Lumber said:
It's not just whether the TD is justified, but how it's not being properly controlled (comptrolled?). My experience working for the naval reserve was FAR different from my experience working for the RegF.
While working for the reserves, you got nothing more than what was reasonable unless you could substantiate it. Heck, the commander of NAVRES stayed in one of the crappiest hotels in our town and was driven around in our ugly as 8 pax van because it was available. However, in the RegF:
You have people being approved to stay in hotels when there are accommodations available on base.
You have people being approved to stay in a hotel the night before their flight out from a tasking even though their bunks on base/ship are still available .
You have people being approved for rental cars when they are attending an event on base and are staying at accommodations on base.
You have people being approved for flights much greater than the cheaper option because who knows why.
Etc.
When I ask friends in the RCAF and CANSOF how they get away with it, their response is almost universally something like "our clerks just do whatever we ask them to".
It's first important to point out that the decision-making surrounding whether someone gets a hotel vice shacks, or gets a rental car, etc. rests with the approving authority, which in almost all cases of overnight travel is a CO or higher.
Most of what you have listed I have not noticed
much poor decision-making around in the Army. I would say there's been a few times where we've worked with the RCN and RCAF, such as Dom Ops, and the disparity was quite a point of contention. In the Army we're probably more often guilty of screwing people over to save $5 and all the while wasting a full day of work for that person. This is usually out of thinking we aren't
allowed to use discretion, a great example being the many many many many times we would be smarter to request a member use their POMV but we don't even recognize that option exists.
It's not up to RMS clerks, or now FSAs, to determine whether or not you get a rental vehicle. There's a reason an Individual Travel Authorization outlines how you will travel, with a cost estimate, and that the member acknowledges it, before the approving authority approves it and the amount is Sect 32'd. If it shows you'll be getting a rental car, or shows you'll be staying in commercial accommodations, you're good to go. If it doesn't, you aren't. It's not the finance staff's decision.
Sadly, we are obviously organizationally incompetent for this conversation to be even occurring.
Lumber said:
It's not just whether the TD is justified, but how it's not being properly controlled (comptrolled?).
The Comptroller world, starting with ADM(Fin), can only make the rules. Management operates within them. If management proves unable to handle the discretion they are given, then yes, it becomes an assurance* issue. It's one of those things where if you** need more explicit direction it can be provided, but you might not like it and would be a lot better to reign it in yourself.
*Assurance - The proper term for what we're talking about is assurance, which encompasses a whole range of things including audit, internal control, training, policy, etc. This is not a term I've ever heard used in the CAF but I've become more and more a stickler on nomenclature as it seems directly tied to results.
**You - And by "you" I mean whoever the approving authority is... like I said, in most cases we are talking about a CO or higher, someone who ought to be able to entrusted to keep stewardship in mind. In fairness, in our current state they are often receiving poor advice, but then they also ignore some pretty good advice thinking they know better. Hard for me to gauge anything outside my own organization in this regard, I just don't have the right vantage point, so I won't comment on how well or not well we are doing on this front.