and guidance. the department must define terms such as conference, retreats, training and outside activities, in the uniform manner so all the organizational elements are on the same page. limited department wide procedures exist for determining or minimizing the number of employees attending conferences or for standards justifying attendance but the only test that appears to be in place for determining the necessity of travel is whether funding is available. this must be fixed. according to the secretary of homeland security the department has one mission, to secure the nation from the many threats we face. fulfilling the mission requires the department to participate in many off site activities throughout the country and the world. notwithstanding this fact, the department must exercise oversight, accountability and transparency regarding the amount of taxpayer money it spends on conference related

activities. i want to thank the witnesses for their participation and certainly look forward to their testimony. the ranking member is not here, he gave us the go-ahead to start. the chair recs the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from the mississippi, mr. thompson for an opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, it's nice to see the witnesses, ms. duke, mr. mann. as both of you know, we requested the inspector general to look at the practice of the department of homeland security as it relates to conferences, restreets and similar off site activities. when the request was made, i was concerned about spending patterns that had been revealed at other government agencies and wanted to see how the department compared. last month, the office of

inspector general released the results of its audit in the form of a report entitled dhs conference spending practices, oversight. the report revealed an extremely troubling picture of not only the amount of money spent, but also, a lack of internal controls, minimal oversight, and insufficient reporting throughout the entire department. according to the report, fy- 005, through fy-2007 the department spent approximately $100 million on conference related activities. this money was spent on sending employees across the nation and around the world in 43,989 instances. for example, the department spent almost $30,000 to send 150 cbp employees to a conference in

saint simone, georgia. cbp calls spent over $470,000 on a three event and employees attended a conference in texas at the cost of $643,000. these are just the sampling of the 8,359 conferences attended by the department employees during the relevant timeframe. let me be clear, by no means am i reporting that department personnel should not attend conferences or that are reasonable and support the mission, but in the investigation it was determined in the vaes majority of these instances, the department has

nod performed cost comparisons, to ensure it was tracking spend to make certain it was on par with other budgetary needs, or required justification for expenditures so that it could be shown, that legitimate purposes were fulfilled. none of these things happened. leaving both congress and the public with the question, what did we get for our money? moreover, the depth of mismanagement of taxpayers dollars that was discovered by the ig was really troubling. according to the report the data received from the department was unreliable, unverifiable, and, contained little assurance that components properly tracked or accounted for all conferences and related costs. when i made the request, i informed the ig neither waste nor extravagance by the department in performance of the

critical role should be accepted or condoned, and i meant it when i said it and i continue to stand by the statement now, at the conclusion of its investigation the ig made 12 separate recommendations, including, increased department-wide oversight and the development of internal controls, to increase accountability, and transparency, of department conference activities. i fully intend to monitor the department's interesting, on these important recommendations. i look forward to receiving the witnesses' testimony, on this important matter. >> under the committee rules, opening statement will be submitted for the record, i welcome our witnesses, our first witness is under secretary for management, elaine duch. she currently serves as the department of homeland security's under secretary for

management, and in this role is responsible for the management and administration of the department of homeland security, which includes management, of the department's 47 billion dollar budget, appropriations, expend tours of funds -- expenditures of funds and finance and administers control over the department's $17 billion acquisitions and procurement process and is also responsible for directing human capital resources and personally programs for the department's 223,000 employees. she administers control over the department's enterprise architecture, through strategic use of information technology and communications systems and is responsible for oversight of the department's facilities, property, equipment, and other material resources. prior to her appointment as the under secretary for management, ms. duke served as the deputy under secretary for management, she was the department's chief procurement officer from january 2006 to her appointment as deputy under secretary for

management in october 2007. ms. duke was the department's deputy chief procurement officer from october 2004, through december 2005, when she championed the creation of the acquisition professional career program to rebuild the federal acquisition workforce for the 21st century, something i personally applaud by the way. ms. duke spent a great deal of her career with the u.s. navy where she had -- held various acquisition positions of progressive responsibility. her -- she began her career as a contracting officer for the u.s. air force and holds a bachelor's of science degree in business management from new hampshire college and a master's degree of business administration. and our second witness is mr. carl mann. he currently serves as the assistant inspector general for inspections in the department of homeland security's office of inspector general, he has served in a variety of managerial and

staff positions, in the federal government, private industry and u.s. military. appointed assistant inspector general for the office of inspector in november of 2006, he is a charter member of the department of homeland security and served as the chief inspector in the office of inspections from the department's interception in 2003, to his present appointment. prior to coming to dhs, he was a senior program analyst with the federal emergency management agency's office of inspector gentle and held staff and managerial positions with the social security administration's office of strategic management and office of civil rights and equal opportunity and the department of health and human services office of the assistant secretary for personnel add and served as a technology consultants for general services administration, the federal aviation administration, and the department of labor. mr. mann is a graduate of

virginia state university, where he earned a bachelor's of science degree in business administration, without objection the witnesses' full statements will be inserted into the record and i now ask each witness to summarize your statement for five minutes, beginning with mr. mann. >> chairman carney, chairman thompson, members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to be here this morning to discuss recommendations for improving the department's conference spending practices and oversight. i would like to focus my remarks on five areas where improvements are needed. clear and consistent conference planning guidance reliable and verifiable date, sufficient supporting documentation, compliance with applicable travel regulation and departmental coordination of sponsored conferences. dhs conducts conferences for a variety of purposes including employee and stakeholder training, information-sharing, and mission support. we review the department's

conference spending practices and evaluated its policies, oversight and reporting of conference related expenditures. specifically, we assessed the total spent by the department on producing and facilitating conferences, retreats and other off site activities for 2005, 2006 and 2007. for each dhs component we further analyzed the budgets, funds spent, number, location, and employee attend dabs at conferences. -- attendance at conferences and we selected fema, science and technology, immigration and customs enforcement, coast guard and departmental operations in the directorate of management and analyzed the conference spending practices for 11 conferences associated with those five components to obtain a perspective on individual components, conference related activities. the 11 conferences include the most expensive within and

outside the u.s., in addition we examined an fy-2009 conference in hawaii attend by 19 s and t personnel, from 2005 to 2007, the department reportedly spent $110 million on conference related activities. when compared to the annual enacted budgets, the amount spent on conferences was less than 1% of available funds each year, however conference spending represents millions of dollars, where management vulnerabilities can exist and areas where benefits and outcomes are generally neither evaluated nor measured. prior to october of '08, there was no formal dhs-wide conference planning policies be a it was unclear who was responsible for developing and communicating those policies. although the department's current conference planning document is intended to represent a department-wide policy it still defers to

components to continue following their existing guidance. it is unclear to what extent policy and guidance have been announced to dhs components or contractor personnel and significant challenges confront adherence to guidelines and federal regulation. dhs does not have a department wide definition of what constitutes a conference, the distinction between conference, training, and routine meeting can affect justification requirements for an event, how it is funded, as well as who can attend. given the importance of conferences, to help achieve and further the dhs mission, dhs should adopt and use one department-wide definition. the same should apply to training and meetings. having consistent terminology and guidance would reduce confusion, improve recordkeeping, reporting, and oversight of department-wide

conference related expenditures. dhs and its components maintain information related to conferences they sponsor in many offices within each components. conference planning data might reside in program offices, documentation supporting procurement of facilities and other services might be maintained in contracting, financial transaction data might be hand by accounting, staff expenses could be tracked in human resources, and travel costs and related documents might be hand within travel systems. there is no central point within dhs or the five components responsible for maintaining all documents or reporting of all cost elements related to conference spending. therefore, central coordination point for policies, tracking and reporting of conference spend tours should be established to minimize these and will provide consistency of policy an gieps

and standardize the definition of conference related activities and consolidate costs and report reconciliation and enable the sharing of common data among components. dhs officials were unable to produce precise and consistent amounts on conference spending and direct reporting from the the program office and manual review of documentation was necessary in each component and during '05, and o- there were data calls issued, to request information on all the conferences sponsored or attended and however amounts reported by the components to the cfo, for the 11 comps conference we reviewed were different from the information we collected from the same conference, discrepancies also existed in attendance counts. we reviewed the cfo's data and the information we received directly from components with respect to the number of employees who attended the 11

conferences. again, discrepancies existed in attendance totals and we were not able to validate the accuracy of the information. without using consistent methodology, in maintaining attendance records and a final reconciliation of conference details, dhs cannot effectively provided oversight and monitor policy compliance. we observed the dhs components were planning and sponsoring conferences without any consistent approval or tracking processes. when combined with inconsistent conference costs and attendance numbers, dhs need to develop better management controls to ensure conferences are funded and attended only for mission-critical purposes. and that costs are minimized to the greatest extent possible. in assessing tracking and monitoring of conferences, dhs must use tools, methods and systems to ensure accountability and minimize costs across the department. dhs had no efficient means of

locating documents or information systems that could easily be queried to obtain detailed financial or supporting information about conferences. >> [inaudible]. >> chairman carney, chairman thompson, members of the committee, thanks for having me here. the department encourages and supports employee participation in federal and nonfederal meetings an conferences, such events are an excellent means to exchange and communicate ideas and knowledge. however, there is also a need to ensure that attendance at meetings an conferences is mission-critical, and, as prescribed in management directives and dhs policies. we appreciate the inspector general's recommendations in the dhs conference spending practices and oversight report and concur with the majority of the findings. however when reviewing the data it must be noted the report is based on department facilitating

conferences and off site activities for fiscal years 2005, through 2007 and these findings validate the path we are on, to ensure that dhs conferences and travel policies reflect the best practices and our uniformly instituted throughout the department. in october, 2008, we issued a department-wide conference planning policy, as part of the travel handbook within the office of the chief financial officer. the handbook delineates dhs-wide policy regarding employee travel expenses and conference planning. it also provides official travel policies and guidance to dhs employees throughout the department. the conference planning policy was based on current regulations and is consistent with the federal travel regulation, in march of 2009, dhs launched the department wide efficiency review to trim costs, streamline operation and manage resources across the department more effectively. two of these initial initiatives

under the efficiency review deal with the subject of the hearing, travel expenses and conference planning including the use of government facilities for conferences. the intent is to ensure dhs operates in the most economical and efficient manner. specifically every effort should be made to conduct meetings, conferences and trainings using the least costly method to the government, dhs will ensure all travel is essential in carrying out its mission and will make ever every time to use conference calls, local area events, web based communications to reduce costs. some of the key elements of our new policy include requiring each component to have a senior accountable official to ensure components adhere to dhs travel policies including making sure all travel is mission critical and having the appropriate documentation. also includes requiring conferences and training events to be held within a local commuting area, the majority of

conference attendees and requires that conference sites outside the local commuting area may not be selected unless it's critical for meeting mission needs and the appropriate cost-benefit analysis has been done and nationwide conferences a cost-benefit analysis must be conducted and at minimum get three proposals and further in selecting conference sites, officials must first consider government facilities and must document if the use of government facilities is not appropriate. in december of 2009, we -- november, 2009, dhs established a conference and event planning services working group that has membership from throughout the department. this group is tasked with making sure we leverage our dhs resources both in terms of ensuring we have adequate knowledge and use of government facilities and leverage our --

spend through strategic sourcing and have had success stories, reducing the cost of travel using web based conferencing, and look forward to both refining our policy further, and making sure that the policies are carried out throughout the department. thank you. . >> thank you, ms. duke. as you have heard we have been called to votes. we have four minutes left. we will suspend the hearing until after the votes and will reconvene 10 minutes after the last vote is held. i want to be respectful of your time, and i understand you have a lot of pressures but ms. duke especially, we understand you have to leave to be someplace later on. if we -- if you could stay for at least one round of questions before you -- >> yes, mr. chairman, i would be happy to. >> with that, we stand suspended.

the subcommittee will reconvene, i want to thank the witnesses for their testimony and if there is no objection i'd like to submit the written testimony received from the national business travel association and hearing no objection, the written statement will be entered into the record.

i'll remind each member he or she will have five minutes to question the panel. and i'll now recognize myself, for five minutes. ms. duke, starting out with you, when the department operations held the annual conference for administrative officers in d.c. instead of holding it at a government venue, dhs hosted 650 employees at the mandarin or yoenl, a four star luxury hotel at the cost of $100,000 a day, for three days. was a cost comparison done to justify such a cost and how was that chosen as the venue? what happened there. >> in that case there was a cost comparison done and there were quotes from several vendors and one of the challenges is finding a venue for that many people. it is a high cost and it is the

annual training conference for that group of individuals. but since that conference we've looked at not only the actual costs but the appearance of costs and making sure that dhs is not representing itself in a way that we are having events at those types of establishments. >> inyour opening comment you said you need to use the least costly and couldn't have come down a couple of stars on that? in terms of... >> yes. >> okay. now, the number of folks that attended also, 650, seems like a very healthy number. was there any kind of criteria to screen the numbers and decide how many people should actually attend. >> there are two types of conferences. there's conferences in which we are looking at minimizing the number of attendees, that particular conference is really a training event, an annual event for dhs employees, in the administrative field, to get training on the latest policy,

both federal and dhs, and so it is important in that particular case for the employees that need the training to attend. >> okay. i want to ask mr. mann a question. who in dhs is in charge of management and oversight of the conference spending? >> it appears as if it is so decentralized that individual agencies run their own conference management shops. we did not identify anyone in dhs who had central responsibility for managing conferences. >> who should have the responsibility? given the organization chart of the department? >> well, the recommendations are -- in our report were sent to ms. duke's office. it is our belief that that is where the management oversight should be. >> ms. duke, do you agree? is that correct. >> i agree management should have the oversight.

i do believe with our functional integration model that some type of not as central i said as it was, but decent tral iced decision making is appropriate. >> do you think the conferences in the end help further the mission of the agency? or was there value added? did we get the bang for the buck we were after here. >> i think we did. it is hard to determine in some cases, simply because we didn't have a good system to measure. the department doesn't have a good system to measure the success or the value that the individuals have gotten for their conference attendance. but, given the variety of missions that are within dhs, the need to exchange information, we don't question necessarily the number of conferences or the purposes of

the conferences. we believe they add value to the department. >> mr. mann, when one of the dhs officials told the office of inspector general there is no reason to track conference expenditures because there are no spending restrictions, is that true? are there no spending restrictions in place, have there been no guidelines? and if they don't track the spending how d do we know it is even $110 million that was spent, could it have been more. >> it could have been, and you raise an interesting point and that is one of the premise of the report we provided. we are not certain, but we certainly believe from this inspector general's perspective and a reasonable method of managing anything, there should be some accountability, and should be tracking systems. there needs to be at least the ability to compare costs to determine whether or not the department is in fact getting what it is paying for and that the information -- sorry. -- the money is being allocated

to events that further the department -- mission of dhs. >> thank you. now yield five minutes to mr. pascrell. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, ms. duke, under secretary and mr. mann for your work at the request of the chairman of this committee. and i would imagine that when you were examining what happened during this 2005-2007 period of time, you must have had some really eye openers and you must have said to yourselves, this can't be. because the same transparency and accountability that we've asked of every agency in homeland security as well as the department itself doesn't exist in most of the agencies of homeland security. this is a systemic problem

within the department. and for there not to be any checks and balances. so what we have here is, mr. chairman, i would think, we could concluded, that there is bureaucracy upon bureaucracy and when there is bureaucracy there is no accountability. it doesn't matter whether we are talking about december 25th or about budget stuff or we're talking about what happened here. the figures that homeland security gave you about the expenditures of traveling during this time and the figures from mr. mann are quite different, aren't they, mr. mann? >> that's correct. >> how -- we're not talking about a few thousand dollars here. we're talking about a huge gap

between what's been reported and what you found. specifically and briefly why? >> well, it is our impression that the decentralization of what might occur in planning a conference, acquisition of facilities could occur or be managed by one portion of an entity, the accounting, it is so separated that it doesn't necessarily even the costs aren't justified but are not consolidated to the point where the final cost of a conference could be assumed with relative asurety because information is scattered. it's not within one place within any component. >> whose responsibility is for putting these numbers all together to having at least the facade of an integrated system? >> that is a good question, sir.

i'm not certain. >> i think you are being very frank. because when you go through the maze of the charts -- who would you say ms. duke is responsible. >> recently within the last year we identified the component accountable official and there is one official in each component and that it is in the -- over the oversight of my office through the chief financial officer. >> and these officials do know what receipts and vouchers are necessary to prove work product, correct or incorrect. >> yes, that's correct. >> and they apparently didn't know that before? or there was no one person assigned to each of these entities, is that correct. >> that's correct. >> let me ask you this question: who is in charge of booking travel for the department? >> that's dough centralized. there is not one central place where travel is booked.

>> in other words, any one of those agencies, previously, could have reached out to whomever, for the procurement office, officer in order to try to get quotes on how much it costs? did they have one travel agency? for conference planning, there is not one travel agency for individual federal travel, employee travel there is a mandatory source. >> this remind me of another scam that we came across four years ago, five years ago, remember shirley limousine? remember that. >> yes. >> that paper? i remember it very, very well. and the person who controlled that organization was a felon. i mean, that doesn't make him a bad guy, i guess but he was a felon and we can't figure out how he got the contract.

if they are -- this being such a huge discrepancy in the numbers here, mr. mann, am i using hyperbole to suggest that there might be something crooked going on here in certain instances? something perhaps indictable? something criminal? i mean, am i too far off on the limb? tell me, i'll come back to the trunk. >> well, i would be hard prevented to say there is criminal. i think what the department needs is better documentation. it doesn't necessarily mean that the activities were criminal but -- >> it's harder to find because the documentation is not there. >> that's correct. >> and i was a criminal trying to cover up the actions no one accountable -- it would be easier, wouldn't it, mr. mann. >> it would be. it would be. >> i would hope -- and thank you

for all of the work you have done to clean up other people's messes in the past three years -- and i'm sorry to hear that you are leaving. and if they had any brains they'd make you a big offer. i'm going too far. what can i tell you? i hope that people will listen -- i know you are gavelling me, i'm telling you some things here. i hope -- >> your time is up. >> i know. my time is always up. thank you for all your service. thank you, mr. mann, as well. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. pascrell. certainly. mr. green i know you were here first and i'll recognize the ranking member for five minutes. >> thank you, thank you so very much. appreciate it. can i insert my statement into the record, i'd like to d do. >> >> so ordered. >> thank you. secretary duke, the inspector general's report noted the difficulty they had in obtaining conference data because it was -- the manual was -- it was a

manual process and much of the requested data is several years old is the department better able to track data from more recent fiscal years and if not what plans do you have to enhance your tracking process when you leverage the ability of tasks to increase accountability. >> accountability is better now, because there is one central person but it is a manual system and we are looking at task to be part of the solution for automated financial controls and addition are moving to a standard classification system for financial so what mr. mann said doesn't happen where things are accounted for in different ways and different components. >> thank you. next question again, for you, madame secretary, portions of the secretary's efficient review initiative focused on spending related to travel and conferences and you touched on some of the outcomes in your

testimony. could you elaborate on findings or outcomes of the initiative and does the conference data provided to the inspector general's office include spending for congressionally requested trips and site visits. >> no it was on conferences and would not include the congressionally requested trips and what we're doing is in addition to the accounting, that mr. mann talked about, really looking at the mission essential of number of people we send and what type of facilities we use as the chairman said, so it's really a comprehensive look and also, travel, how many people we send on travel and the cost of that travel is a huge part of conference spending. >> in your testimony you noted the importance of conferences for staff as a learning tool and forum for exchange of ideas, as a member from a state that heavily relies on tourism, i know those conferences can be valuable to the local economy.

how does the department and its components determine where to hold the conferences. >> under the new rule, we look at where most of the attendees will be from, and look for local sites. and we require competition among the sites, preferably again where most of the attendees are located so we don't have those travel costs and require at least three proposals to look at to get a low cost alternative. >> thanks for that information. is there a mechanism to determine the return on investment for travel to meetings and conferences in terms of increased productivity or improved performance? >> currently we have satisfaction surveys but don't have a systemic way to look at increased productivity, no. >> mr. mann, what lessons learned or best practices from other federal agencies or departments could the department implement to strengthen the conference oversight. >> one of the things that dhs did for example the coast guard

has an annual commanders conference. and it's based on when coast guard individuals rotate. for 2009, the commanding officer for this district of the coast guard who sponsored the conference recognized there was no rotation among the coast guard officers and decided not to hold the annual conference simply because it was scheduled. which potentially saved 11$,000 for the department. -- $113,000 for the department and i think broader scrutiny with regard to whether a conference is needed, whether there are alternative methods to providing conference information certainly should be looked at. >> i understand your report was completed last november. have you been monitoring the department's implementation of your recommendations since that time? if so, please tell us the progress. >> there were 12 recommendations in the record and the department, we were able to close one of the recommendation

almost immediately. the department is due to provide us with its corrective action plan within the next couple of weeks. >> based on your review of the department of homeland security would you recommend any changes to the federal travel regulations that would promote greater efficiency throughout the executive branch. >> no, i think federal travel regulation are adequate for their purposes. >> okay. thank you very much. no further questions. i yield back. >> thank you, and the chair recognizes mr. -- >> thank you thank you and the ranking member, and i think -- i thank the witnesses for appearing as well. i am always sensitive when it comes to issues of this kind. i'm sensitive for two reasons. one, there are hard working employees who don't merit having a broad brush touch them and what i would want to understand

is that this is not something that is so pervasive that all of the employees should somehow be viewed in a negative light and ms. duke would you kindly comment, please so the record will reflect an opinion about this. >> yes. i mean, i think when you look at the conferences even listed, the apen dis of the ig report this -- appendix of the report, it is clear why they were needed and it was going to sites to meet with small businesses and do employment fairs and those types of thing and what we have to do is be better about documenting and make sure we do those necessary events, they are done in the most cost-effective way including the travel costs, hotel costs, use of government facilities, so i think in looking through the list of conferences the employees that attended gave value, they were mission critical. we just have to handle the fiduciary side of it more completely and effectively. >> mr. mann would you care to comment, please.

>> certainly. i think a part of the issue here is a lot of employees are just not familiar with travel regulation, for example, in cases where meals might be provided as a part of a conference, we did determine there were some instances where employees were still getting per diem. and it is our impression that there is certainly nothing criminal -- no criminal intent in sthat but a basic unfamiliarity with the rules and regulations as it pertains to what can be vouchered on the travel expense documents versus what cannot. we in the ig certainly see the value in having a conference of this nature, we have our own conference within the ig. where it is an opportunity to share information and we are all hearing the same thing at the same time and we certainly support conferences. but as ms. duke said the real issue here is documentation, that really doesn't make

everything add up. to indicate that the amount spent for conferences was in fact appropriate. >> we do have a list of conferences, a selected conference activity for review. as i look at this i would like you to give an indication as to whether or not these are legitimate conferences, this was a case where 150 employees attended a leadership conference cost, 28, $995, was that a legitimate conference? >> are you asking me -- >> yes, do you have the same information i have, where we have -- >> i'm not exactly sure. >> this is a conference in st. simmons island? don't have that? okay. let me do this. if i may, having been a trial

lawyer, may i approach the witness, mr... >> you may ask your questions, mr. green. >> okay. then may i have it given to the witness? >> yes, that would be fine. >> thank you. >> here. okay. would you pass that to the witness, please. >> while it's on its way to me, i may -- >> i may have to interrupt, i only have a minute and two second left. let me go through these and perhaps the chair will give you the additional time. the first list, the first bullet, 150 employees, leadership conference, $28,995, was that a legitimate conference? >> to be perfectly honest with you, sir, our scope did not involve determining the legitimacy of the conference. we took what we were able to get from the department at face

value. i e it it is a terrible thing to assume it was legit and it is my assumption it is a legit conference and perhaps ms. ducan elaborate senate i can get back for the record but when we looked through all the conferences, they were legitimate and that particular cvp conference, in later years they did it by technology rather than holding an in-person conference on that particular cvp one. >> let me ask, mr. chairman may i ask one additional question, my time is up and i don't want to abuse the privilege. >> i appreciate you asking and because of that, you will be granted additional time. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have this list i have accorded you. is there any conference on this list that is not a legitimate conference? >> i don't see any on the list

that are not legitimate conferences, again we have to be efficient in the number of people we send and where we have them but in terms of the topics on the list i believe they are all mission essential conferences as we have described it. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. green. ms. duke the dhs reimbursed employees for gala tickets, for $8,000 plane tickets. where was that to and from, do you have any idea what would cost $8,000. >> there are cases of business class or first class travel. and that would be an international business class travel ticket would be in that range. and we have tightened quite a bit our policies and our actual activity on business and first class travel. >> does that include the luggage fees and lunch box fees and things like that, too? now, something that was sort of troubling to me is that people

were reimbursed for free meals. what rate were they reimbursed for free meals? how did they submit a claim for a free meal? they knew the meal was free. you know, not to put too fine a point on what mr. pascrell was saying, but was there some mischief here, somebody trying to gain the system in this respect? and this is for both of you, by the way. >> the issue is that an employee gets per diem, so much a day and when they have a free meal, the conference has lunch, because there is a speaker, they are supposed to deduct it, and it is a manual calculation and those were the cases in the ig report that it was not done and we've reinforced training, both of the travellers and also, each one of those is approved by an approving official to look for those types of things and make sure they are done properly.

>> and these aproving officials were not consistent without the department, that is a problem. >> is the supervisor, someone in the chain of command is usually the approving official for the travel and travel voucher. >> within this various agencies, within the department there is not consistency. >> correct. in terms of how closely they look at those and didn't -- obviously there were some approving officials that didn't notice that and they were not looking at them closely enough. >> please tell me this is getting fixed . >> it is. >> thank you, mr. marn. >> i'm not shurn all employees are aware of the travel regulations and what they actually need to deduct and that in our mind is the training issue and of course there could be employees who are very knowledgeable about the system, and figure out a way to get a few extra dollars and we cannot discount that but i seriously think it is a training issue more than of individuals trying to capitalize on free meals. >> okay, thanks. ms. duke, the news reports

indicate in 2008, dhs spending on travel was second only to the department of defense. and we all agree we have need tor legit travel and conferences are valuable and that sort of thing. when you get that big of a number, closing in on dod numbers, how can we be sure that we are getting the kind of value we need, there is not folks gaming the system and we're not being -- sending folks to four star hotels when three star, two star would do and how do we make sure that happens. >> i think two of the steps we have taken, one is centralizing that under an accountable official in each component, and, secondly, just the cultural change of really scrutinizing it, i think it was -- under the efficiency reviews there is a cultural change to really look

at travel, the necessity and also this cost of it and we have to continue that cultural change. >> so the time of dhs before the study was done, 2005-2007 timeframe, actually including those times, there was not the guidance, nothing in place that was built into the system, dhs, for travel and conferences. >> there were a few policies out but they were disjoint and the first time it was aggregated into one policy wanes '08 in the financial manual, and that was department-wide. >> okay. mr. marn, from your perspective, and out of the ig, do you think dhs now is tracking properly, and recalibrated the way they need to do this. >> first i'd like to commend ms. duke and her staff and actually all of those individuals who we interacted with during the study, for

cooperation. and we recognize that that tame period, '05 to '07, was dhs is still 7 years old and it was younger then with the number of entities that were pulled together the mission being what it was, maybe not excusable but certainly understandable, how the travel situation got to be the way that it is. with the initiative of the october 2008 guidance we believe that dhs is on the right track to recovering and preventing future occurrences of the same source of things we've identified in our report. >> i will be interested in a couple of years to see how it worked out. for five minutes you have questions. >> thank you, mr. chair, appreciate it. i understand from january 1st through september 30th, last year the committee on homeland

security spend $373,000 on travel related expenditures and exceeds the expenditures of all the other committees with the exception of the appropriations committee. this past august 14th, the committee staffers traveled to australia and thailand. while i'm sure there were many benefits to this stuff travel, we must ask ourselves the same questions, that we are asking the department, was this necessary? and reasonable? i also find it ironic that the same time the subcommittee was originally scheduled to hold this hearing, of course traveling furthering the mission, or having fun, staff from the department was traveling with staff from this committee, to among places, las vegas. at a likely cost of tens of thousands of taxpayers' dollars. i don't doubt the value of the information of this trip,

provided to our committee and staff but i wonder whether we could find maybe a more appropriate venue, maybe something closer, to washington, d.c. i have a question for secretary duke. how elements of the administration's recently released fiscal year 2011 budget requests for the department of homeland security, assists you in better regulating conference and travelling expenses. >> probably the biggest is the budget request has -- does have funding for tasks which is our financial system to collect the data that would give the right amount of visibility that is virtually impossible with this current systems and again with the centralization it is manual. so, that is probably the element of the budget that would help us. >> what mechanism does the department have to recoup in properly provided funding. >> we... well, in terms of -- if

we improperly pay invoices we have an auditing system for that and can recoup that way and for employees, if we -- when we audit travel vouchers we do have the ability to have them repay or garnish their wages, if it is found that they were overpaid for a travel claim. >> okay. thank you very much. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> mr. green? five minutes? >> thank you, mr. chairman. back to the list. we started at the top and i'd like to move to the bottom of the list. there is an indication that some employees received a black belt-three training. and there is an amount listed but was the training legitimate training and is that related to the jobs they perform? >> that one i'm not familiar with, mr. green.

i have to bget back for the record. i don't know what that training is. >> i will tell you that my feelings are somewhat am biffle lent as i go through the materials. and i am ambivalent because if they are legitimate conferences and legitimate training is taking place we have to account for the dollar and cents that are spent. but on the other hand i understand legitimate conferences don't always take place in my state or at a place that is convenient for me. and so we sometimes find ourselves in places that ordinarily we might not travel to but if it is for a legitimate reason and legitimate conference with legitimate training then -- and is something that is needed and related to the job i'm a

little bit concerned that i don't create an atmosphere where persons won't be permitted to go to ledgitimate conferences, for legitimate training that will be job related. and i have a concern, that is my concern as a listen to what is being said. there are some places that, because of the glamour and the lights and the things that happen at night after training, that probably some people might think are just bad places to be but on the other hand if it's a legitimate conference or legitimate training and you legitimately are saving money going there as opposed to someplace else if you got a good deal for the taxpayer, and i'm talking about a good deal, then i'm reluctant to be critical if

it's all legitimate and is for the benefit of the taxpayers ultimately, because someone received some training. when edo this, i want to be careful and i'll speak for myself, i'll want to be careful not to overreact. i think there is a genuine reason to react here. no question about it. legitimate reasons for reaction, because of the disparity between the numbers that were submitted to congress and the actual numbers that were -- dollars spent. i think those are legitimate reasons. on the other hand i don't want us to get to a point where we don't get people to places where they can receive training, that will benefit the taxpayers and they not go for fear that there will be some or the of reprisal

and you become a part of some list and as a result it will in some way damage or tarnish your image by going and i'm not standing up for anything that was wrong, anything wrong that was done. i'm a person, however who has seen enough in life to know that people sometimes will do things that are beneficial that other people don't always understand. so the reason i was giving you an opportunity to respond to these, because these kind of stand out and i thought an explanation of what was actually going on would be beneficial to those employees who may be under some sort of scrutiny because of the actual conference that was attended and if would look into those that i've called to your

attention on this page and would you kindly respond to me in writing on these, since you -- i know you were caught off guard and weren't expecting this specific list and that is understandable and i don't want you to be demeaned because didn't have the specific list, now that you have it would you kindly respond in writing and that way i will be able to give explanations as needed and i want to commit this to you, if it is legitimate and to benefit the taxpayers and the employee was there and other things aside that have to be corrected, i will work with you on these things that are legitimate. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. green. and i want to echo what he said. i think it's important that we be able to track and acount for what is spent.

no one, as i said before, wants to see conferences end and there is value in them and value in travel and value to going to las vegas actually and looking at the programs out there, as long as it is legitimate. that is not an issue. we don't want to get ourselves into a position where people are looked at with jaundiced eye because of doing this. and if we can't account for it you can justify the jaundiced eye. i certainly hope the person said we dope have accountability in this because we have unloaded spending, has -- unlimited spending has been educated otherwise now and is doing business differently. the truth is, every one of us, behind this podium and at your seats are responsible for the taxpayers' dollars and i think it's fair to say for the first 7

years of dhs's existence that responsibility among some was not taken -- was taken very lightly, wasn't taken very seriously and we're going to change that. the subcommittee, this committee and you and i are going to change that. you know, the taxpayers need to know that especially in times like this, that the monies they are spending to keep this government running are being spent well, and wisely, and to keep us safe. i appreciate you both coming here. i imagine there is going to be lots of other questions that have been generated by this line of questioning and your answers, and i would, if so, would certainly appreciate written responses in a timely fashion, thanks for coming, i appreciate it. this subcommittee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations]: