The White House has issued guidance aimed at reducing spending on travel, conferences, vehicle fleets and real property that it hopes will result in hundreds of millions in cost avoidance.
The guidance, M-12-12, will require agencies to decrease spending on travel by 30 percent, require deputy secretaries to review any conference where the agency spending could exceed $100,000, prohibit agencies from spending over $500,000 on a conference unless the agency’s secretary approves a waiver, and require agencies to post online annual conference spending information each January including descriptions of agency conferences that cost more than $100,000.
It also directs agencies to accelerate the disposal of excess properties held by the federal government and to make more efficient use of existing government real estate, and it prohibits agencies from increasing the size of their civilian real estate inventories with few exceptions.
The memo also mandates that agencies take practical steps to avoid the unnecessary replacement of their fleet, and directs them to generally wait until a car has been driven for at least three years or 60,000 miles before even considering replacement.
