JPs to cut back on meal reimbursements
Posted on Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Washington County Quorum Court is expected to act at its Sept. 11 meeting on a recommendation that county employees traveling on county business not be reimbursed for meals unless they stay overnight.
That is the provision of travel rules and regulations forwarded to the full Quorum Court by the Personnel Committee during its Tuesday meeting.
The Quorum Court passed an ordinance concerning travel last year, switching from a reimbursement process to per diem, which meant that instead of employees having to turn in receipts for reimbursement, they would receive a set allowance.
"The comptroller was wanting to cut down on a lot of paperwork," County Attorney George Butler said.
That ordinance change also did away with reimbursing meals unless the employee stayed overnight.
Then, auditors notified the county that itemized receipts would be required for per diem in order to comply with state statute, Comptroller Boyd Darling said, thus, defeating the lesspaperwork rationale.
In the process of changing the ordinance again to reflect this, some county elected officials noted and objected to the provision not allowing reimbursement of meals unless employees stay overnight.
At last month's Personnel Committee meeting, the ordinance was tabled and Butler worked on language to allow reimbursement without having to stay overnight.
Butler presented that language at Tuesday's Personnel Committee meeting, which was that "meals will only be paid for travel that requires overnight lodging (except in the event of travel outside the County in excess of two hours (round trip ) for business or a meeting lasting at least two hours ) with the exception of sheriff transports."
This seemed to be fine, but Darling said he checked with state auditors and found out the Internal Revenue Service counts meal reimbursements without an overnight trip as part of a person's income and, therefore, as taxable.
At the same time, reimbursement for overnight trips is treated differently.
"I do want to comply with the IRS regulations," Darling said, adding that if the county does not report the taxable reimbursement," our auditors will report us."
"I have to tax their income, show that on a W-2 form. That, in itself, would be an accounting nightmare," Darling said.
So the Personnel Committee Tuesday decided to go ahead and recommend meal reimbursement for non-overnight trips be left out of the ordinance.
"We used to always get meal reimbursement. It's just within the last six months that we haven't," said County Clerk Karen Combs Pritchard, when asked about it Wednesday.
She fears the policy will create more expenses in the long term because it will encourage people to go on overnight trips instead of trying to make the trips in one day. This would result in dinner, staying overnight and breakfast expenditures, she said.
"To me, it makes no sense that you have to spend the night just to get a lunch reimbursed," she said.
Collector David Ruff said he and a couple of chief deputies attend about four seminars a year. It is usually half a day to get to them.
"It was nice when the county bought our lunch," he said.
He said the change in not allowing reimbursement for day trips "will cost the elected officials more than anybody"because they would end up helping with meals out of their pocket.
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