By Vern Edwards on Monday, September 23, 2002 - 09:20 am:

Your question is impossible to answer. The answer depends entirely on the terms of your subcontract. You haven't even said whether your subcontract is fixed-price, cost-reimbursement, time-and-materials, or labor-hour. What does your contract say?

By Anonymous on Monday, September 23, 2002 - 10:24 am:


The contract specifies an hourly rate and an NTE amount. It says that travel expenses to and from DC will be reimbursed as actuals up to the allowable US Govt per diem amounts.

By formerfed on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 07:59 am:

There isn't enough information to provide an answer. Does you subcontract mention anything about what constitutes a billable hour? In some cases there's language as what work gets billed and what doesn't. Also the prime contract may have language that bears on this. In the absence of anything specific, many CO's will say that they don't want to pay for travel time.

In the future your proposal could address this to avoid misunderstandings. But for the immediate situation, I would sit down with the prime and iron things out. You could suggest a meeting with the government CO as well and negotiate a resolution

By Anonymous on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 10:14 am:

Thanks for your advice. My proposal did specify 2 2-day trips plus per diem. The prime says that charging the govt for travel time violated federal regulations. Prime does not say that the contract prohibits it. I haven't been able to find any reg that prohibits billing for travel time and Prime hasn't provided the citation. Per FAR 31.204, costs are allowable if they are reasonable & allocable. But for the contract, the cost would not have been incurred.

By FormerFed2 on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 10:42 am:

As an AF CO (previous life) and as a Subcontract Administrator (last ten years) I've often paid for travel time on LH and other type subcontracts. The rule of thumb I use is whether travel is happening during a time when they would normally be working. NO overtime allowed.
Other than this, I would rely on whether or not the company has a policy of normally paying for travel under those circumstances.
I've never found a regulation to cover this situation.
If there is a provision in the prime contract (or your subcontract) disallowing this, then you have to live with it.
Good Luck

By Vern Edwards on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 11:02 am:

Anonymous:

Hold on a minute.

I'm assuming that you want to charge the prime your hourly labor rate during the time that you are traveling. So, if you charge $100 per hour, you want to charge the prime $100 for each hour that you sit in an airplane or in a car traveling to a meeting. Is that right?

If so, then your customer may argue that such hours are not being spent doing the work described in the subcontract statement of work. That argument may or may not be a good one, but it is one that I would expect some, if not many, government contracting officers to make. Again, what did you and the prime agree to when you negotiated the subcontract? What does the subcontract say?

By the way, you're not charging the government, you're charging the prime, which I presume is a private sector business firm. FAR Subpart 31.2 may not be dispositive in your case, notwithstanding the fact that the prime contract is a government contract.

What does your subcontract say?

By Anonymous on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 11:14 am:

The subcontract says that travel to and from DC will be charged as actuals. Since I spent 12 hours for 2 trips, I should be reimbursed for those hours. While I may have just been sitting in a car, I could not have done the required work without the travel. The subcontract says that travel will be reimbursed as actuals and that's what I expect to happen. Prime now says that it violates federal regulations to charge the govt for travel time and no-one is able to provide such a citation.

By Kennedy How on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 11:39 am:

The prime may be objecting as it may not be an allowable cost that he can pass onto the Government. If the contract between the sub and prime has a separate agreement, then that's separate and distinct agreement, and the prime will have to eat the cost. If the prime has to pay the cost to be in DC, then they have to pay for the time it took to GET to DC.

I'd be curious to know how the contracts are written. We have some contracts where I think we pay for folks to travel to conferences and such, and we pay them to travel to said conferences at whatever their proposal and subsequent contract rates are.

Kennedy

By FormerFed2 on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 03:22 pm:

I wholeheartedly agree with the above observations. On the Prime Contract that I currently work on, and my previous prime contract, these specific issues are/were silent. But this situation is addressed in our DOE approved procedures and policies.
The bottom line is that normal work hours need to be charged to something. The purpose for the trip was to support the subcontract (under the prime). That time, which would be considered normal work time must be charged to some charge account, and no other work was being supported while the individual was on the trip.
Our DOE approved Policies and Procedures state that time must be charged to the activity being supported at the time. Our procedure also states that when on travel status, we can charge only that time we would normally be working. So If we normally work 8 hours on Friday, and we are travelling and working 10 hours, we can only charge 8 hours to that project on our time card. If we are normally off on Saturday, and travel that day, no time can be charged.

By Anonymous on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 07:39 pm:

FormerFed2,
Thank you for aknowledging that the time must be charged to something. If the time can't be charged, I don't get paid

By joel hoffman on Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 10:38 pm:

I agree with Formerfed2. If it's during normal work hours, you have to bill it to something. Unless the prime contract says otherwise, it should be allowable by the Feds. happy sails! joel hoffman