July 18, 1997
                                             


                         GSBCA 13885-RELO


                 In the Matter of HENRY E. HILKER


     Henry E. Hilker, Ithaca, NY, Claimant.

     Wade H. Berry, Chief, Accounts Receivable Division, Department
of State, Arlington, VA, appearing for Department of State.

DANIELS, Board Judge (Chairman).

     Henry E. Hilker, a retired foreign service officer, contends
that the Department of State acted improperly in charging him for
long-term storage of his household effects.  We deny his claim.

     In November of 1992, Mr. Hilker was medically evacuated from
Kathmandu, Nepal, to Washington, D.C.  On December 31, the
Department of State reassigned him to a "not otherwise classified"
position in Washington for an indefinite period of time.  On
January 5, 1993, the department authorized him to have shipped to
Washington the limited household effects he had in Kathmandu.  It
also told him, "Authority for storage of effects at Government
expense issued prior to the date of this authorization will
terminate three months after your arrival at station of
destination."

     On September 30, 1994, the State Department reassigned Mr.
Hilker again, this time to a one-year tour of duty as an
information management specialist in Washington.  Shortly
thereafter, on December 22, 1994, the department called to Mr.
Hilker's attention the fact that he had 5,667 pounds of household
effects in storage in Antwerp, Belgium.  (These goods had been in
Antwerp while the claimant was in Kathmandu.)  By this time, Mr.
Hilker had decided to retire and the agency agreed to pay for
having the goods shipped to him at his retirement location.  It
warned him, however, "Before you can arrange to ship the effects
from storage, you will have to reimburse the Department for the
continuing storage charges for most of the last two years."  The
actual cost of the storage was $85.005 per month.  For the period
from April 1993 through December 1994, the total came to $1,785.11.

     Mr. Hilker promptly asked the agency's Exceptions Committee to
waive the storage charges.  He asserted that he had "almost
forgotten" that he had belongings in Antwerp; that the agency had
never advised him that the charges were continuing to accrue; and
that if he had been told of this fact, he would have had the goods
shipped to him in Washington immediately.  He acknowledged his own
"oversight and misunderstanding" in leaving the items in storage in
Antwerp, but requested that because the department had also been
remiss, in not notifying him about the continuing charges, it
absorb the costs.

     The committee denied his request.  It felt that its hands were
tied by section 901 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980, 22 U.S.C.
 4081(12) (1994).  This law permits the Secretary of State to pay
the costs of storing the furniture and household and personal
effects of a member of the foreign service in various
circumstances, including (a) when the member is assigned to a post
to which these items cannot be taken or at which they cannot be
used; (b) in connection with an assignment to a new post, but for
no more than three months after the member arrives at that post or
establishes residence quarters; and (c) "when it is in the public
interest or more economical to authorize storage."

     On December 28, 1994, Mr. Hilker asked the State Department to
"remove my effects from storage immediately to stop further storage
charges" and have the items sent to him in Ithaca, New York, where
he planned to live upon retirement.  Six days later, he retired. 
Storage charges continued to accrue until August 1996, as Mr.
Hilker and the department debated the responsibility for payment of
them.  The claimant and the agency finally agreed that funds would
be offset against Mr. Hilker's retirement benefits to pay a sum
which had accumulated to $3,320.34, and the department would pay
costs of having the goods shipped to him.  Mr. Hilker made plain
that he would ask for an administrative review of responsibility
for the storage costs.

     As Mr. Hilker recognized in asking the State Department's
Exceptions Committee to waive imposition of charges, the law
provides that the claimant, and not the department, be responsible
for the cost of storing his goods in Antwerp, beginning in April
1993 (three months after he was reassigned to Washington).  The
governing authorities are the statute cited by the Committee and a 
provision of the department's Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM), 6 FAM
176 (now 171.3), "Continuous Storage."  The manual provision
states:

          a.   Continuous storage of household effects is
     authorized when an employee is assigned or transferred to
     a post abroad or in the United States other than
     Washington, D.C.

          b.   Continuous storage for employees assigned to
     Washington, D.C., must be specifically authorized. 
     Employees assigned as Foreign Service inspectors,
     traveling auditors, roving administrative specialists, or
     in any similar capacity requiring frequent and extensive
     travel, may qualify.  In addition, when an authorizing
     officer determines that it would be in the public
     interest or more economical, such storage may be
     authorized.

     Mr. Hilker now maintains that because his initial assignment
to Washington was to an unspecified position for an indefinite
amount of time, the assignment was only temporary, pending further
reassignment to a specific job.  Thus, he contends, keeping his
goods in storage until a more permanent position was found was
economical, since it would save the expense of shipping the items
a second time to his next work location.  By the time he got a
definite position, of course, his retirement was only three months
away, and shipping his effects to Washington and then to Ithaca
would have been senseless.

     This argument ignores the express strictures of statute and
regulation.  It also ignores the specific warning the agency gave
the employee when he was assigned to Washington.  If Mr. Hilker
truly believed the contention he makes now, as to monetary savings
to the Government, he should have raised it upon his arrival in
Washington, when authorization of extended storage of his goods
could have been properly considered.  The Foreign Affairs Manual
expressly provides that extended continuous storage for employees
assigned to that city must be specifically authorized, and storage
of his goods in Antwerp beyond March 1993 was not so approved.  By
waiting to put the State Department on notice of his current
position, until after storage charges had accrued to their present
level, Mr. Hilker is in effect proposing that the agency make an
after-the-fact determination of whether shipping the goods to him
or continuing to store them would have been more economical.  This
is not the sort of determination contemplated by the regulation.

     In addition, we view Mr. Hilker's failure to comply with the
department's reasonable demand that he pay storage costs he owed
before the  agency would have the items shipped to his retirement
location as the cause of the increase in the charges from $1,785.11
to $3,320.34.  Thus, we consider the agency's refusal to pay any of
the charges to be appropriate.





                              _________________________ 
                              STEPHEN M. DANIELS 
                              Board Judge