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i 

57–665 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–160] 

SIMPLIFYING DEFENSE TRAVEL: REVIEWING PROGRESS ON IMPROVING THE DEFENSE TRAVEL SYSTEM FOR THE USER 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 27, 2010 
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

SCOTT MURPHY, New York 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SEAN MCDONALD, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

TREY HOWARD, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2010 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, April 27, 2010, Simplifying Defense Travel: Reviewing Progress 

on Improving the Defense Travel System for the User .................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 .......................................................................................... 25 

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010 

SIMPLIFYING DEFENSE TRAVEL: REVIEWING PROGRESS ON 

IMPROVING THE DEFENSE TRAVEL SYSTEM FOR THE USER 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight 

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1 

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Fisher, David M., Director, Business Transformation Agency, U.S. Department of Defense .................................................................................................... 4 

Mitchell, Pamela S., Director, Defense Travel Management Office, U.S. Department of Defense ............................................................................................. 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Fisher, David M., joint with Pamela S. Mitchell ........................................... 32 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 29 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mrs. Davis ......................................................................................................... 48 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 43 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 48 

(1) 

SIMPLIFYING DEFENSE TRAVEL: REVIEWING PROGRESS ON IMPROVING THE DEFENSE TRAVEL SYSTEM 

FOR THE USER 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, 

Washington, DC, Tuesday, April 27, 2010. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order. This is the HASC 

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations’ third hearing, or 

third annual hearing, on the Defense Travel System, and we meet 

today to hear Department’s efforts to simplify and streamline the 

system, which incurs over $10 billion in direct costs annually. 

One important question today is whether your efforts at simplification are going to benefit the travelers, the users of the system. In our previous two hearings, we have heard a Government 

Accountability Office (GAO) recommendation to improve this system. We will be interested in hearing about progress on those improvements. 

Last year, the Congress required you to submit a report to us 

this month. It was section 1058 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Some of the elements of this report 

should include identifying aspects of travel procedure that were 

most confusing, inefficient, and in need of revision; opportunities to 

streamline policies and to reduce the Department’s travel-related 

costs; a plan to identify the number of temporary vouchers that are 

manually, rather than electronically, processed; options to use industry capabilities and technologies; and recommendations for legislative actions that would assist the Department in its task of simplifying travel. 

We understand that this report is not yet finished, but we want 

the witnesses to tell us regarding any expected findings about what 

needs to be changed and the timeline for such change. 

Before I introduce our witnesses, I would like to hear any comments Mr. Wittman would like to make. 
2 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your leadership and thank you for holding this hearing today. 

I want to welcome back our witnesses. Thank you so much for 

coming in and giving us an update as to where we are with this 

effort. 

You know, we heard from you back in 2009, and you told us then 

of the Department’s efforts to make the Defense Travel System, or 

DTS, more comprehensive and user friendly. During that hearing, 

which was my first as ranking member, you acknowledged that 

progress had been made but that the DTS had a ways to go before 

it was a mature, fully accepted system used throughout the Department. 

My understanding from your testimony today is that further incremental progress has been made but that much more work remains. And while any progress is good, it is a little bit discouraging 

that we never seem to get to a point where we are actually at the 

finish line. We achieve results, but project completion remains elusive, and I realize it is a difficult effort to try to bring a lot of different elements of the system together, but nonetheless one that I 

think requires that we have that completion or endpoint in mind. 

I also understand that you have begun a new initiative called 

Defense Travel Simplification, to find ways to simplify the myriad 

of travel-related rules, laws and regulations that the Department 

must adhere to. No doubt the process of designing a Departmentwide, Web-based travel booking, approval, and accounting system 

would be greatly eased if you had fewer mandates to consider as 

you design the system. 

I am interested in today’s hearing about your plans in this regard and the challenges you face, the timeliness of this project, and 

how we on this committee can help. I know we have already helped 

by providing you a multitude of travel statutes to contend with and 

any suggestions you might have on how we can streamline these 

laws without disadvantaging Department of Defense (DOD) travelers would also be welcome. 

The Department has been working on DTS for 15 years, and the 

subcommittee is completing 2 years of oversight on this enterprise, 

and there is no question that developing and fielding an online 

travel system for an organization as large and diverse as the Department of Defense is a daunting challenge that anyone would expect to take some time, but 15 years, I think, by anybody’s standard, does seem excessive. And while I am encouraged that the Department continues their progress, I am discouraged that after 15 

years we still have some ways to go. So I have to wonder when we 

can finally call the system complete, and what you see from our 

standpoint what we can do to help us get to that completion. 

Again, thank you today for joining us. Thank you for your insight 

and your efforts to get us where we are, and we look forward to 

your comments as to how we can get to completion on this project. 

Thanks again, Chairman Snyder. I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on 29.] 
3 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. 

Our witnesses today are Pam Mitchell, the Director of the Defense Travel Office (DTMO) at the Department of Defense, and 

David Fisher, the Director of the Business Transformation Agency 

(BTA) of the Department of Defense. You all have submitted a joint 

written statement, I understand. As you both will be making oral 

statements, who would like to go first? Ms. Mitchell. 

STATEMENT OF PAMELA S. MITCHELL, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE 

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT OFFICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Ms. MITCHELL. Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman, and 

distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to update you on simplifying defense 

travel in the Defense Travel System. 

Currently the defense travel experience can be frustrating and 

confusing for travelers, approving officials, and finance personnel 

because of a myriad of travel regulations, trip types, computations, 

allowances, and laws. The Defense Travel System, or DTS, is also 

affected by and thus reflective of this complexity. 

Travel law, policy and process should be simple, efficient, relevant and flexible in order to facilitate traveler requirements in accomplishing the mission of the Department. To that end, the Fiscal 

Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act directed DOD to develop a comprehensive plan to simplify defense travel. 

We are going to accomplish this task in three phases, which will 

result in a transformation of defense travel: Phase one, conducting 

a review of the travel policy. We completed this government-wide 

review in partnership with the General Services Administration 

(GSA) in 2009; phase two, reviewing and analyzing the business 

rules to see what we can simplify within the existing framework 

and what legislative changes will be needed to support the effort; 

phase 3, modeling, testing, and implementing approved changes. 

We believe that simplification of defense travel must be an evolutionary transformation over a period of years based on data-driven 

conclusions and fiscally responsible decisions. While the Department must make internal changes to accomplish our goals, we also 

know that some of our proposed reforms will require congressional 

action, and we will be asking for your help and support as we proceed with this huge endeavor. 

As I stated earlier, DTS is both affected by and reflective of the 

complex defense travel policy environment. An extremely successful 

enterprise-wide system, a travel technology expert recently noted of 

DTS that it was ahead of its time. 

When we testified last year, we were excited about expanding the 

capability of DTS to better serve our travelers, both in terms of 

added functions and enhanced user friendliness. However, our desire to accommodate increased usage by increasing functionality 

must be weighed against ensuring access to a stable, reliable, available, and secure travel system for the Department’s 71 percent of 

temporary duty travelers using DTS. 

With greater understanding of the technical challenges in implementing the complex business rules associated with adding new 

functionality, we have reevaluated our plans as well as the DTS de-
4 

velopmental timeline. Based on this reevaluation, we have deferred 

major functionality releases to focus on modernizing the software 

platform and maintaining a stable system. For example, we took a 

rigorous approach to testing the software for the planned addition 

of permanent duty travel to support permanent change of station, 

or PCS, moves to DTS. 

Through the testing process, 150 significant issues were detected. 

Because of their volume and severity, the Defense Travel Management Office, the DTMO, and the Business Transformation Agency, 

or BTA, recommended a pause in permanent duty travel (PDT) implementation. This recommendation was supported by our governance boards. 

Our customers are increasingly asking that we carefully weigh 

the risks of increasing functionality against maintaining system 

stability, and we are listening. As we move ahead, it is clear that 

our policies and enabling technologies must be jointly reviewed and 

managed to both simplify defense travel and transform the defense 

travel enterprise. 

Simplification of policy and process is not only critical to improving user friendliness for the traveler, leveraging capabilities of industry, and reducing outlays for the Department, but it is equally 

critical for improving DTS and creating a friendly, agile, and elegant user interface. 

Thank you for your continued support. I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

[The joint prepared statement of Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Fisher can 

be found in the Appendix on page 32.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. Mr. Fisher. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID M. FISHER, DIRECTOR, BUSINESS 

TRANSFORMATION AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. FISHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

About a month ago I testified at a House panel on acquisition reform, and one of the key topics of that discussion was about 

metrics. How do we really know, from an objective state, whether 

or not our acquisition programs are performing well? 

So I thought I would frame my remarks today about metrics 

around DTS, not anecdotal evidence, but actual measurements that 

we have been able to put together in three main areas: efficiency, 

effectiveness, and cost. Any one of our programs should be able to 

be measured against these three different areas, and I would like 

to highlight some of the things relative to DTS. 

From an efficiency standpoint, we could talk again anecdotally 

about many of the things that DTS does to automate what used to 

be paper-based processes. But, again, that would be more anecdotal. On the evidence side, we look at the back end of the process, 

and one of the most important things for our members is timeliness 

of reimbursement, especially for our young members, our airmen, 

sailors, marines, and soldiers, 19-, 20-year-old kids who need to 

have that reimbursement in a timely fashion. They simply can’t afford otherwise. 

The statutory requirement is 30 days to get that reimbursement 

into their pocket, and historically, prior to DTS, it was the norm 

to be around 30 days and often many more. 
5 

With DTS, our average has been for a long time now consistently 

about a week, about seven and a half days. 

So if you look from an efficiency standpoint, we are saving about 

221⁄2 days per voucher that we process. And if you multiply it out, 

around 12 million vouchers have now been processed in this tool. 

That is about 280 million days that we have gotten payments into 

the pockets of our members earlier than they would have without 

DTS, and I think that is an important element of efficiency that 

we have achieved for our folks in DOD. 

From an effectiveness standpoint, again, we could talk 

anecdotally about a variety of things, including the codification and 

enforcement of all these business rules that are embedded in this 

complexity of travel—and that is a big advantage for us as well. 

But, again, I wanted to find metrics in numbers. 

From an effectiveness standpoint, listening to our users I 

thought was one of the best ways of evaluating whether or not this 

tool is effective. For the second year in a row we have done a survey of our DTS travelers, and it is a scientific survey with a random sample of travelers, and we have asked them the question 

about effectiveness as a tool and how easy it is to use that tool. 

And so some of their responses to us, in terms of how difficult 

or very difficult it is to make an airline reservation, for example, 

in DTS, 15 percent of our users feel DTS is difficult or very difficult 

to make an airline reservation, 15 percent. For a car rental reservation, 6 percent find it difficult or very difficult to use DTS for 

that function. For a travel authorization, it is 18 percent; for completing a voucher, it is 16 percent. 

So from an effectiveness standpoint, what our members are telling us is that 80 to 85 percent of our folks do not find DTS to be 

difficult or very difficult, and these are pretty much the four main 

things that we use DTS for. 

Now, DTS is not an intuitive tool. Most software are not intuitive 

tools. But the Department, through some training, through usage, 

has become proficient in using this tool, far different from what it 

was several years ago and, again, that is what our users are telling 

us from an effectiveness standpoint. 

The third element is cost, and I think, as Congressman Wittman 

pointed out, we spent a lot of money and a lot of years on this tool. 

And the first 10 years of this program, under the 15 you cited, the 

Department had spent about $450 million, and we had processed 

fewer than 1 million vouchers. 

Now, I picked that timeframe for a couple of reasons. Number 

one is when Ms. Mitchell’s organization, the DTMO, was stood up. 

It is also around the time that the BTA was stood up, and it is also 

around the time that some of these oversight hearings, both in the 

House and the Senate, began. And there was a lot more focus on 

DTS and the travel enterprise. 

So over the last 4 years, if we look at cost, we have processed 

11.5 million vouchers. And from a bottom-line standpoint, over 

those 4 years, we have saved the Department of Defense around 

$200 million on these voucher processing costs, about $200 million 

in actual savings. In fact, we project we will save another $80 million or so for the Department from voucher processing costs in fiscal year 2010 alone as we continue to process more. 
6 

So from a cost standpoint, an efficiency standpoint, and an effectiveness standpoint, using some of these real metrics, we think we 

have examples, especially in these last few years, where we have 

been able to make a difference and make a lot of progress. 

Now I know there are other numbers that we might want to talk 

about during the hearing. I am happy to answer questions about 

the number of trip types covered, number of legacy systems we 

have talked about before, usage percentages. 

We can get into those, but I want to just finish with one other 

number, and it ties into this topic of simplification. 

The number is 100, 100 ties to complexity. Because as we benchmark defense travel rules and the complexity that we have to live 

by in terms this system and in usage, we are not twice as complex 

as industry. We are not 5 times or 10 times or even 50 times as 

complex as industry. We are about 100 times as complex as industry is for travel management rules, and that makes it very difficult 

to modernize and create that intuitive user-friendly tool. 

Every rule may have some benefit, but every rule has a cost. 

There is a cost to design it, to build it, to enforce it, to educate it, 

and every one of these little rules adds up and adds up and adds 

up and makes it very difficult for us to create that user-friendly, 

easy-to-use tool for the defense traveler. 

So over the last four years we think we have made a lot of 

progress, efficiency, effectiveness, cost. We have become proficient 

at using the tool. But to take it to that next level we believe simplification is necessary before we can add more functionality. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Fisher and Ms. Mitchell can 

be found in the Appendix on page 32.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you all for being here. I think it is fair to say 

that those of us who are sitting on this side on this topic are glad 

we are sitting on this side, because we recognize the complexity of 

what you do, the importance of what you do, but also it is a challenge to deal with these kinds of issues. 

From your written statement, you say the following: The Department is currently reviewing what statutory changes may be required and will forward proposed legislation through the Department’s legislative program. 

The problem with that is that it is from your written statement 

over a year ago, and so we are waiting. 

So when I—I mean, I think your written statement this year is 

kind of filled with the thought that you can’t really transform without looking at the policies, needing legislative action. I think it is 

the clear message and yet 13 months ago you told us you were 

going to send stuff to us. 

So what is the status of us getting sent—we are going to be 

starting this year’s Defense bill. If we miss this year’s train, it will 

be another 13 months. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman, we do have draft legislation. It 

has been through an initial legal review. And we have been getting 

through the hearing prep, as you may imagine, but we are now getting ready to send it. It is ready for the next round of review. 

Dr. SNYDER. Well, I don’t know what that means. Did something 

happen from March of 2009? Did you expect that you would be get-
7 

ting a package to us in time for last year’s Defense bill? I mean, 

this is 13 months later, and we still are doing what you call the 

initial legal review? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Well, initially, to overuse that word, we thought 

this would be a little simpler than it turned out to be. We thought 

we could take existing legislation and retool it, if you will, reword 

it, rework it. What we ultimately had to do was take a blank sheet 

paper approach, to take the legislation that has served us well over 

the years, but that truly has compounded itself as time has gone 

by, most recently with last year’s National Defense Authorization 

Act (NDAA) when we added three travel trip types to help our 

wounded warriors. 

So we have had to step back, take a holistic approach, and do 

an extreme amount of research to get it through the first legal review, which has concluded and, as I said, we are now getting ready 

to send it on again. 

Dr. SNYDER. Well, that is a good segue to my second question, 

which is in your statement you say there are now 76 different 

types of travel, an increase of three, because of last year’s Defense 

bill. What if it was 1,112? Why is there something inherently 

wrong or complicated about 76? What if the Congress came back 

and said, 76 is it for all eternity? Does that mean that our system 

would always function the way it is now? I mean, what is inherently terrible about 76? 

I concur with the need to simplify. I don’t want to come across 

too harsh here, except we have a lot of things in America where 

we have multiple jurisdictions and multiple different kinds of taxation and we use private industry functions, I mean, national corporation functions, not only through every tax jurisdiction in the 

United States, but throughout the world. 

And they don’t come back to us and say we only really need 76 

different local tax jurisdictions, they don’t say that. They go pay 

some computer guys and say give us a program so we know what 

our tax rates are in Lonoke County, Arkansas. 

Now why is there something inherently bad and evil about 76, 

and what will your magic number be that if we get to you, you will 

think we are now in tall cotton? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Well, first of all, let me say that I don’t think it 

would be correct for me to say that there is anything inherently 

evil about 76. It is where we are over the course of decades. It is 

what we have come to. 

Dr. SNYDER. Right. 

Ms. MITCHELL. But behind those 76 are 2,000 pages of joint Federal travel regulations and joint travel regulations, over 100 associated computations, and the list of various things that goes on and 

on. So while on its surface 76 may not sound terrible, it is all the 

things behind it, the underlying rule sets, if you will, that make 

it much more complex than that. 

We believe, based on the research that we have done and the 

analysis, that we can bring that down to about 10 different types 

of travel. 

Dr. SNYDER. And that will require a legislative change? 

Ms. MITCHELL. That will require some legislative change, yes, 

sir. 
8 

Dr. SNYDER. I appreciate what you are saying about the length 

of—I mean, the amount of pages. On the other hand, you know, 

there are a lot of TV ads that run January, February, March and 

early April about coming to us with your taxes, and we will figure 

it out like this with our super programs. And they would probably 

have—could talk about a whole lot more pages of Tax Code than 

what you just outlined. 

And I think that is a bit of the frustration we have. We think 

that technology and computer technology was set up to help us 

process whether it is 100 pages, 1,000 pages or 100,000 pages very, 

very rapidly. That is where, I think, if we were having this discussion 500 years ago and we were all monks with pens and parchment, I would understand better. I am having more problems understanding why we can’t deal with 76 programs and 1,000 or so 

pages more quickly than we are. 

Mr. FISHER. If we have a moment I would like to add to this—— 

Dr. SNYDER. We are partners in this. I mean, there are a lot of 

things we have dealt you. 

Mr. FISHER. There are a couple of pieces that I would like to 

touch on. Again, the 2,000 pages of rules, which was my reference, 

the hundred times more complex than the industry average, is 

filled with things that, frankly, are somewhat incomprehensible in 

terms of why we would have to legislate or have policy down to 

that level of detail. So part of the frustration, I think, from a developer’s side, is to figure out, well, why do we have all of this complexity in the first place and is it really serving a purpose? 

Dr. SNYDER. By the term ‘‘developer’’ are you talking about somebody who is developing software? 

Mr. FISHER. Right. On the other side you make a comparison for 

tax, for example, and of course we would all agree that we wouldn’t 

want our travel regulations in Defense to be as complex as the U.S. 

Tax Code. Nevertheless, the U.S. Tax Code—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Hold on a minute, I am going to interrupt you there. 

I want to be able, I want my gunnery sergeant over here to be able 

to walk into whatever the tax place is on the corner and say here 

is the information and get the answer right away. That is not an 

unreasonable thing. I think we don’t want it to be as complex as 

the Tax Code. That obviously is not what is going to happen. But 

we want the efficiency of dealing with a thousand pages. 

Mr. FISHER. Right. So if we compare, if you look at the leading 

vendors in that space, of course that investment, that delivery of 

that tax solution isn’t free. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in R&D to deliver that capability, because there is a return on investment for them, it is a profitable enterprise for them. 

And, of course, we try to scale back our expenditures on R&D to 

the minimal that we can to be able to deliver the capability. And 

as we have found over the year, we have been able to accomplish 

a lot of that. We have a solution that meets, now, 61 out of those 

76 trip types, which is far better than where we were a year ago 

when I think we were at around 26. So we have added a fair 

amount of capability. 

And in some of the ones that we don’t have delivered yet, permanent duty travel in particular, is a whole new sequence of a level 

of rules that right now, if we try to layer on top of the platform 
9 

we have today, what we have found is that we continue to run into 

each other from a co-development standpoint. Many of these rules 

are repetitive, some are contradictory, some are different for civilian and military that we need to address. And what we have found 

is, when we have tried to automate this, like the tax software that 

you described, we take two steps forward and one step back. 

Our release is with all the regression testing that is necessary 

to account for every possible permutation, we would have to be 

spending millions and millions more dollars in testing to be able 

to get that right. 

Now, we could do that for a lot more money and more time. We 

believe it is prudent from a taxpayer dollar standpoint to take a 

different approach instead of simply automating the extensive list 

of rules that we have today, to re-ask the question, do we really 

need to have that level of complexity for this business process? And 

if the answer is ‘‘no,’’ focus on that simplification first and then deliver a tool that matches that possibly revised set of requirements. The alternative is we continue to spend $15-, $20-, $30 million 

a year to chase the set of rules that we have today. That is expensive, it is doable, it is risky, especially to the stable platform that 

we have now. And we think there is an alternative to looking at 

simplification first and then readdressing our ability to meet that 

demand. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to try to put all of this in perspective. I know that you 

all have gone through a long arduous process to get the Defense 

Travel System to where it is today. But I still want to try to find 

out, you know, where that endpoint is. I appreciate the complications of the requirements you have to deal with across a wide variety of agencies, service branches. 

But can you put in perspective about when you expect DTS to 

be the sole, widely accepted source for booking DOD travel, and if 

you will let me know, if there is not a firm, complete end date 

when you expect to be there, can you give us an idea about where 

the inertia exists that may keep you from getting or giving us that 

end date to say we would expect that this would be when the system would be fully implemented and we are no longer reliant upon 

these legacy systems? 

Ms. MITCHELL. I think also, to put it in perspective, DTS was designed to handle the routine temporary duty travel for the Department, and I would submit to you that it has done that, and it does 

that. It is, as we saw the great savings and the great usage that 

Mr. Fisher described, we decided that it could do more for us. And 

so we wanted to add permanent duty travelling, and we wanted to 

add a variety of other things. 

Truly where we are right now is dealing with an aging platform. 

An example I like to use is imagine if we were trying to use Windows 3.0 in today’s world of software applications. We wouldn’t be 

able to do it. 

Now, is DTS that bad? Certainly not, because it is used, as you 

know, by a wide variety of the Department. 

So to answer your question, that is why we are reevaluating, because we are really not sure that on its current platform that DTS 
10 

is the system that should handle all travel for the Department. But 

certainly it is very capable of handling all routine temporary duty 

(TDY) travel. 

Mr. FISHER. So from a usage standpoint, where are we going? 

Part of the challenge in saying when are we done is that in many 

cases the rules continue to change. And as Ms. Mitchell mentioned, 

three new trip types were introduced via statute just this past fall. 

And, certainly, keeping up with those is one element that makes 

it difficult to say when we are going to be done. In that sense we 

will never be done because we know there will be policy changes, 

there will be statutory changes, and so that is one element of trying to answer that question. 

The permanent duty travel is one that, again, was not originally 

envisioned for DTS. We have taken a lot of look at it and have 

spent development time looking at that capability. And that is one 

of the areas that we sort of continue to run up against this growing 

sequence of rules and complexity that we are really just not sure 

that DTS is ever going to be the right platform for that set of business requirements as they stand now. 

If you take PDT out of the mix, we are really down to a very 

small category of TDY travel that is left that frankly, at this point, 

would probably not be cost-effective to automate anyway. The 

amount of dollars we would have to invest in the tool versus the 

number of trips that are actually taken probably there is not a 

great business case for. 

And the last piece, again, our usage, if you look at it we are 

about 70–71 percent usage for TDY travel. We have an outlier in 

that usage category of one of the services that has been a lower 

level compared to the rest. If you take them out, we are actually 

at around 80 percent for everybody else. So we have been spending 

a lot of time working with that one service trying to get them up 

to everybody else. 

We feel if we can get in that 80 to 85 percent range on a consistent basis, we know that there will be some cases where, again, 

it is not cost-effective or other legitimate reasons on why you would 

not use the tool for some portion of travel. We think 70 percent is 

not that answer, but it is not 100 percent either. It is probably in 

the 80 to 85, maybe 90 percent range. 

Because, again, there is probably some non-cost-effective elements of trying to automate that you would actually lose money instead of make money. And so that is sort of the target that we are 

trying to get to. And as we have emphasized in the discussion, we 

would like to be able to continue that investment in a simpler 

world to create that better tool for our user community, as opposed 

to continuing to pour dollars onto this aging platform where it is 

very, very complicated. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Just to follow up on that, then so what you are 

saying is you believe there is some efficiency or potential efficiencies there in upgrading the current DTS system to a higher 

functioning platform. 

Mr. FISHER. Yes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Maybe parsing out the PDT travel element and 

maybe some other smaller elements of that and then having a 
11 

multi-tiered system with each element of software or systems functioning in those areas where you can gain the greatest efficiencies? 

Mr. FISHER. There are two parts to that. Again, this program has 

been now in production for many years, eight, nine years and some 

of that original code is still in the baseline. And it is a programming language called Progress, which is very old, nobody uses it 

anymore, and we have been slowly migrating off the Progress platform into the more modern Java platform. We still have about 20 

percent of the way to go to get Progress completely out. 

So from a tech refresh standpoint, that is one of the things that 

as we are looking at functionality, we have actually tried to accelerate that piece, because we think until that is done and the stability of the technology platform, would be a current inhibitor that 

we want to get out of the mix so that we can develop further capabilities going forward. So that is one piece. 

The PDT example is another. Whether or not it will ever be a 

good fit, based on today’s level of complex requirements, on the current platform, I am very skeptical. Modernize the platform and 

hopefully potentially simplify the requirements, we might have a 

completely different technology solution to be able to offer based on 

that package. 

And so as that comes together over the next 6 to 12 months, or 

whatever time that the initial and the follow-on suggestions are 

made, we are going to be focusing on modernizing that platform 

and getting that Progress code out of there. At that point we will 

then be able to take a look at hopefully some revised requirements 

and come up with a good technology approach for those things that 

aren’t covered today. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. Fisher, just by way of clarification, I didn’t hear the number, 

did you say of 76 how many are online, is it 61? 

Mr. FISHER. Sixty-one, and we were at 26 a year ago. 

Dr. SNYDER. Yes. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe you said this, I 

am aware of the young people that just walked in the room, and 

they may trying to figure out what in the heck we are talking 

about here, but I wonder if you, what are the three most significant 

rules or regulations that you think should be changed that would 

simplify this? And, maybe, Ms. Mitchell, you basically said this. 

What are they? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Gosh. I guess I really hadn’t thought about it in 

that way, because there are so many. But let me give you a few 

examples of things that don’t necessarily make sense to us, and 

some of these are certainly rules that the Department has inflicted 

on itself. 

For example, and this is one of my favorites because I used to 

be in the Army for 25 years, that when you are a service member, 

you cannot get paid for laundry until after 7 days and then only 

up to $2 a day. If you are a civilian, you may get paid after 4 days 

and get an unlimited amount of dollars, within reason of course, to 

pay for your laundry. 

That is the type of thing which also requires different programming in the system that you look at and you say why have we done 
12 

this? In this case, I believe this is something we have done to ourselves, but why would we have that? 

For someone PCSing, if you are travelling with children, it 

makes a difference whether they are 12 or less than 12. And if they 

have a birthday while you are en route, then you also have a 

change in the way you have to do your travel computations. 

I don’t know that I would characterize those as certainly the two 

most significant things, but they are the kinds of things that cause 

difficulty. 

Mrs. DAVIS. What abuse, the last example, what abuse of the 

system is that trying to correct? I mean, is it not true that a lot 

of the regulations and policies are there to prevent somebody from 

getting something that we don’t think they should have? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, ma’am. I would absolutely agree with you on 

that, and I think that a lot of things were put into place for exactly 

that reason, to make sure that someone didn’t violate something or 

couldn’t abuse something. I can remember years ago you used to 

spend $10 on trying to police up a 2-cent phone call that a soldier 

had made. And then we realized, well, that is really not a wise use 

of dollars. So I believe that is absolutely an accurate representation. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Has anybody calculated what the cost would be if we 

didn’t have a lot of these regulations or policies? And do they 

equate what it costs to have them in place? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We are actually working on that right now. We 

have some simulation ongoing. We have recently gotten a model, 

and we are looking to pull data from the Defense Travel System’s 

database to actually run those simulations to see where we are. Because the end state is we want to certainly be cost neutral as we 

simplify, and we would hope to be able to save dollars. 

For example, overhead in the private sector typically runs three 

to five percent in processing travel. A recent study a couple of 

years ago said in the Department it runs more like 13 percent. So 

we believe there is certainly an opportunity there to save taxpayer 

dollars. 

Mr. FISHER. If I could add just a couple of other thoughts on 

that, and again, I think what we are describing are symptoms, not 

the overages, not an overarching element if we just take that one 

or take that one out. And that is why doing a fresh sheet, blank 

sheet of paper kind of approach is almost necessary here because 

basically the way I look at it is if anything happens that we think 

might go wrong, could go wrong, could possibly be done wrong, we 

create a rule for it to make sure that it doesn’t, and we do that 

across 2,000 pages. 

I keep one on my desk. This is one that I keep on my desk. It 

was passed last fall, and it reminds me every single day that I sit 

down what I hope we avoid in the future. 

This was put out as a clarification to a GSA amendment and explanatory opinion about the difference between light refreshments 

and a continental breakfast. And this went through multiple revisions. I don’t know if you can see the detail there, but you know 

in Microsoft Word you can actually track the changes. This one is 

for multiple revisions to be able to tell us that light refreshments, 

including a continental breakfast, are a deductible meal if other-
13 

wise qualified and served at a mealtime, e.g., breakfast 0600 to 

0800. Light refreshments served during a break, not at a mealtime, 

are not a deductible meal. But that is not where it ends, because 

now we need to define what light refreshments are. So we now 

codified a light refreshment as assorted food or drink for morning, 

afternoon or evening breaks, excluding alcoholic beverages but including coffee, tea, milk, juice, soft drinks, doughnuts, bagels, fruit, 

pretzels, cookies, chips, muffins, and similar items. 

That is a level of complexity I really don’t think we need. This 

is an example of what is in these 2,000 pages of rules. 

Now, again, somebody could come back from their TDY and they 

might have at a conference picked up a muffin during breakfast 

hours, and our cost to sort of oversee that and make sure that they 

don’t seems to be excessive. So it is a bottom ground-level example 

of the kinds of things that maybe we don’t need to have policy 

around. 

Mrs. DAVIS. When you say that it passed, are you saying that it 

passed from where? 

Mr. FISHER. This was adopted in the Joint Federal Travel Regulations and the Joint Travel Regulations, so we now have this in 

policy for both military and civilians. So that is two volumes. And 

there are four appendices that are cited associated with this. 

Mrs. DAVIS. It originates from where? 

Mr. FISHER. I believe this started with a query that occurred at 

GSA at the Federal level, and then this was the Department’s 

method of codifying this rule in DOD policy. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. The Congress didn’t have anything to do with 

it. 

Mr. FISHER. I don’t think Congress had anything to do with this 

one. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think if you sit down it is a continental breakfast, 

and you stay on your feet it is light refreshments. 

Mr. FISHER. We will have to adjudicate that, and see if we can 

add that to the rules. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Platts. 

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your testimony. I apologize, you may have mentioned this earlier, for coming 

in late as well. When you talked about your 70 percent and it 

would be 80 but for one service, which service is that, that is less 

participation? 

Mr. FISHER. The Air Force has historically been less utilizing of 

DTS than any of the other services. Their percentage is around 40 

or 50 percent. 

Mr. PLATTS. Is there a logical explanation for that that they provide? 

Mr. FISHER. They, and, again, I would really defer to them to answer directly. I can only tell you what they have told us. There is 

a segment of their population in particular, the Reserve unit, that 

we have provided a capability, an automated capability, to interact 

with the Reserve auto-writing system. And we have been working 

with the Navy in particular, who has been very aggressive in 

partnering with us to adopt that capability, so that they can still 
14 

write their orders in the Reserve system. But then we do the management of the travel itself, the plane reservation, the hotel, car if 

necessary, and then the voucher processing in DTS. 

The Air Force has been very reluctant to use that tool at this 

point and, again, their rationale why, I would really defer to them. 

But that has been a big segment of the population that has not 

come yet into DTS. There is an element of the Active service as 

well, but the Reserve component has been the biggest piece that 

simply has not been picked up by the Air Force that the other services have been much more aggressive in moving toward. 

Mr. PLATTS. Is there discussion, is this an issue that you raised 

to the Air Force of their lack of compliance or participation? 

Mr. FISHER. Both of our organizations have raised this several 

times. In particular, over the last year, as we were here a year ago 

looking at these metrics, it was the same outlier scenario a year 

ago. And there was some personnel turnover, some personnel who 

are now in place seem to be willing to partner and move forward 

in that direction, but we just haven’t seen movement yet from the 

leadership to be more adopting of the tool at this point. 

Mr. PLATTS. My understanding, I apologize if this was addressed 

earlier, in the 2009 GAO review, they said of the 14 recommendations, 6 had been adopted, 8 were not yet fully embraced and 

adopted. I apologize if you are repeating yourself, but is there an 

update on those other eight recommendations? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We have actually just received contact from GAO, 

and they want to sit back down with us and follow up and go 

through. It would be fair to say that we have a disagreement as 

to what currently remains open and what is closed. 

Mr. PLATTS. And that discussion is scheduled or it is going to be 

occurring with GAO? 

Ms. MITCHELL. It is, yes, in the near term. 

Mr. PLATTS. Because I, in my work with GAO as chairman of the 

Government Reform subcommittee for four years, including issues 

related to, especially in the Guard and Reserve side of the travel, 

found their insights very helpful, and they realize it is not going 

to be 100 percent agreement, but encourage close attention to their 

recommendations. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Platts. 

Mr. Fisher, I wanted to follow up on what you said and help me 

with where the ongoing challenge is. You said it is 61, 26 last year, 

you are now at 61. There is one more for sure you know you want 

to do and you are working on it. It is a pretty big chunk of it. But 

then there are 11, 12, or 13 you are not even sure you want to incorporate in the system, and I can understand why. At some point 

it may be easier to send your grandma a written note rather than 

put it in your computer system. But doesn’t that take away from 

your argument about the 76? If 61 are already there, you have one 

more, what am I missing here, why you have brought up this issue 

again of the 76? If you have already got 61 different—of the 76 in 

your system, you want to do one more for sure, a great majority 

of the remainder ones you don’t even want to use the DTS for, 

what am I missing here? 
15 

Mr. FISHER. I am not sure. I think a lot of it relates to simply 

volume. Of the 61, actually there are 6 related to PDT that we 

don’t cover, so that would get us up to 67. And again the permanent duty travel would run into these challenges associated with 

the rules and requirements and what it would take to do on the 

platform. 

So of the 15 that we don’t do, 6 are related to that. 

Of the TDYs, there are four that we actually will cover. They are 

relatively low volume. They are all sort of in the special rules category, and we are treating that as a single release that we think 

we can deliver. Again, it is a little questionable in terms of will we 

get the return on that investment, because the volume of those is 

pretty small, but we think with relatively little amount of investment we can take care of those. 

The only other ones that would be left, and, again, this would be 

sort of that cost/benefit, how complex are the new requirements, 

how many of these trips do we anticipate will take place in a given 

year, and how much will it cost us to automate both in the short 

term and the long term? And that has to do with the military entrance processing travel and the deployed travel. 

And there is, again, a fair amount of complexity associated with 

those. And I think before we take those on, along with the PDT, 

before we take that on, we would prefer to have this crack at simplification and then take on a simplified version of that to then be 

fully accountable, rather than take them on in the current requirements. 

If the Department overall eventually says that is the requirements, we need it to accommodate, we have N number of these 

trips a year, it is cost-effective, well, then we would have to take 

a look at going to implement that solution. We think it is worthwhile to pause for a moment and take a look at the simplification 

opportunity before we simply go invest in doing that. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your written statement, you used the word ‘‘facelift’’ a couple, three times. I know what the word ‘‘facelift’’ means. 

I don’t think that is a term of art, is it, in your business? When 

I think of a facelift, I think it will make it look prettier with no 

change of function. 

Is that what you are—when you use the phrase ‘‘facelift’’ as you 

did on page seven, an incremental usability facelift, does that mean 

you are going to make some small change that looks prettier but 

doesn’t do anything? 

Mr. FISHER. So there is an element—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Oh, yes, is it lipstick on a pig, with giving credit to 

Governor Palin? 

Mr. FISHER. The issue of usability certainly has been discussed 

in these hearings before. As I said in my opening remarks, we 

clearly have demonstrated a level of proficiency in using the tool. 

That does not mean the tool is intuitive, it does not mean that 

somebody can simply sit down without any training or experience 

and use the tool. 

The rules engine and the things that are going on behind the 

scenes, that is in place. If there are incremental things that we can 

do to enhance the workflow or how much information is available 

on a given screen or the kinds of information that is available on 
16 

a given screen, that would change the look and feel of the tool 

without really affecting the underlying capability, but may create 

a better user experience for that user, maybe a little less training 

necessary and make it a little bit more intuitive. 

Again, I think we need to balance that against the other things 

that we would potentially want to do in the tool and the other requirements that we have, given that we have achieved a level of 

proficiency that is, you know, far beyond the majority. 

But there are certain things that we have heard from our users 

that they have told us, if you could have it do this or have it do 

that, they believe that would enhance their experience for their 

members, and those are some of the facelift kinds of things that we 

are looking at. 

Dr. SNYDER. But that is not a term of art in your business? 

Mr. FISHER. It is not a technical term. 

Dr. SNYDER. That is what I am getting at because it implies that 

your website looks better and may not change function, but you actually mean minor improvements in function and usability? 

Mr. FISHER. Primarily usability in terms of that word. 

Dr. SNYDER. And then you used the phrase incremental here, incremental usability. You can implement an incremental usability 

facelift and incrementally add minor functional enhancements. It 

seems like incremental small steps to do a facelift, small steps to 

do minor changes. You are really piling on here this sense of slow, 

evolutionary improvements through the eons of time, but I think 

that relates to your point of what you just made, you are taking 

a bit of a pause now with regard to simplification. 

Mr. FISHER. As we said, we need to modernize the platform, 

which is really independent of the user experience and that whole 

process of a technical upgrade piece. We, really, passionately need 

to accelerate that, which would put a more incremental improvement capability on top of that for either usability or the other mechanics, because it is sort of difficult to be doing all of that at once. 

So we are accelerating some things, extending the life cycle of 

some of these others, trying again to line up that work with hopefully opportunities to simplify so that when we do enhance capability it will be on a simpler model instead of on the current rule 

set. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A question for both of 

you, do you have any preliminary thoughts about what Congress 

might be able to do to help in the advanced travel simplification 

program? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Support for legislative change when it comes to 

you, and, really, in its essence, what we are looking to do is to take 

the decades worth of law, a holistic approach, and to streamline 

and, in fact, simplify those. And as laws have been added over decades of time, we even noticed there are inconsistencies in the way 

different terms are used, and it is not necessarily clear. 

We would like to do things that would enable us to take care of 

wounded warriors, for example, without having to come back to you 

for additional legislative authority. So that is sort of in a nutshell 

what we would be looking to do. 
17 

Mr. FISHER. So I guess, Congressman, I would add, I don’t run 

a policy organization. We do the system piece of this. We take those 

requirements and then we deliver them, and we try to inform those 

requirements with information about the usability of the tool. 

I have been around the Department now for about five years. We 

look at our, within BTA, we look at things from a framework standpoint, and simplification is one of the main things that we try to 

look for. In my experience in those five years it is something the 

Department does not do well, if at all. We don’t really know how 

to simplify. 

We know how to make things complex. We know how to create 

2,000 pages of rules, and we know how to take things like light refreshments and turn it into a three-page rule. 

I have complete confidence in Pam’s shop in trying to drive that 

change through the Department, but there is a layer of bureaucracy within the Department that does not embrace change very 

well, especially simplification. And there is a legal community, 

there are other elements that are very entrenched in, well, it is a 

rule, and we need to keep it that way. 

I simply say that to offer for your consideration at some point the 

Department may need help in simplifying. It may think for some 

reason that we can’t, because we are going to be held to a congressional standard that if we don’t have all of these rules, we are 

going to be called in front of a committee because somebody had 

a doughnut as a light refreshment and they saved 37 cents. There 

may be an element of that kind of give and take that would be necessary, because the reason that we create a lot of these rules in the 

first place is so that we avoid any possibility of being called on the 

carpet for that level of accountability. 

So the legal community and the Department, doing its job, is 

going to put a lot of rules in place to try to prevent a senior person 

from being called to be held accountable and so we create all of 

these rules. 

But as I said earlier, there is a cost to all these rules. There may 

be a give and take here necessary that will help the ideas that will 

come out of the policy shop to actually get it over the top to be able 

to become codified. Because in my experience in the Department 

we don’t embrace that kind of simplification very well. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Got you. So what I am understanding, then, Ms. 

Mitchell, you talked about statutory help from this level, giving you 

a direction to, say, simplify. And it sounds like if we give that direction, we ought to make sure that there is some wording in there 

to make sure that it truly is the intent of Congress to simplify and 

that it is not something down the road that we say, well, we said 

simplify, but we meant something different or we are going to lambast you because somebody bought a doughnut when they shouldn’t 

have bought a doughnut for breakfast. 

So, from my standpoint, then, we ought to make sure that we 

know, not only from our viewpoint, but also from the agency viewpoint, because I know how it goes, it is back and forth. There is 

an interpretation from folks below as to what Congress intended 

and what the language was, and then also how do you implement 

that? 
18 

So I think it would be very helpful from our standpoint to know 

what language, from your perspective, is needed to make sure that 

we get to simplification, making sure we have the necessary checks 

and balances and then to protect against abuses. And we all know 

we want to do that. 

We have a responsibility to make sure we do that, but that we 

don’t get so overwhelmed with that that we lose focus on the efficiencies that we are trying to build into the system. Like you said, 

if it were up to—you know, if it were up to a group of folks to design some of the systems today, we probably would have very, very 

different systems because of the complexity within the realm of 

government. 

So we want to make sure from your standpoint that you let this 

committee know, in the process, how we can best accomplish that, 

still providing the checks and balances, but also not losing sight of 

the efficiency and the simplicity we want to get back in the system. 

Mr. FISHER. Yes, sir, I would agree. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just echo that as 

well. I am still quite dumbfounded by your comment about the continental breakfast. 

Mr. FISHER. That is why I keep it on my desk every day to remind me. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Because it seems to me that had to go through so 

many hands or computer changes or what have you, and it really 

does concern me that we have that many individuals spending that 

much time trying to create a rule that has X value, that is really 

questionable. And I am glad that we are engaged in this, but I 

think I am still struggling a little bit with how you are going to 

get from A to Z here and whether you have a real plan, a documented plan, to do that, and are there a limited number of people 

who are allowed to weigh in on that, or do you have to go through 

the same reiterations time and time again every time you are trying to decide whether it is a doughnut or a croissant or something. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Let me address that part first. There is a committee in place that it has been in place for a number of years 

called the Per Diem Committee, and it consists of membership from 

not only the military services, but all of the seven uniformed services. And so every time that these things are done it goes before 

that committee. That committee has advisory parts to it at a lower 

level, the military advisory panel and the civilian advisory panel. 

Some decisions like this one, I fear, were made at that lower level 

and then some go on to be made at the higher level. But yes, 

ma’am, all of these things are done in that regard. 

One of the challenges that we have as we are now—the Per Diem 

Committee used to have a separate staff, it still has a staff, but 

that staff now belongs to my organization, the Defense Travel Management Office. So one of the challenges we have going forward is 

really what is the right way to do this? Travel policy over the 

years, and this is part of what has made it so complex, has literally 

been done in a scatter-gun approach across the Department. Recognition of that is what caused the DTMO to stand up in 2006, but 

it is a huge beast and so it is taking us some time to figure out 
19 

even how do we get our arms around this, and who are all of the 

people who have their fingers in travel policy so that we can figure 

out, well, wait a minute, maybe there is already something that 

covers that. 

The other thing, quite honestly, that we find is that those involved feel that they need top cover, and top cover means we must 

have a rule published that enables me to tell my service members 

this is how it will be done because for some reason there is a lack 

of desire to say this is the way we are going to do it. So it is really 

a compounding effect, if you will, over decades that we really have 

taken on now and are trying to simply. 

Mrs. DAVIS. You mention the number of individuals or the Department’s legal counsel probably more so maybe than others who 

may fight change in this area because of their desire to be sure 

there is immunity from the Congress and whoever else. How do we 

try and get at that as far as you can see? I mean maybe my colleagues can weigh in on this, because I could see writing something 

that basically either gave that kind of immunity, if that is what is 

required, or how you really break that apart, because those organizations have been there forever. I understand what their jobs are, 

they are doing their job, but it is really not helpful. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, ma’am. And as we work our way through the 

various layers what we are doing is literally sitting down and saying here is what we are trying to do. Our first commitment is absolutely to do no harm and to make recommendations for change that 

are based on data, I mentioned modeling and simulation, and we 

would also like pilot authority so that we can try some of these 

things with a very limited constituency before we say yes, this is 

the way to go. Again so we can do no harm, so we don’t break anything, so we can be at a minimum cost neutral and hopefully find 

some savings there. 

So as we are able to explain we are slowly making inroads. But 

as you might imagine it is those in the fiscal community who are 

most concerned about this. As we noted earlier, that is where these 

types of rules come from. I think it is a gradual road that we are 

on. And as we propose legislation what we hope to propose as it 

works its way through the coordination process is something that 

doesn’t require us if it is enacted on the 30th of October to automatically on the 31st of October have to change all of our rules. 

What we hope to be able to do is to sunset things over time while 

we prove a better way to go forward, again based on data-driven, 

fiscally responsible recommendations for change. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I am looking for language, we talked about the smell 

test, common sense, a layperson would have an understanding of. 

It seems to me that while we are trying to accommodate the military community and understandably at the same time there is an 

amount of common sense to this that one needs to really focus on 

and perhaps raise to a higher level than the more intricate process 

that you are involved in. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, ma’am, absolutely. And I think that we have 

lived over the decades in eras where we really have to focus on 

catching the person who does something wrong. What we are trying to do is change that mindset and focus on the people who are 

doing something right and who want to do something right and 
20 

who would absolutely do it right if they knew what that right was. 

That again is the challenge. It is sort of like the old, gosh, I made 

a $0.02 phone call, and now the Department is going to spend $10 

to find that person and collect the $0.02 plus interest from them. 

So trust the traveler, use common sense. Allow people to be innovative, to find new ways of doing things, to be able to leverage some 

of the things that we do in industry; perhaps to be able if we talk 

in terms of technology to use a commercial-off-the-shelf product 

like an Orbitz or an Expedia, which we can’t use today because 

they can’t accommodate our rule sets, our 76 types of travel. 

So absolutely I could not agree with you more, that at the end 

of the day, I am going to steal that from you, common sense is absolutely what we are after. 

Dr. SNYDER. Both in this year’s statement and in your written 

statement last year, you referred to the next generation travel system, what is the next generation travel system? 

Ms. MITCHELL. I would say that we don’t know what that is yet. 

We know a lot of things about it as we have embarked on an informed journey to gather information over the last year or so in 

partnership with Mr. Fisher’s organization. We know that we want 

to be able to leverage things that are already out there so that we 

don’t have to—and this is not a technical term of art either—so we 

don’t have to stick build them, so we don’t have to build things 

from scratch, so that we don’t—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Let me put it another way. So if you get—you are 

going to present at some point some legislative changes, you are 

going to simplify them, we will adopt them, you will go from 76 different types of travel down to 11, you get your software developed. 

Is that the next generation travel system, or is there something 

coming like another airplane 10, 12, 15 years, is that the next generation? When you said next generation, do you mean the results 

of this work that is going on now or once we get this done then 

you will be looking at something 6, 8, 10 years from now? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We are working on both. What we have found as 

we talked to the travel industry—— 

Dr. SNYDER. We were kind of hoping as much time as it is taken 

that once we got this one fixed over the next year or two that 

would be it, but you are leaping ahead? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We are leaping ahead, yes, sir. It would be shortsighted if we did not. Because there is so much change going on, 

we realize the aging platform we are dealing with right now and 

things are changing every day. The airlines, all the unbundling of 

the prices for example, now being charged for blankets and pillows 

and who knows what is next, carry-on baggage Spirit airlines announced. We have to look at all of those things as we move forward; while we are working on the things that we can affect in the 

nearer term, what can we do in the future? And we are looking at 

some more far-ranging things like tele-presence, which I don’t 

know if you have seen that, but I would describe it as VTC, video 

teleconferencing, on steroids because literally you could be in Chicago and I could be sitting here and I would feel like I could reach 

out and touch you having now seen that. 
21 

So there are up-and-coming technologies that we want to look at 

as we simplify to figure out how might those fit into our future to 

better enable us to do what needs to be done. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Fisher, you mentioned a dissatisfaction 15–16 

percent, in that ballpark? 

Mr. FISHER. Yes. 

Dr. SNYDER. That means 85 percent are sort of okay. If you have 

200 people on an airplane that means they are all Department of 

Defense related somehow, that means 30 or so are not very excited 

about how they got there, they might have 5 empty seats because 

they actually couldn’t get their ticket worked out before they got 

there. I know you are working to improve that. 

We did a little informal calling around, just asked some folks 

that are currently dependent on this system how they think it is 

going. Some thought it was okay, and others had some specific 

issues with it. I wanted to give you a specific problem we ran into, 

and you tell me where the flaw was in the system. And it was 

somebody who went online, system worked, got the confirmation for 

both the trip and the hotel that would be reimbursed—not be reimbursed but would be paid. They show up at the hotel, and the hotel 

says, ‘‘no, you have got to pay for it.’’ Where is the flaw in your 

system that they would get the notice at a time of going online that 

says your hotel will be paid, you don’t have to worry about your 

own personal credit card, and they get to the hotel and find out 

they do indeed have to pay for it? How does somebody get a false 

sense of security? 

Mr. FISHER. To give a specific answer I will have to take it for 

the record and get you a response. 

Dr. SNYDER. Okay. 

Mr. FISHER. Normally when we book a hotel room, we go and 

travel and bring our government travel card and we charge the 

room to the card, and then we go submit a voucher and the government travel card gets reimbursed directly from DTS to a disbursing 

system to pay off the card. If we could get the specifics on this case. 

If someone seemed to think a hotel would already be paid for, and 

there was no need to pay at the point, I would have to look into 

that expectation of why that was. 

Dr. SNYDER. We will get that to you, but that seems like a different kind of a problem than someone saying, I didn’t get anything, I couldn’t get it worked out, and I had to get somebody to 

help me. They got it worked out and it went well, except it turned 

out it wasn’t accurate information. 

Mr. FISHER. I would have to look at it specifically and get your 

response. 

[The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

Dr. SNYDER. I have just a couple more questions. On page three 

of your statement you talk about the desire to have from the Congress succinct and flexible authority. When you use the word ‘‘flexible,’’ what are you talking about there? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Again, sir, that would be the ability to take care 

of the wounded warriors without having to ask for specific legislation in order to do that. 
22 

Dr. SNYDER. The flexibility to approve travel, flexibility for reimbursement rate, flexibility to say you are not in Group 75, we will 

move you to Group 61. I am not sure what the flexibility—— 

Ms. MITCHELL. It required a specific legislative change in order 

to approve an attendant, a non-medical attendant being able to accompany a member. Or for someone to go to a memorial service as 

well as a funeral. Those are the types of things that would give us 

the flexibility to be able to do that. 

Dr. SNYDER. So when something comes up like memorial service 

versus funeral or light refreshments versus continental breakfast, 

you would have some kind of inherent flexibility to say it is close 

enough, we don’t have to have some rigid rule between the two or 

to say I am sorry because the funeral was three months ago, at this 

memorial service we can’t reimburse you for that. Is that what you 

are getting at? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Fisher, you have mentioned a couple of times 

this issue of comparing the military to private industry, and I 

guess that is part of your job actually to look for things out there 

in the private sector and figure out how it could help government. 

I think that is a worthwhile effort. 

On the other hand, you know a private investor is not very good 

at calling in an air strike or mobilizing or going to war. There are 

different entities. Isn’t it fair to say given the size and complexity 

of our military with both the civilian and uniformed side that we 

could clearly overstate how much it should look like private industry? 

Mr. FISHER. Sir, I would agree with you, we are not the same. 

But we are talking about TDY travel here. And for much of our 

TDY travel, not all, like deployment travel, which is TDY travel, 

clearly different, you are not going to find that in a commercial environment, but a lot of the TDY travel that we do is very, very 

similar to what the commercial industry is. Again we have looked 

at both private sector and public sector as what does that rule set 

look for these different kinds of entities. In the commercial world 

we found a company that has a rule set that is five words. 

Dr. SNYDER. What are the five words? 

Mr. FISHER. The five words were—— 

Dr. SNYDER. No doughnuts while sitting down. It could be. 

Mr. FISHER. I have it here. Something to the effect of do as you 

would do for yourself, something to that effect. I will get the words 

here for you in a moment. 

Dr. SNYDER. That wouldn’t work in my office. 

Mr. FISHER. I understand. That is why I am showing the extremes of what we see. But there are industry elements that take 

that extreme approach. The norm is again about this 20 to 25 

pages of documentation that describe sufficient information that 

governs travel. We looked in the public sector, and we just went 

to the Web, and we pulled down some academic institutions, other 

government institutions, what their travel policies are and sort of 

did a scatter shot and we found some that were 6 to 10 pages long. 

We found the University of Washington was about 50 pages and 

the government of Canada was about 150 pages. So we are getting 

up there a little bit more in terms of the level of complexity for a 
23 

public sector organization. But we are 2,000 pages, there is nobody 

close to that. And this is around TDY travel, this isn’t around dropping munitions on a particular location, this is travel regulations. 

I mean if we could get our 2,000 down by an order of magnitude 

or two, it would simplify the experience and cost to enable that capability dramatically and we would still be more complex than either industry or these other public sector institutions that we have 

looked at. 

So if you go from 5 words to 2,000 pages as the two extremes 

that we found, we think probably the optimal layer is somewhere 

in between but it is closer to the 20 pages than it is to the 2,000. 

I don’t know what the right answer is, you couldn’t put a marker 

on the wall and say you should have this many rules. Should we 

as a public sector organization, as Congressman Wittman pointed 

out, have an accountability responsibility to make sure that we 

don’t have things related to fraud and abuse and an oversight responsibility that you would anticipate would have more rule sets 

than a commercial enterprise. But I don’t think you would expect 

it to be 100 times more complex than a commercial enterprise. So 

there is a gradation there that I think somehow over time we have 

lost sight of, and we just keep adding more and more rules. Where 

the right answer is I am not sure. I think it is a lot closer to 200 

than it is to 2,000. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think my last question for the day, Mr. Fisher, I 

will make it a question for the record, would you provide for me, 

please, and we will make it part of our record here, the 1,000 or 

2,000 pages of rules that you all currently have to comply with and 

also the 150 or so pages of the Canada rules? 

Mr. FISHER. I have them all right here. 

Dr. SNYDER. We will make that part of our record here so we will 

know what we are talking about. 

Mr. FISHER. I would be happy to give it to you right now. 

Dr. SNYDER. That would be great. 

[The information referred to is retained in the subcommittee files 

and can be viewed upon request.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman, do you have anything further? 

Mr. WITTMAN. No, thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. In closing, if you will see where you are with regard 

to legislative changes, we had the same discussion 13 months ago, 

as you can tell the committee is eager to help you, if it is not ready, 

it is not ready, but you are not going to see us venture into the 

area of trying to improve the statute on travel without obviously 

your great input. We are dependent on you, and if it is any consolation you and I won’t be having this discussion a year from now 

since I am not running for reelection, but I think the better way 

to go would be to see if we can make some improvements this year 

in this year’s Defense bill if that is possible. 

Thank you all. We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 27, 2010 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

APRIL 27, 2010 

(29) 
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

APRIL 27, 2010 

(43) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Dr. SNYDER. It appears that DTMO cannot compel all of the services to use the 

Defense Travel System and that DTMO does not have final authority in rewriting 

the DOD-driven regulations. Who within the Department is responsible for approving and enacting the rewritten regulations? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Currently, responsibility for travel regulations resides with the 

Per Diem Travel and Transportation Allowance Committee (PDTATAC), with oversight by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, whose members 

are designated senior level representatives from their respective components. 

Operating independently of, the PDTATAC Committee is comprised of: 

• Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Military Personnel Policy) 

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Military Personnel) 

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) 

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Force Management Integration) 

• Director of Personnel Management, United States Coast Guard 

• Director, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

• Director, Office of Commissioned Corps Force Management, United States 

Public Health Service. 

Dr. SNYDER. DTMO seeks to give the Department more flexibility in approving 

different types of travel that may arise (rather than legislating for every eventuality). Using the example of allowing the Department flexibility to approve wounded 

warrior attendant travel or funeral and memorial service travel, at what level would 

the Department seek to locate approval and oversight for such travel? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The Department would seek to locate approval and oversight of 

travel, such as wounded warrior attendant travel or funeral and memorial service 

travel, with the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 

(OUSD(P&R)). Under OUSD(P&R), Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO) 

oversees and centrally manages travel within the Department of Defense. 

OUSD(P&R)/DTMO, in consultation with the Services, could most expeditiously revise rates, terms, and conditions for travel, expand eligibility requirements as needed, and could delete outdated provisions when appropriate. 

Dr. SNYDER. Your written statement was very different to your oral presentation. 

Please provide a copy of your oral opening statement. 

Ms. MITCHELL. A copy of my oral statement follows: 

Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman and distinguished members of 

this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to update 

you on simplifying defense travel and the Defense Travel System. 

Currently, the defense travel experience can be frustrating and confusing 

for travelers, approving officials and finance personnel, because of a myriad 

of travel regulations, trip types, computations, allowances and laws. The 

Defense Travel System, or DTS, is also affected by and thus reflective of 

this complexity. Travel law, policy and process should be simple, efficient, 

relevant and flexible in order to facilitate traveler requirements in accomplishing the mission of the department. 

To that end, the fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act directed DOD to develop a comprehensive plan to simplify defense travel. 

We’re going to accomplish this task in three phases, which will result in 

a transformation of defense travel. Phase one, conducting a review of travel 

policy—we completed this government-wide review in partnership with the 

General Services Administration in 2009. Phase two, reviewing and analyzing the business rules to see what we can simplify within the existing 

framework and what legislative changes will be needed to support the efforts. Phase three, modeling, testing and implementing approved changes. 

We believe that simplification of defense travel must be an evolutionary 

transformation over a period of years based on data-driven conclusions and 

fiscally responsible decisions. While the department must make internal 
44 

changes to accomplish our goals, we also know that some of our proposed 

reforms will require congressional action, and we will be asking for your 

help and support as we proceed with this huge endeavor. 

As I stated earlier, DTS is both affected by and reflective of the complex 

defense travel policy environment. An extremely successful enterprise-wide 

system, a travel technology expert recently noted of DTS that it was ahead 

of its time. When we testified last year, we were excited about expanding 

the capability of DTS to better serve our travelers, both in terms of added 

functions and enhanced user friendliness. However, our desire to accommodate increased usage by increasing functionality must be weighed against 

ensuring access to a stable, reliable and secure travel system for the department’s 71 percent of temporary duty travelers using DTS. 

With greater understanding of the technical challenges in implementing 

the complex business rules associated with adding new functionality, we 

have reevaluated our plans, as well the DTS developmental timeline. Based 

on this reevaluation, we have deferred major functionality releases to focus 

on modernizing the software platform and maintaining a stable system. For 

example, we took a rigorous approach to testing the software for the 

planned addition of permanent duty travel to support permanent change of 

station, or PCS, moves to DTS. Through the testing process, 150 significant 

issues were detected. Because of their volume and severity, the Defense 

Travel Management Office, the DTMO, and the Business Transformation 

Agency, or BTA, recommended a pause in PDT implementation. This recommendation was supported by our governance boards. Our customers are 

increasingly asking that we carefully weigh the risks of increasing 

functionality against maintaining system stability, and we are listening. 

As we move ahead, it’s clear that our policies and enabling technologies 

must be jointly reviewed and managed to both simplify defense travel and 

transform the defense travel enterprise. Simplification of policy and process 

is not only critical to improving user friendliness for the traveler, leveraging 

capabilities in industry and reducing outlays for the department, but is 

equally critical for improving DTS and creating a friendly, agile and elegant 

user interface. 

Thank you for your continued support. I look forward to answering any 

questions you may have. 

Dr. SNYDER. Provide your three-phase plan for DTS simplification, with at least 

notional timelines, for your current effort, even if it does not include the 8–10 outyears’ effort. This should include: a. Simplification of DOD and service business 

rules, policies, and regulations; b. Simplification of laws—provide legislative proposals; c. Modeling, testing, and implementation of simplification; d. Improvements 

to the Defense Travel System based on these changes. If you have them available, 

please provide component timelines for items a–d. 

Ms. MITCHELL. a) In order to ensure simplification of DoD service business rules, 

policies and regulations, the Department will use a multi-pronged, incremental approach over multiple years to implement a comprehensive, transformational solution 

for travel and DTS simplification (i.e., a–d above). This simple timeline is the overall framework for travel simplification. 

b) The simplification of laws and statutes begins with simplified statutes and 

broader authority that will enable the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the 

Secretaries of the Military Departments, to redefine and increase flexibility of travel 

policies. The Department’s proposed revision to chapter 7 of title 37, U.S. Code was 

submitted in accordance with Chairman Snyder’s request for drafting service. 

c) Modeling and analysis will result in the development of feasible alternatives 

for simplified and streamlined travel related processes. Each statutory change will 

require a specific, detailed implementation plan that will include adjustments to policy, systems, training, and other affected areas as appropriate and necessary. Over 

the past four years, the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO) has made tremendous progress in collecting and consolidating travel data. As data continues to 

be gathered and refined, the solutions for travel simplification will become clearer. 

Using pilot programs for proof of principle and selection of alternative solutions will 

pave the way for smart, data driven, fiscally responsible decisions. 
45 

d) The Defense Travel System (DTS) will continue to be improved by these data 

driven measures. If travel policy can be dramatically simplified, we can create an 

elegant, agile user solution based on streamlined business processes. 

Dr. SNYDER. What are the major barriers within the Department to simplification 

of DOD and service travel rules and regulations? 

Ms. MITCHELL. For simplifying DoD travel, there are four major barriers: 1) a desire for absolute fiscal accountability, 2) a propensity for rule making for every travel situation, 3) an expectation of specific statutory support for every travel rule or 

expenditure, and 4) an institutional resistance to change. 

Dr. SNYDER. What are the three most significant DOD or service rules or regulations that need to be changed to simplify DOD travel? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The three most significant rules or regulations that need to be 

changed to simplify DoD travel are: 1) burdensome documentation that is required 

for ‘‘actual expense’’ reimbursements; 2) cost comparisons; and 3) the need to justify 

‘‘actual and necessary’’ travel expenses. 

Currently, under ‘‘actual expense’’ reimbursements, documentation requirements 

are burdensome, as the traveler is required to 1) retain receipts for all lodging, 

meals, incidental and miscellaneous expenses for the entire period of travel, and 2) 

these expenses must be averaged over the period of time. Elimination of language 

that calls for ‘‘actual expense’’ reimbursements would allow these types of travel to 

be treated instead like a normal business TDY, where the traveler gets full reimbursement for airline ticket, rental car, hotel and a per diem. This allows for a less 

burdensome documentation requirement and greatly simplifies travel for service 

members and their dependents. 

Cost comparisons drive complexity because, under the current construct, every detail of a trip must be known upfront and then compared the cost to the government 

(using commercial air transportation) against the mode of travel the member is actually requesting. This requires an approving official to determine what a cost of 

a taxi might be to and from the residence or airport, projected parking fees and any 

other cost a traveler may incur. Many of these costs are just ‘‘best guess’’ estimates 

and not true costs. Eliminating cost comparisons and allowing the approving official 

to reimburse based on like travel would go a long way towards simplifying and 

demystifying a complex procedure. 

The use of actual and necessary expenses for travel as defined in title 37, section 

(d)(2)(B) requires reimbursement for ‘‘actual and necessary expenses.’’ This has been 

interpreted to mean why a cost is actually needed and why it is necessary. This has 

created problems in trying to keep pace with the ever changing nature of travel. For 

example, when the airlines started to un-bundle services such as charging separately for checked-in bags, there was hesitation to authorize such reimbursements 

because they were not explicitly included as an authorized expense. The Department 

believes that a change should be made to authorize a ‘‘reasonable and necessary’’ 

expense. 

Dr. SNYDER. What are the three most significant laws that need to be changed 

to simplify DOD travel? a. Provide an example of ‘‘prescriptive legislation’’ and how 

it should be rewritten to be ‘‘succinct’’ and provide ‘‘flexible authority to empower 

the Department to develop comprehensive business rules that will cover all types 

of travel.’’ 

Ms. MITCHELL. The current title 37 is too diverse to identify only three sections 

that need to be changed. To simplify travel, we believe that all the sections below 

need change: 

404. Travel and transportation allowances: general. 

404a. Travel and transportation allowances: temporary lodging expenses. 

404b. Travel and transportation allowances: lodging expenses at temporary duty 

location for members on authorized leave. 

405. Travel and transportation allowances: per diem while on duty outside the 

continental United States. 

405a. Travel and transportation allowances: departure allowances. 

406. Travel and transportation allowances: dependents; baggage and household effects. 

406a. Travel and transportation allowances: authorized for travel performed 

under orders that are canceled, revoked, or modified. 

406b. Travel and transportation allowances: members of the uniformed services 

attached to a ship overhauling or inactivating. 

406c. Travel and transportation allowances: members assigned to a vessel under 

construction 

407. Travel and transportation allowances: dislocation allowances. 

408. Travel and transportation allowances: travel within limits of duty station. 
46 

409. Travel and transportation allowances: house trailers and mobile homes. 

410. Travel and transportation allowances: miscellaneous categories. 

411. Travel and transportation allowances: administrative provisions. 

411a. Travel and transportation allowances: travel performed in connection with 

convalescent leave. 

411b. Travel and transportation allowances: travel performed in connection with 

leave between consecutive overseas tours. 

411c. Travel and transportation allowances: travel performed in connection with 

rest and recuperative leave from certain stations in foreign countries. 

411d. Travel and transportation allowances: transportation incident to personal 

emergencies for certain members and dependents. 

411e. Travel and transportation allowances: transportation incident to certain 

emergencies for members performing temporary duty. 

411f. Travel and transportation allowances: transportation for survivors of deceased member to attend the member’s burial ceremonies. 

411g. Travel and transportation allowances: transportation incident to voluntary 

extensions of overseas tours of duty. 

411h. Travel and transportation allowances: transportation of family members incident to the serious illness or injury of members. 

Many of these statutory provisions have been added over time and written in a 

prescriptive format seeking to incorporate every nuance to address a specific travel 

situation. For example, a military dislocation allowance covered under title 37 

U.S.C. Section 407, cites eligibility criteria and when it is payable. Instead, a simple 

sentence such as ‘‘Reasonable and necessary travel expenses may include but are 

not limited to cost of transportation, lodging, and meals; dislocation or relocation 

expenses paid in connection with a member’s temporary or permanent duty assignment location’’ would provide the Department great flexibility, without limiting us 

to prescriptive language. (NOTE: The above is a mere example of possible language 

and does not reflect the Administration’s position or endorsement.) 

Dr. SNYDER. Your written statement was very different to your oral presentation. 

Please provide a copy of your oral opening statement. 

Mr. FISHER. My oral statement is below. 

About a month ago, I testified at a House panel on acquisition reform. 

And one of the key topics of that discussion was about metrics: How do we 

really know from a—an objective state whether or not our acquisition programs are performing well? So I thought I’d frame my remarks today about 

metrics around DTS, not anecdotal evidence, but actual measurements that 

we’ve been able to put together in three main areas: efficiency, effectiveness 

and cost. Any one of our programs should be able to be measured against 

these three different areas, and I’d like to highlight some of the things relative to DTS. 

From an efficiency standpoint, you know, we could talk again anecdotally 

about many of the things that DTS does to automate what used to be 

paper-based processes. But, again, that would be more anecdotal. On the 

evidence side, we look at the backend of the process. And one of the most 

important things for our members is timeliness of reimbursement, especially for our young members, our airmen and sailors and Marines and soldiers, 19-, 20-year-old kids who need to have that reimbursement in a—in 

a timely fashion. They simply can’t afford otherwise. The statutory requirement is 30 days to get that reimbursement into their pocket. And, historically, prior to DTS, it was the norm to be around 30 days and often many 

more. With DTS, our average has been for a long, long time now consistently about a week, about seven and a half days. So if you look from an 

efficiency standpoint, we’re saving about 22 and a half days per voucher 

that we process. And, if you multiply it out, around 12 million vouchers 

have now been processed in this tool. That’s about 280 million days that 

we’ve gotten payments into the pockets of our members earlier than they 

would have without DTS. And I think that’s an important element of efficiency that we’ve achieved for our folks in DOD. 

From an effectiveness standpoint, again, we could talk anecdotally about 

a variety of things, including the codification and enforcement of all these 

business rules that are embedded in this complexity of travel—and that’s 

a big advantage for us as well. But, again, I wanted to find metrics and 

numbers. And, from an effectiveness standpoint, listening to our users I 

thought was one of the best ways of evaluating whether or not this tool is 

effective. And, for the second year in a row, we’ve done a—a survey of our 

DTS travelers. And we’ve—it’s a scientific survey with a random sample of 
47 

travelers. And we’ve asked them the question about effectiveness of the tool 

and how easy it is to use that tool. 

And so some of their responses to us in terms of how difficult or very difficult it is to make an airline reservation, for example, in DTS—15 percent 

of our users feel DTS is difficult or very difficult to make an airline reservation—15 percent. For a car rental reservation, 6 percent find it difficult or 

very difficult to use DTS for that function. For travel authorization, it’s 18 

percent. For completing a voucher, it’s 16 percent. So from—from an effectiveness standpoint, what our members are telling us is that 80 to 85 percent of our folks do not find DTS to be difficult or very difficult. And these 

are pretty much the four main things that we use DTS for. 

Now, DTS is not an intuitive tool. Most software are not intuitive tools. 

But the department, through some training, through usage, has become 

proficient in using this tool, far different from what it was several years 

ago. And, again, that’s what our users are telling us from an effectiveness 

standpoint. 

The third element is cost. And I think, as Congressmen Wittman pointed 

out, we spent a lot of money and a lot of years on this tool. In the first 

10 years of this program, out of the 15 that you cited, we—the department 

had spent about $450 million. And we had processed fewer than 1 million 

vouchers. Now, I picked that timeframe for a couple of reasons. Number one 

is when Ms. Mitchell’s organization, the DTMO, was stood up. It’s also 

around the time that the DTA was stood up. And it was also around the 

time that some of these oversight hearings, both in the House and the Senate began, and there was a lot more focus on DTS and the travel enterprise. 

So over the four years, if we look at cost, we’ve—we’ve processed 11.5 million vouchers. And, from a bottom-line standpoint, over those four years, 

we’ve saved the Department of Defense around $200 million on these 

voucher processing costs, about $200 million in actual savings. In fact, we 

project we’ll save another $80 million or so for the department for voucher 

processing costs in F.Y. ’10 alone as we continue to process more. 

So, from a cost standpoint, an efficiency standpoint and an effectiveness 

standpoint, using some of these real metrics, we think we have examples, 

especially in these last few years, where we have been able to make a difference and make a lot of progress. 

Now, I know there’s other numbers that we might want to talk about 

during the hearing. I’m happy to answer questions about number of trip 

types covered, number of legacy systems we’ve talked about before, usage 

percentages. We can get into those. But I want to just finish with one other 

number, and it ties into this topic of simplification. The number is 100— 

100 ties to complexity, because, as we benchmark Defense travel rules and 

the complexity that we have to live by in terms of this system and in usage, 

we’re not twice as complex as industry. We’re not five times or 10 times 

or even 50 times as complex as industry. We’re about 100 times as complex 

as industry is for travel management rules. And that makes it very difficult 

to modernize and create that intuitive, user-friendly tool. 

Every rule may have some benefit, but every rule has a cost. There’s a 

cost to design it, to build it, to enforce it, to educate it. And every one of 

these little rules adds up and adds up and adds up and makes it very difficult for us to create that user-friendly, easy-to-use tool for the Defense 

traveler. So, over the last four years, we think we have made a lot of 

progress, efficiency, effectiveness, cost. We’ve become proficient at using the 

tool. But, to take it to that next level, we believe simplification is necessary 

before we continue to add more functionality. 

Dr. SNYDER. Provide a copy of the survey results you cited on ease of use for the 

Defense Travel System. 

Mr. FISHER. The circled percentages reflect the survey results cited in the testimony. A white paper detailing the survey process is also attached. 

[The information referred to is retained in the subcommittee files and can be 

viewed upon request.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Provide the rest of the data for the statement ‘‘Over the first 10 

years, DOD spent $450M to process 1M vouchers, and over the last 4 years DOD 

processed 11.5M vouchers and saved $200M.’’Assuming the $450M was an initial investment that retained some utility over the last four years, in order to compare 

appropriately, how much was spent over the last four years? 

Mr. FISHER. For the period of FY06 to the end of the first quarter FY10, the Department invested $206M on the DTS program. As stated in testimony, during this 
48 

period, DTS processed just over 11.5 million vouchers, generating a net savings to 

the Department during this period of just under $200M. 

Dr. SNYDER. Please provide the reason for the breakdowns in the following uses 

of DTS: 

a. Field-grade officer recently showed up at the airport on a Sunday for a TDY 

and was told there was no reservation or ticket for him. Even though the staff had 

signed and approved the authorization in DTS, Carlson Travel said that DTS did 

show that it was approved but Carlson Travel did not ticket the flight. A glitch in 

the DTS system did not release it to the Carlson in time. 

b. When DTS is scheduled for downtime for system maintenance after duty hours, 

it always has outages and irregularities during the duty hours before the system 

is scheduled to go down. When a TDY authorization is signed in DTS, it will go to 

the CTO submit status and hang in that status until a call is made to DTS to have 

them release it back to our organization for approval. There have been some occasions where a call had to be made 2—3 times before it is released back to our organization’s queue for approval. 

c. Approving Official has to approve authorization (TDY orders) twice: 1) after initial booking; and 2) once flights have been ticketed. 

Mr. FISHER. a. Without specific information on the trip, it is not possible to determine the cause of the incident. Processes outside DTS at the ticketing activity, like 

Carlson, can be the source of such a glitch. DTS is designed to provide positive feedback to travelers upon ticketing, normally three business days prior to travel. This 

allows travelers to engage local support services if positive ticketing acknowledgement is not received. Additional details and information about the trip would allow 

us to conduct a more thorough assessment. 

b. Without specific information on the irregularities it is not possible to validate 

or provide an explanation about the statements; however, the DTS Program Management Office (PMO) has no current or historical data documenting any operational outages and/or irregularities before a scheduled maintenance downtime. 

While the PMO understands that a TDY authorization may hang up in a CTO submit status, it would not be a result of system maintenance, but rather due to system 

operations or user/approver generated issues. The PMO continuously and closely 

monitors any occurrences and when found addresses them immediately. 

c. DTS does not require approval by an Authorizing Official (AO) twice. However, 

if there is a change made by the traveler above predetermined thresholds or funds 

are not obligated, DTS will route the changed authorization back to an AO for approval. Prior to the DTS interface with reserve order writing systems, which allows 

approvals to be completed in the order writing system in lieu of DTS, there were 

two approvals required, one in the order writing system and one in DTS. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Mr. WITTMAN. Provide your three-phase plan for DTS simplification, with at least 

notional timelines, for your current effort, even if it does not include the 8–10 outyears’ effort. This should include: a. Simplification of DOD and service business 

rules, policies, and regulations; b. Simplification of laws—provide legislative proposals; c. Modeling, testing, and implementation of simplification; d. Improvements 

to the Defense Travel System based on these changes. If you have them available, 

please provide component timelines for items a–d. 

Mr. FISHER. The Business Transformation Agency (BTA) defers to the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Defense Travel Management Office on this question. 

Mr. WITTMAN. What are the major barriers within the Department to simplification of DOD and service travel rules and regulations? 

Mr. FISHER. The Business Transformation Agency (BTA) defers to the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Defense Travel Management Office on this question. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. DAVIS 

Mrs. DAVIS. What are the three most significant DOD or service rules or regulations that need to be changed to simplify DOD travel? 

Mr. FISHER. The Business Transformation Agency (BTA) defers to the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Defense Travel Management Office on this question. 
49 

Mrs. DAVIS. What are the three most significant laws that need to be changed to 

simplify DOD travel? a. Provide an example of ‘‘prescriptive legislation’’ and how it 

should be rewritten to be ‘‘succinct’’ and provide ‘‘flexible authority to empower the 

Department to develop comprehensive business rules that will cover all types of 

travel.’’ 

Mr. FISHER. The Business Transformation Agency (BTA) defers to the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Defense Travel Management Office on this question. 

Æ