are subject to travel policies which are considerably more enlightened than ours. For example, according to New York State Air Travel Policy, dated May 2003, the State allows for travel to be paid for on a Corporate Charge Card (disallowed at UB), and has negotiated reduced fares between numerous pairs of cities (unheard of for UB) as well as refundable tickets. Had the latter been an option last spring at UB, the Department of Romance Languages would have saved $600 when a job candidate cancelled his campus interview to take a job somewhere else. Under current policy, we had to eat the loss, and S&T wouldn't even give us credit for future travel. Another feature of the State Travel Policy absolutely unknown to UB is the provision that exceptions are permitted for "emergency situations or where a special incentive fare may save more than $200 over the contract price."

The list of state government agencies covered by this policy does not include the State University of New York, and since it looks like a better deal, that's a shame. But it's even more interesting to note that the travel agency designated "by State policy" as the mandatory CTA does not function in that capacity for other campuses, each of which has its own CTA. Stony Brook, for example, points travellers to "Citibank Central Travel Account (CTA), through Austin Travel." It is interesting to read that Austin Travel makes a contribution to a student scholarship fund for every trip booked through them by Stony Brook faculty, staff, and students. Never heard of S&T doing likewise, though they have launched a real estate venture, and thus may be thought to have the wherewithal to give something back to the institution.

Finally, the practice at UB is completely inconsistent with the spirit of the travel policy formulated by the Comptroller Alan Hevesi, "Procurement and Disbursement Guidelines," Bulletin No. G-184 December 30, 2004 (Updated), under the heading "Required Alternatives to the State's Corporate Travel Card Program." In that document, we read that "agencies must provide alternate means of paying travel expenses so that initial responsibility for either transportation or lodging expenses associated with such travel is not assumed by the employee." Several mechanisms for accomplishing this goal are proposed, including the use of the Citibank travel card, direct billing by the hotel, or vouchers delivered by the travelling employee to the hotel.

So to summarize: UB's policy is not standard across SUNY, is not mandated by the State of New York, is not consistent with the letter or the spirit of the NYS Comptroller's policies, does not result in any economies of scale, does not reflect any negotiated discounted fares, requires faculty to spend more on air travel than they want to, and forces faculty to loan the University money interest-free by paying for lodging up front and then waiting weeks for reimbursement.

Substantive corrections submitted through "comments" will be incorporated into this blog; calls to arms will be heeded; promises will be greeted with cautious optimism...