Methodology

How To Use the Pentagon Travel Database

Want to know who pays for the travel of a high ranking admiral or maybe a certain doctor at a nearby base? Interested in learning more about the relationship between a pharmaceutical company and the Department of Defense’s pharmacy system? The Center’s online Pentagon Travel database provides information on trips taken by DOD personnel paid for by outside sources. Users can search by destination, date, sponsor, sponsor nationality, and cost of trip. Searching by base name or agency is also possible. Searches by country will not include the U.S., which can be searched in destination and state boxes. The database does not allow a search by traveler name due to complications concerning misspellings, similar names, such as multiple John Smiths, and name variations, such Johnathan Smith and John Smith.

Department of Defense Travel Disclosure Records

The analysis for this project was conducted using 25,000 Department of Defense travel disclosure records obtained from the federal Office of Government Ethics (OGE). There were about 30 variations of the travel disclosure forms, but those that were filled out correctly included the name of the traveler, the DOD department the traveler worked in or reported to, the traveler’s rank and often title, the destination (city, state, country), travel dates, the cost, the name of the organization that paid for the travel, and the event the traveler attended. Some of the records also broke down the cost of the trip by transportation, meals, hotel, and miscellaneous expenditures.

The basic rules governing acceptance of travel money from non-federal sources by DOD personnel are the same that apply to all federal employees. Congress first required federal employees to report travel paid for by non-federal sources in 1989 when it passed the Ethics Reform Act. The act requires executive agency directors to submit reports to the OGE on all trips that cost more than $250. OGE is required to make those records available for public consumption. In 2003, following a U.S. Court of Appeals decision the year before, the rules surrounding outside-sponsored travel were changed to allow federal employees to accept compensation for unofficial speeches or writing related to official duties.

DOD does maintain some of its own rules regarding employee travel. According to official memoranda from the DOD Standards of Conduct Office of the General Counsel, defense personnel can attend meetings, conferences, seminars, symposia, training courses, or receipt of an award or honorary degree, and other similar functions in their official capacities. The travel must be in the interest of the government and not paid for by a source that presents a potential conflict of interest. DOD employees cannot take trips that are directly related to their essential duties, such as audits or inspections. DOD employees also cannot accept trips for which the primary purpose is marketing the non-federal source’s products or services.

Some travel reports are missing critical information, such as the traveler’s name and the sponsor’s name, but since 2005 most submissions now include that information.

How We Did It

The records obtained include all reported trips that took place from 1998 through 2007. The original data obtained from the OGE were 25,000 paper records. The Center and its partner, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, hired a data entry firm to input the records into an Excel spreadsheet. The data entry firm used a double blind entry method to quickly catch data entry errors.

A team of Center reporters then spent months preparing the data for analysis, by standardizing source names, coding the data by industry and country, and removing duplicate travel records. After preparation, about 22,000 records remained. Center employees assigned industry codes to individual sources based on the economic interests of the organization. For example, companies that conduct business related to health care were coded as belonging to the health care industry. Within this category, companies identified as having an economic interest in the pharmaceutical and health products industries were labeled as either pharmaceutical companies or medical device manufacturers.

Center and Medill reporters examined the data looking for trends among types of travelers, sponsors of travel, and types of industry.

While the Center does name some of the top travelers, it is not possible to rank with certainty the top 10 or 15 travelers, as name variations or misspellings may affect the number of trips or total costs for some individuals. To ensure the capture of all trips taken by a specific traveler, the Center checked common name variations, such as William and Bill. Center staff also matched the original travel disclosure documents to the database for all individuals named in the project.

Center reporters interviewed current and former DOD employees, watchdog organizations, Congressional staff, health care industry employees, and a former pharmaceutical drug company sales representative. These specialists helped interpret the data analysis and present a broader picture of the effects of allowing DOD employees to accept travel paid for by outside sources.