Temporary Duty ( TD ) merged

[garb811]

Surprised nobody has brought up the stupidity of how Reservists are treated.  Contract doesn't start until the travel day, hence you can't get a PMV waiver if you are farther than one day's official drive, because you have no "paid leave" to take to cover the other days...

 

[Lumber]

Surprised nobody has brought up the stupidity of how Reservists are treated.  Contract doesn't start until the travel day, hence you can't get a PMV waiver if you are farther than one day's official drive, because you have no "paid leave" to take to cover the other days...

Yes you can. You just have to be creative. I've gotten a lot of Class-A folks PMV travel.

 

[CountDC]

Lumber is right depending on the circumstances and the willingness of everyone to work together.  There are options when you go through everything in the CFTDI's.

If you look at the annex a it specifies One additional day is required if the distance traveled on the last day is more than 150 km but less than 500 km.  This means you could actually go up to 650 kms before needing any leave.

Option 2 would be to calculate out the leave the mbr would earn while on TD.  if going on a task you could reach out to the employing unit and ask them to auth the mbr to use the needed number of leave days for the start and end of task in order to travel PMV.  The mbr still leaves on the same day but reports in at the receiving end X days later.  Doesn't work so much for courses as they tend to want you there at the start of the course.

Bit harder is to build the case to turn it into a situation of member is requested to use PMV.  This is harder as you have to take into account all expenses included the mbrs pay.

Of course there is the option to have the PMT authorized on the claim and then drive anyway.  The down side to this is you don't get your travel benefits -mileage or meals enroute other than what would normally get paid if you had travelled by the authorize means.  You also should make sure the Claims Clerk doesn't book you any flights.

Interesting enough I see a para that I do not recall from before that appears to throw things a bit sideways.

9.(Class A Reserve Service) A member of the Reserve Force, who requests to use their PMV on duty travel, shall be placed on Class A Reserve Service on the first day of travel to or from a destination and shall not be authorized any subsequent Class A Reserve Service for any subsequent days of that duty travel to or from that location.

Now I am thinking perhaps you could send the mbr PMV with one day class a (sign a pay sheet) for the first day.  Then start their class b from the day of arrival to the day before their departure. One day class A again for the return travel.  Sure that there is someone that will poke a hole in that though.

 

[Pusser]

Where does it say that a Reservist has to make a special trip from his home unit to the TD location?  If a Reservist in Toronto wants to drive his car to a course in Halifax, where does it say he has to start his trip in Toronto.  If his course starts on Monday and he just happens to be in Fredericton of his own accord (i.e. he's not on duty and could be in Fredericton for any variety of legitimate reasons).  Could he not just drive on to Halifax on Sunday and claim that as his travel day?

 

[CountDC]

The member could do his TD from/to Fredericton if the CO pre-approves it on an ITA/MTA.

 

[Lumber]

Where does it say that a Reservist has to make a special trip from his home unit to the TD location?  If a Reservist in Toronto wants to drive his car to a course in Halifax, where does it say he has to start his trip in Toronto.  If his course starts on Monday and he just happens to be in Fredericton of his own accord (i.e. he's not on duty and could be in Fredericton for any variety of legitimate reasons).  Could he not just drive on to Halifax on Sunday and claim that as his travel day?

Absolutely. This is possible in the Reg Force as well. If a member from Toronto, for example, has TD in Edmonton starting after the Christmas Holiday, but he spent Christmas with his family in Calgary, then we're not going to make him come all the way back to Toronto just to fly back to Edmonton; we would arrange the transportation from Calgary.

For a Reservist, it's even easier, because when they aren't on Class-A/B/C contract, we have no say whatsoever about where they live and where they travel. So, if a member "happens" to be in Fredericton the day before the start of his course, and if he plans to go vacation in Fredericton immediately after his course, then I see no reason why we couldn't approve POMV travel for this member starting and ending in Fredericton.

Now, if the member wasn't originally planning on vacationing in Fredericton, either before or after his trip, but was strongly "encouraged" to do so by his orderly room... is that an issue?... :dunno:

 

[Nfld Sapper]

Absolutely. This is possible in the Reg Force as well. If a member from Toronto, for example, has TD in Edmonton starting after the Christmas Holiday, but he spent Christmas with his family in Calgary, then we're not going to make him come all the way back to Toronto just to fly back to Edmonton; we would arrange the transportation from Calgary.

For a Reservist, it's even easier, because when they aren't on Class-A/B/C contract, we have no say whatsoever about where they live and where they travel. So, if a member "happens" to be in Fredericton the day before the start of his course, and if he plans to go vacation in Fredericton immediately after his course, then I see no reason why we couldn't approve POMV travel for this member starting and ending in Fredericton.

Now, if the member wasn't originally planning on vacationing in Fredericton, either before or after his trip, but was strongly "encouraged" to do so by his orderly room... is that an issue?... :dunno:

They will get up to 500KM each way that's covered the rest is on their own dime...

 

[Lumber]

They will get up to 500KM each way that's covered the rest is on their own dime...

Yes, that's what I was saying.

 

[Lumber]

Ok here's a new one.

The CFTDTIs are very clear that you cannot order someone to use POMV as the selected mode of transportation; you can only request that they do.

But what about rental vehicles? Can you select rental vehicle as the approved method of travel and order the member to rent a vehicle with their own Credit Card and have them claim it on their travel claim?

Some context:

We needed to send a 15 members to an exercise about an hour away. Our unit vehicles were unavailable. Taxis would have cost $540+ total (3 taxis 2 trips each at $90 per trip). We ended up going through Base Transport to rent vehicles, which cause a bunch of headaches:

1. they like advance notice, and we didn't get the selection message until 2 days before the exercise (i.e. we didn't even know how many of our people were going);
2. since the vehicle were acquired through TEME, they now fall under FMS regulations, meaning every driver needs to have their 404s, even though they were civilian vehicles from Enterprise rent-a-car;
3. Again, being DND arragned vehicles, we're supposed to use ARI cards to fill up with gas. Our unit has only 1 ARI "rental card" and the 3 vehicles would be returning at different times.

What we found is so much easier is if someone travelling rents a vehicle with the own credit card, and then simply claims the rental and the gas on their travel claims. No 404 required, no ARI required, and they can do it all on their own time. We just make sure that when the travel gets approved by our CO (the approving authority) that the ITA request lists rental vehicle as the selected mode of travel.

But if no one wanted to do this, could we order them to? Could we say "well, that's the selected mode of transportation, and you're driving 4 other sailors, so get going"? I feel like we could order people with 404s to drive rental vehicles that the unit acquired through TEME, but we couldn't order someone to go get their own rental vehicle which needs them to use their personal credit card, because we can't order people to use their own personal credit card. (and, from what I understand, using a unit acquisition card to acquire a rental vehicle would be a huge no no).

Thoughts?

 

[winnipegoo7]

1. Couldn’t your subordinates just say they don’t have personal credit cards? Or that their credit cards are maxed out? There is no way for you to check.

2. Doesn’t the military issue credit cards just for this purpose? (Or have the military credit cards been discontinued?)

3. Would their be any insurance issues?

4. Why don’t you or the CO just rent the cars on your credit cards? - lead by example

 

[sidemount]

It seems like this is a bandaide solution to make something work. Should we not be correcting shortfalls in the system to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Not sure of the actual policy but is ordering them an ethical thing to do? I would argue no. As well as an addition to the previous comments, who pays the CC interest when the claim isnt paid out in time. Or what happens when after the fact if funding is denied and these guys are on the hook.

The CO has a big pay cheque....maybe they should be fronting the cost associated so their troops don't have to.

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[SeaKingTacco]

Our unit routinely uses rental vehicles as the primary mode of transport.

I suppose, strictly speaking, if someone refused to use their own credit card to rent the vehicle, we could not order them to do so.  On the other hand, the CO could also ask that member the pointed question about why they do not have the Govt of Canada travel card each of us is supposed to have...

 

[dapaterson]

Our unit routinely uses rental vehicles as the primary mode of transport.

I suppose, strictly speaking, if someone refused to use their own credit card to rent the vehicle, we could not order them to do so.  On the other hand, the CO could also ask that member the pointed question about why they do not have the Govt of Canada travel card each of us is supposed to have...

The Travel cards are issued by exception to class A reservists.  (RCAF, with many class A+ reservists, are an outlier on that).

 

[SeaKingTacco]

That is interesting. Thank you!

 

[Lumber]

No one at my unit has a GoC Travel Card.

Perhaps we should look into this...

 

[Lumber]

It seems like this is a bandaide solution to make something work. Should we not be correcting shortfalls in the system to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Not sure of the actual policy but is ordering them an ethical thing to do? I would argue no. As well as an addition to the previous comments, who pays the CC interest when the claim isnt paid out in time. Or what happens when after the fact if funding is denied and these guys are on the hook.

The CO has a big pay cheque....maybe they should be fronting the cost associated so their troops don't have to.

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Claims not paid out on time? Not in my orderly room! Especially when there's Credit Card receipts involved; those ones get prioritized.

Further, it's not about the costs associated, it's about the level of complexity. Time and time again, members renting vehicles and claiming both the vehicle and gas on their travel claim has been extremely simpler than arranging rental cars through TEME. 

 

[PuckChaser]

Just as a personal opinion, if I had to drive an hour away, and you wanted me to rent a vehicle on my personal credit card, I'd tell you to pound sand and authorize POMV at high rate. If Base Tpt can't get the vehicle on time, I'm taking my own wheels or the unit can find another way for me to get to the exercise.

Granted I have a GoC travel card and it's a non-issue, but I didn't have that a few years ago and wouldn't want to be putting my card on the line for DND.

 

[sidemount]

Claims not paid out on time? Not in my orderly room! Especially when there's Credit Card receipts involved; those ones get prioritized.

Further, it's not about the costs associated, it's about the level of complexity. Time and time again, members renting vehicles and claiming both the vehicle and gas on their travel claim has been extremely simpler than arranging rental cars through TEME.

Perfect! I have to admit the BOR here in Kingston has been fantastic with regards to claim payout. Sadly this was not always the case when I was in Pet.

I agree that CC and members booking and just paying them back is the easiest way to do things. And if the member is willing then fantastic. However we can't expect the member to be able to do this. Nor should it be an order to.

Just my opinion

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[Eagle_Eye_View]

My questions is why is it so darn difficult to get a vehicle from Base transport? Why the red tapes?

 

[PuckChaser]

My questions is why is it so darn difficult to get a vehicle from Base transport? Why the red tapes?

Because we're a process driven military and red tape makes people feel important because they can control your tasks.