Homeland Security and Coast Guard Employees Traveling Smart or Not

DHS and Coast Guard employees are still in flux over which government travel card to use for travel. ALCOAST 525/08 announced the original delay in implementation to 30 November 2008, but Coast Guards travel site gives very few details in the current and prolonged delay.

Many employees received the new JP Morgan travel card and destroyed them before Coast Guard got the word out that they were in the mail. Other employees received the new cards and destroyed the Citi cards before word got out on the delay in implementation of the JP Morgan cards. Confused? So are thousands of Coast Guard employees.

In the middle of all this confusion is not only a breakdown in communication, but a stop-all on one of the key components of the travel card program; Split Pay.

Split pay allows the traveler and government to streamline the travel liquidation process by splitting the payment between the member and the credit card company. Typically a traveler would have the portion of the liquidation that covers hotel, rental car and food go directly to the travel card, and any personal/out of pocket expenses to their personal account.

Travelers are being advised to pass on the split pay option to ensure that the liquidation doesn’t accidentally end up with the wrong credit card company.

Homeland Security’s Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector Office Alfonso Martinez-Fonts retired as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JP Morgan Chase Bank in El Paso, Texas. He began his 30-year career with Chemical Bank (a JP Morgan Chase predecessor organization) as a management trainee and worked his way through the organization as a lending officer in the Metropolitan Division and the International Division.

The Private Sector Office is part of the Office of Policy and:

• Engages individual businesses, trade associations and other non-governmental organizations to foster dialogue with the Department.
• Advises the Secretary on prospective policies and regulations and in many cases on their economic impact.
• Promotes public-private partnerships and best practices to improve the nation’s homeland security.
• Promotes Department policies to the private sector.

Connection?  Maybe, maybe not.  Regardless, tens of thousands of employees are waiting on the road and at the very least their is an appearance of conflict of interests.