GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 1997

S	1 

SENATE BILL 832

Short Title:  Modify State Employee Reimbursement.	(Public)

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Sponsors: Senators Kerr; and Hoyle.

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Referred to:  Appropriations.

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April 14, 1997

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO REIMBURSE STATE EMPLOYEES FOR TAXES PAID ON LODGING WHILE ON OFFICIAL STATE BUSINESS.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1.  G.S. 138-6(a) reads as rewritten:  
"(a)	Travel on official business by the officers and employees of State departments, institutions, and agencies that operate from funds deposited with the State Treasurer shall be reimbursed at the following rates:
(1)	For transportation by privately owned automobile, the business standard mileage rate set by the Internal Revenue Service per mile of travel and the actual cost of tolls paid.  Any other law that sets a mileage rate by referring to the rate set herein, instead establishes a rate of twenty-five cents (25¢) per mile.  No reimbursement shall be made for the use of a personal car in commuting from an employee's home to the employee's duty station in connection with regularly scheduled work hours.  Any designation of an employee's home as the employee's duty station by a department head shall require prior approval by the Office of State Budget and Management on an annual basis.
(2)	For bus, railroad, Pullman, or other conveyance, actual fare.
(3)	For expenses incurred for subsistence, payment of seventy-one dollars ($71.00) per day plus applicable lodging taxes when traveling in-state or  eighty-three dollars ($83.00) per day plus applicable lodging taxes when traveling out-of-state.  For the purpose of this section, the term 'applicable lodging taxes' means sales taxes and room occupancy taxes paid on reimbursable lodging and documented by a receipt from a commercial establishment.  When travel involves less than a full day (24-hour period), a reasonable prorated amount shall be paid in accordance with regulations and criteria which shall be promulgated and published by the Director of the Budget.  Reimbursement to State employees for lunches eaten while on official business may be made only in the following circumstances:
a.	When an overnight stay is required reimbursement is allowed while an employee is in travel status;
b.	When the cost of the lunch is included as part of a registration fee for a formal congress, conference, assembly, or convocation, by whatever name called.  The assembly must involve the active participation of persons other than the employees of a single State department, institution, or agency and must be necessary for conducting official State business; or
c.	When the State employee is a member of a State board, commission, committee, or council that operates from funds deposited with the State Treasurer, and the lunch is preplanned as part of the meeting for the entire board, commission, committee, or council.
(4)	For convention registration fees not to exceed thirty dollars ($30.00) per convention."
Section 2.  This act becomes effective July 1, 1997.