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Garlan Student Travel Preparation and Reimbursement
Dear Students:
First, I want to say that I believe conferences and workshops are an
extremely valuable part of your Carnegie Mellon graduate experience. As
a general rule, I'd like to be able to send each of you to at least one major
conference a year (such as ICSE, SEAMS, or FSE). Also, the exposure and experience that you get in giving talks and interacting
with other people in the community is a central part of what you should be
doing here. David Notkin once published a
copy of a letter that he routinely sends to his students, click here, it
coincides exactly with the way I look at things.
Second, to make the experience a particularly good one, I do ask that you do
two things. Most importantly, I'd like to have a written trip report
from each of you for each external event that you attend. The purpose
of the report is to help you focus on what you are getting out of the
experience, to help me and the ABLE group know what kinds of insights and
experiences you had. The trip report doesn't have to be long, but it
should show that you've done some thinking to distill what was really
important, and what kinds of follow-on activities (if any) might/should
result. A page or two is plenty. The second thing is that I'd
like you to be prepared to give a short oral summary at the next research
group meeting.
Third, there are a number of administrative things. Margaret can help
with some aspects of the trip, but I'd like to ask you to do as much as you
can on your own. Margaret will typically file the final expense report.
Thank you,
David Garlan
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Travel Preparation
The CMU Business and Travel Expense Policy Summary can be found at http://www.cmu.edu/finance/controller/bte/files/BTE_policy_sum.pdf.
Things to be done on
your own
- Register for the conference or workshop. You'll need your own credit card to do
this and Carnegie Mellon will reimburse you. If you are unable to, please contact
Margaret.
- Either arrange your trip on your own (e.g., via the
web) or work with Barbara Jones, Travel Advisor, with Direct Travel
(phone: 412.722.1462; email: bjones@dt.com) to book transportation
(tickets, rental car, etc.). A traveler
profile is required and can be found at https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/c5zDdp8Fv97d9
. If you book your travel using
Direct Travel, your transportation tickets can be direct billed to the
university. You should do the
detailed work of planning travel times, getting instructions on how to
find the conference, etc.
Note: Federal law (the Fly
America Act) states that Federal awardees and others performing Federal
Government air travel between the United States and a foreign country or
between foreign countries should use United States flag carriers to the
maximum extent. The class of air
travel chosen is expected to be the lowest-priced coach airfare ticket
available using a commercial discount or coach class or standard
accommodations.
- Hotel Reservations can be made on your behalf by Direct
Travel. Your credit card
information must be on file with Direct Travel. If possible, arrange to share a room
with another student to save on hotel expenses. This doesn't necessarily have to be
with someone in our research group or even Carnegie Mellon.
- Submit any conference materials - such as papers,
registration forms, etc.
Travel Reimbursement
If
you purchase airline tickets before your dates of travel, submit the tickets
for reimbursement as soon as purchased.
Your reimbursement will always require dates of travel, business
purpose of travel and name/website for conference or workshop, and talk
title, if applicable.
Upon
your return, you should provide a set of required receipts that include your
flight itinerary, itemized hotel bill, itemized rental car receipt, if
applicable, and credit card statement(s) indicating all payments made $75.00
USD or higher along with an itemized listing of expenses and a short
explanation of each. Meal per-diem,
based on location, will be used.
Please see https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates. In general, if a conference or workshop
provides a meal, say lunch as part of the registration package, then it is
not reasonable to ask for reimbursement of that meal. If you want to go out for a fancy meal,
that's fine, but usually you'll have to cover the extra cost or request approval
for the additional funds from David. Submit
all original receipts along with itemized listing and brief explanation of
each to Margaret.
·
If alcohol is included, it must be identified
and reported; you will not be reimbursed for any alcoholic beverages.
·
In order to avoid having your reimbursement be
taxable to the individual, expenses should be submitted within 30 days of
completing the travel or incurring the expense.
As
a non-profit organization, the university has been granted exemption from
state sales tax on goods and services in certain states. In order for the purchase to be exempt from
sales tax, the business purchase must be made directly with university
funds. Sales tax incurred with
personal funds for university business travel and for business meals will not
be reimbursed.
In order to avoid having your reimbursement be taxable to the
individual, expenses should be submitted within 30 days of completing the
travel or incurring the expense.
As a non-profit organization, the university has been granted
exemption from state sales tax on goods and services in certain states.
In order for the purchase to be exempt from sales tax, the business purchase
must be made directly with university funds. Sales tax incurred with personal
funds for university business travel and for business meals will be
reimbursed.
Travel Advance
In
general, we prefer you pay with your credit card or cash and request
reimbursement. If this is not possible, we can sometimes request a travel
advance. Please see Margaret for more information.
Carnegie Mellon Business & Travel Expense Policy
If you have any questions or require additional information,
the Carnegie Mellon Business and Travel Expense Policy can be review at
http://www.cmu.edu/finance/controller/bte/files/bte_policy.pdf.
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