THE Board of Education has approved a proposed travel policy setting a fixed per diem rate to all Public School System travellers.
The policy also aims to make PSS travel accounting “less complicated” by limiting it only to certain items.
BOE approved the policy during its regular meeting on May 9.
According to PSS Director of Finance Richard Waldo, PSS adopts the federal per diem rate which is “significantly lower” than the CNMI rate.
Waldo said PSS would limit the per diem to $112 for off-island and $85 for inter-island trips.
“The inter-island rate actually remains. The off-island rate would now be fixed at $112,” Waldo said.
He said the $112 rate is the average federal per diem rate in the U.S.
The CNMI per diem rate reaches $238.
He noted though that PSS, as an autonomous agency, had not really followed the CNMI rate.
“It’s somewhere in between the federal and the CNMI rates,” he said.
Meantime, under the new travel policy, a traveller would be required to submit the plane ticket ticket, the conference authorization or receipt if applicable and the trip report.
A traveller would no longer be asked to surrender car rental or food receipts.
“We don’t like that. It’s much simplified now,” he said.
