Title
Chief Administrative Office recommending the Board approve revisions to the County Travel, Meal and Lodging Policy (Board Policy D-1).
FUNDING: N/A
Body
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
In August and September 2019, the County’s Executive Leadership Team of Department Heads discussed revisions to the travel policy. The original policy was approved by the Board in 1987, and the most recent revisions occurred in December 2016. The December 2016 revisions did not make any material changes to the policy other than not requiring approval by the Chief Administrative Office for any in-state travel, and instead, departments could approve the in-state travel and submit the travel reimbursement requests directly to the Auditor-Controller.
During the August and September Department Head meetings, there was unanimous agreement that the existing policy is extremely administratively burdensome, causing inefficiencies and frustrations among all county staff.
As a result, on September 26, 2019, a sub-committee of department heads consisting of the Chief Administrative Officer, Auditor-Controller, Sheriff, Chief Probation Officer and Director of Health & Human Services met for the primary purpose of revising the travel policy to make the entire process more efficient and is the basis for the recommendation before the Board.
In summary, the revisions delegate broad and discretionary authority to Department Heads to approve travel and make exceptions based on their individual needs. Departments will be held accountable for ensuring they follow the general guidelines of the policy and are required to ensure they remain within their budgeted appropriations. For transparency purposes, on an annual basis the Auditor-Controller will publish the total travel related expenditures for each department.
The policy maintains the requirement that individual Board members must provide receipts for all meals and will be reimbursed at the appropriate per diem amount or the actual expense, whichever is less in order to ensure compliance with California Government Code, Section 53232.2.
Human Resources has submitted the proposed policy to all employee labor organizations and no concerns were identified.
ALTERNATIVES
The Board could choose to not approve the policy or direct staff to consider incorporating other revisions.
PRIOR BOARD ACTION
12/13/2016 Legistar Item 16-1231 - Approval of Travel Policy Revisions
OTHER DEPARTMENT / AGENCY INVOLVEMENT
Auditor-Controller, Sheriff, Probation, Health & Human Services, Human Resources, and County Counsel.
CAO RECOMMENDATION / COMMENTS
It is recommended that the Board approve this recommendation.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
At this time the financial impact cannot be identified. Considering the proposed revisions no longer require CAO approval for out-of-state travel and provide departments heads with the sole-discretion in approving travel requests, this could potentially result in a department seeing increased travel costs if they fail to manage the travels in a fiscally responsible manner. However, there is unanimous agreement among the County’s Executive Leadership Team of Department Heads that these revisions will provide a much more efficient process for all levels of the organization and reduce the amount of staff time processing travel requests.
CLERK OF THE BOARD FOLLOW UP ACTIONS
Upon approval the Clerk of the Board will post the revised policy to the County’s website as well as share with all Department Heads.
STRATEGIC PLAN COMPONENT
Good Governance, demonstrating multi-department collaboration in order to provide services in a more efficient manner.
CONTACT
Don Ashton, CAO