Fire-Safe Accommodations: Information on Federal Agencies' Compliance
With P.L. 101-391 Lodging Requirements (Letter Report, 07/29/96,
GAO/GGD-96-135).

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed federal agencies'
compliance with the Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act of 1990's
requirement that civilian federal employees on official travel stay in
approved accommodations 65 percent of the time.

GAO found that: (1) 76 federal departments and agencies responded to GAO
information requests regarding their compliance with the act's approved
accommodations percentage requirement for fiscal year (FY) 1995; (2) 56
agencies reported compliance rates that ranged from 65 to 100 percent
and 6 agencies reported compliance rates that ranged from 46 to 64
percent; (3) the 6 noncomplying agencies cited a variety of reasons for
not meeting the accommodations requirement, such as the unavailability
of approved accommodations, recordkeeping problems, and employees' lack
of awareness of the requirement; (4) 14 agencies said that they did not
collect the data needed to determine their approved accommodations
percentage for FY 1995; (5) these agencies cited inadequate financial
management and accounting systems, widely dispersed employees and
offices, the lack of a current list of approved accommodations or
resources to gather the needed data, exemption from the requirement, and
agency termination as reasons for not collecting the data; (6) 7 of the
14 agencies are establishing procedures to collect data for future
compliance reports; (7) the agencies used various methods to determine
their approved accommodations percentage rates; and (8) it could not
report on the compliance of the 20 agencies that did not respond to the
information request.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  GGD-96-135
     TITLE:  Fire-Safe Accommodations: Information on Federal Agencies' 
             Compliance With P.L. 101-391 Lodging Requirements
      DATE:  07/29/96
   SUBJECT:  Surveys
             Compliance
             Hotels and motels
             Safety regulation
             Travel
             Travel agents
             Federal agency accounting systems
             Information dissemination operations
             Data collection operations
             Records retention

             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Report to Congressional Committees

July 1996

FIRE-SAFE ACCOMMODATIONS -
INFORMATION ON FEDERAL AGENCIES'
COMPLIANCE WITH P.L.  101-391
LODGING REQUIREMENTS

GAO/GGD-96-135

Fire-Safe Accommodations

(240196)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Agency
  GSA - General Service Administration
  META - Maria Elena Torano and Associates
  NFPA - National Fire Protection Association
  USFA - U.S.  Fire Administration

Letter
=============================================================== LETTER


B-271104

July 29, 1996

The Honorable Larry Pressler
Chairman
The Honorable Ernest F.  Hollings
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Commerce, Science,
 and Transportation
United States Senate

The Honorable Robert S.  Walker
Chairman
The Honorable George E.  Brown
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Science
House of Representatives

Because more than 400 Americans had lost their lives in multistory
hotel fires over the preceding 5 years, in September 1990, Congress
enacted the Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act of 1990 (Public Law
101-391).  The purpose of the act is "to save lives and protect
property by promoting fire and life safety in hotels, motels, and all
places of public accommodation affecting commerce." The act amends
the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 by requiring the
Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to compile and
distribute a national master list of places of public accommodation
that meet certain fire safety guidelines. 

In addition, beginning with fiscal year 1995, the act requires
federal agencies to ensure that their civilian employees on official
travel spend a specified percentage of nights in these "approved"
accommodations.  Also, the act requires us to report annually to
Congress on agencies' compliance with the act's approved
accommodations percentage requirement.  This report fulfills our
reporting requirement for fiscal year 1995. 


   RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1

Seventy-six of 96 federal departments and agencies responded to our
requests for information regarding their compliance with the act's
approved accommodations percentage requirement for fiscal year 1995. 
Fifty-six agencies reported meeting or exceeding the 65- percent
requirement.  Six agencies reported that they did not meet the 65
percent requirement.  Fourteen agencies reported that for a variety
of reasons, they did not gather the data needed to determine and
report their approved accommodations percentage for fiscal year 1995. 
Twenty agencies did not respond to our requests for information; and
thus, we are unable to report their approved accommodations
percentage for fiscal year 1995.  (See app.  I for a listing of each
responding agency and the corresponding reported approved
accommodations percentage for fiscal year 1995; see app.  II for a
listing of agencies that did not respond to our requests for this
information.)


   BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2

The act requires that not later than 2 years after its enactment, and
periodically thereafter, each state\1 must submit to the Director of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) a list of places of
public accommodation in that state that meet the act's fire safety
guidelines.  The guidelines require that hard-wired, single-station,
smoke detectors be installed in accordance with National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA) standards in each guest room, and an
automatic sprinkler system must be installed in accordance with NFPA
standards in each place of public accommodation that is more than
three stories in height. 

FEMA is to compile and publish a national master list of approved
hotels and motels in the Federal Register, distribute the list to
each federal agency, and take steps to make the agencies' employees
aware of the list.  The FEMA Director has delegated this
responsibility to the U.S.  Fire Administration (USFA).  Through a
contractor, Maria Elena Torano and Associates (META), Inc., USFA
continuously updates the master list on the basis of information
provided by the states.  According to the USFA project manager, until
late 1994 USFA published the master list annually and published the
update monthly in the Federal Register.  Due to budgetary
constraints, USFA last published a complete list in November 1994 and
the last update in August 1995.  However, according to the USFA
project manager, a complete approved accommodations listing will be
published in the Federal Register by July 1996.  In addition, the
project manager said that on May 8, 1996, USFA opened a web-site on
the Internet where the list of approved accommodations is available
to federal agencies and their employees. 

Also, according to the USFA project manager, META provides the list
to Patriot Travel Systems, a private travel service under contract to
the General Services Administration (GSA), and to the publishers of
the Official Airline Travel Guide.  He said that both of these
organizations make the information available to subscribers to their
services. 

The act requires that, starting with fiscal year 1995, each federal
agency must ensure that its employees spend at least 65 percent of
the nights they are on official travel in approved accommodations. 
The act increases the required approved accommodations percentage to
at least 75 percent in fiscal year 1996 and to at least 90 percent in
fiscal year 1997 and all subsequent years.  The act does not,
however, prescribe any penalties for noncompliance by either federal
agencies or their employees. 

In September 1994, GSA notified federal agencies that they are
required to maintain records of compliance with the approved
accommodations percentages specified by the act and make the
information available, upon request, to us for audit.  Subsequently,
in June of 1995 GSA notified federal agencies that they may use
statistical sampling of their employees' overnight travel
accommodations to determine if agency compliance with the act is
permitted. 


--------------------
\1 The act defines "state" to mean any state, the District of
Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands,
the Virgin Islands, the Canal Zone, Guam, American Samoa, or any
other territory or possession of the United States. 


   OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
   METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3

In accordance with the act, our objectives were to obtain and report
information from federal agencies on their compliance with the act's
approved accommodations percentage requirement for fiscal year 1995. 
With GSA's help, we sent inquiries to 96 federal departments and
agencies in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of
government.  Ninety of these departments and agencies are represented
on the Interagency Travel Management Committee, a GSA conduit for
disseminating federal travel policies and procedures.  In addition,
we judgmentally selected and sent inquiries to six independent
establishments and government corporations\2 that are not represented
on the Interagency Travel Management Committee. 

We requested that each agency provide us with (1) its approved
accommodations percentage for fiscal year 1995 and (2) the supporting
assumptions, legal opinions, statistical analysis parameters, and
actual computations used to determine the approved accommodations
percentage.  In addition, we asked agencies that did not meet the
act's approved accommodations percentage requirement for fiscal year
1995 to provide their rationale for not doing so. 

In early February 1996, we asked agencies to respond to our request
for this information by March 15, 1996.  We followed up our written
requests with telephone calls to nonresponding agencies, and, at the
request of several agencies, we extended the deadline to March 29,
1996, and again to April 30, 1996.  In addition, we provided a number
of agencies, at their request, with copies of the act's compliance
and reporting requirements.  Because of the time and cost required,
we did not verify any information provided by responding agencies. 
We performed our work in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards between January and May 1996. 


--------------------
\2 These were the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission,
National Capital Planning Commission, Office of Special Counsel,
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, Thrift Depositor
Protection Oversight Board, and the U.S.  Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency. 


   INFORMATION ABOUT AGENCIES'
   COMPLIANCE, RATIONALE, AND
   METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4

Fifty-six, or 74 percent, of the 76 federal departments and agencies
that responded to our requests for information reported that they met
or exceeded the 65-percent requirement for approved accommodations in
fiscal year 1995.  These 56 agencies reported compliance rates that
ranged from 65 percent to 100 percent. 

Six agencies reported that for a variety of reasons, they did not
meet the approved accommodations requirement of 65 percent in fiscal
year 1995.  These agencies reported approved accommodations rates
that ranged from 46 percent to 64 percent.  Reasons cited by these
agencies for not meeting the required rate of 65 percent included: 
approved accommodations were not always available to the agency's
traveling employees; the problem was probably one of recordkeeping,
not one of compliance; and the agency's employees were not aware of
the act's lodging requirements. 

Fourteen agencies reported that they did not gather the data needed
to determine their approved accommodations percentage for fiscal year
1995.  These agencies provided a variety of reasons for not gathering
the data. 

  -- The agency's financial management and accounting systems were
     not compatible and could not compile this information, and it
     would take considerable effort and resources to modify them to
     do so. 

  -- The agency's employees are widely dispersed and travel out of
     regional, subregional, and county offices, making data gathering
     to determine the approved accommodations percentage a monumental
     task. 

  -- The agency was not aware of the requirement to determine and
     report the approved accommodations percentage. 

  -- The agency did not know where to find a listing of approved
     hotels and motels since GSA ceased publishing the Federal
     Travelers Directory in 1995. 

  -- The agency lacked sufficient resources to gather the data needed
     to determine its approved accommodations percentage due to
     downsizing and reorganizations. 

  -- The agency is a government-controlled corporation, and therefore
     is exempt from the approved accommodations requirements of the
     act.\3

  -- The agency is in its final year of existence; and therefore, the
     data needed to determine its approved accommodations percentage
     for fiscal year 1995 were not gathered. 

Seven of these 14 agencies reported that although they did not
determine their approved accommodations percentage for fiscal year
1995, they were establishing procedures or a data collection
methodology to ensure that they can report compliance with the act in
the future.  They reportedly plan to (1) modify their information
management systems so the needed data can be collected and compiled,
(2) require their employees to certify on travel vouchers that their
lodging accommodations were approved, or (3) require their travel
management centers to reserve lodging for their employees only in
accommodations that meet the act's fire safety guidelines. 

Agencies reported using several different methodologies for
determining their approved accommodations percentage rates for fiscal
year 1995.  Forty-two agencies reported that they determined their
approved accommodations percentage by reviewing a sample of their
employees' lodging accommodations for the year and projecting the
rate obtained from the sample to determine the overall approved
accommodations percentage rate.  On the other hand, nine agencies
reported that they reviewed their entire employee travel voucher file
to determine the agency's compliance rate.  Six agencies reported
that they sampled the lodging accommodations of some of its employees
and reviewed 100 percent of other employees' lodging accommodations
to project the agency's overall compliance rate.  Five agencies
reported that their approved accommodations percentage rate was 100
percent, which was determined on the basis that the agencies' travel
management centers were instructed to reserve lodging accommodations
for agency employees only at approved hotels and motels. 

A draft of this report was provided to USFA for agency comment and we
discussed the draft with the USFA project manager responsible for
carrying out USFA's role under the act.  We incorporated his comments
and clarifications where appropriate. 


--------------------
\3 Under the applicable definition of agency in 5 U.S.C.  5701,
government-controlled corporation is not included. 


---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.1

We are sending copies of this report to the Administrator of GSA, the
Director of FEMA, and the Director of USFA.  We will make copies
available to others upon request. 

Major contributors to this report were Sherrill H.  Johnson,
Assistant Director; and Patricia Sari-Spear, Evaluator-in-Charge,
Government Business Operations Issues.  Please contact me on
202-512-8387 if you or your staff have any questions. 

J.  William Gadsby
Director, Government Business
 Operations Issues


REPORTING FEDERAL AGENCIES AND
REPORTED APPROVED ACCOMMODATIONS
PERCENTAGE RATES FOR FISCAL YEAR
1995
=========================================================== Appendix I

                                                         Accomodations
Reporting federal agencies                                 percentages
--------------------------------------------------  ------------------
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations   Data not gathered
Appalachian Regional Commission                                  100.0
Bonneville Power Administration                                   97.9
Central Intelligence Agency                                       81.0
Commodity Futures Trading Commission                              79.0
Consumer Product Safety Commission                                99.5
Corporation for National Service                                  85.0
Department of Agriculture                                         65.0
Department of Commerce                                        Data not
                                                            gathered\a
Department of Energy                                              78.7
Department of Housing and Urban Development                       68.6
Department of the Interior                                        66.0
Department of Justice
Bureau of Prisons                                                 65.0
Drug Enforcement Administration                                   65.2
Federal Bureau of Investigation                                   95.3
Federal Prison Industries                                         53.7
Immigration and Naturalization Service                            75.5
Offices, Boards, and Divisions                                    80.3
U.S. Marshals Service                                             88.9
Department of Labor                                               84.9
Department of Transportation                                      77.0
Department of the Treasury
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms                           65.4
Bureau of Engraving and Printing                                  68.7
Bureau of the Public Debt                                         65.0
Comptroller of the Currency                                       61.3
Department Offices                                                79.0
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center                          100.0
Financial Management Service                                      95.0
Internal Revenue Service                                          80.0
Secret Service                                                    77.2
U.S. Customs Service                                              64.0
U.S. Mint                                                         90.0
Department of Veterans Affairs                       Data not gathered
Environmental Protection Agency                                   85.0
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission              Data not gathered
Executive Office of the President                                 81.0
Export-Import Bank                                                74.7
Federal Communications Commission                             Data not
                                                            gathered\a
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation                Data not gathered
Federal Election Commission                                       84.0
Federal Emergency Management Agency                               65.8
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission                              55.0
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service                        83.0
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission              Data not
                                                            gathered\a
Federal Trade Commission                                          94.0
General Accounting Office                                         76.7
General Services Adminstration                                    75.8
Library of Congress                                               74.0
Merit Systems Protection Board                                 100.0\b
National Aeronautics & Space Administration                       80.0
National Archives                                                 76.0
National Capital Planning Commission                             100.0
National Credit Union Administration                              65.1
National Endowment for the Humanities                             71.0
National Gallery of Art                                       Data not
                                                            gathered\a
National Institute of Standards and Technology                 100.0\b
National Labor Relations Board                                    88.0
National Mediation Board                                      Data not
                                                            gathered\a
National Science Foundation                                    100.0\b
National Transportation Safety Board                          Data not
                                                            gathered\a
Nuclear Regulatory Commission                                     90.0
Office of Special Counsel                                      100.0\b
Office of Thrift Supervision                                  Data not
                                                            gathered\a
Overseas Private Investment Corporation                          100.0
Panama Canal Commission                              Data not gathered
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation                              87.9
Railroad Retirement Board                                         73.0
Securities and Exchange Commission                             100.0\b
Selective Service System                                          95.0
Small Business Administration                        Data not gathered
Smithsonian Institution                                           46.0
Social Security Administration                                   100.0
Tennessee Valley Authority                                        70.0
U.S. Information Agency                              Data not gathered
U.S. International Trade Commission                               59.0
U.S. Tax Court                                                    66.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
\a The agency reported that it is in the process of establishing a
data collection method to determine future approved accommodations
percentages. 

\b The agency based its reported compliance percentage on the use of
travel management centers that are required to reserve employees'
lodging only at approved accommodations. 


FEDERAL AGENCIES THAT DID NOT
RESPOND TO OUR REQUESTS FOR
APPROVED ACCOMMODATIONS PERCENTAGE
RATES FOR FISCAL YEAR 1995
========================================================== Appendix II


   AGENCY
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1

Commission on Civil Rights
Department of Defense
Department of Education
Department of Health and Human Services
Farm Credit Administration
Federal Housing Finance Board
Federal Labor Relations Authority
Federal Maritime Commission
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board
Inter-American Foundation
Interstate Commerce Commission
National Endowment for the Arts
Occupational Safety and Health Agency
Office of Government Ethics
Office of Personnel Management
Peace Corps
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation
Thrift Depositor Protection Oversight Board
U.S.  Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
U.S.  Postal Service


*** End of document. ***